Undermining the reasonable suspicion standard.

The Kansas Court of Appeals decided State v. Cook on Friday and published their opinion. In so doing the court affirmed the District Court's finding that a law enforcement officers decision to seize an individual because he had been seen exiting his vehicle and climbing into another vehicle for a brief period of time while in a high crime area was permissible.

While the opinion appears to continue the hollowing out of our fourth amendment protections, the dissent by Judge Greene is a welcome ray of hope.

The majority's decision would seem to allow almost any action taken by one who happens to live in a high crime area to support a detention of the individual, so long as the action causes suspicion to arise in the mind of a trained law enforcement officer. This seems to replace the "reasonably objective" standard of the past with a standard based upon the subjective opinion of the officer.

In Judge Greene's dissent he suggests that the Majority opinion comes perilously close to a position which would allow the detention of a citizen based upon a hunch so long as the hunch is formed by a law enforcement officer.

The Court's Opinion can be found at: http://www.kscourts.org/kscases/ctapp/2007/20070629/93825.htm