2020 Lesson 15: Legal Update

This is an online legal studies course. The lesson addresses recent court decisions providing guidance to law enforcement officers regarding: 

• What circumstances turn a consensual encounter with a motorist into an investigative detention; 

• What circumstances allow an officer to search a vehicle for weapons; 

• What are the limits of a Terry-style vehicle search for weapons; 

• When the public safety exception to the Miranda rule allows officers to interrogate a suspect without first providing a Miranda warning; 

• What an officer must to do make an arrest of a driver before asking him/her to take a blood alcohol content test; and 

• Whether, to make an arrest, an officer must handcuff an injured driver whose mobility is limited by medical devices.