ABSTRACT
In Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 US 106, the US Supreme Court held that a police officer who lawfully stops the driver of an automobile for a traffic violation may constitutionally order the driver to step out of the automobile. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that ordering Mimms from the car absent any suspicion of criminal activity or physical threat to the police officer was an unconstitutional "seizure" of Mimms in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. The US Supreme Court reversed. The Court accepted as "legitimate and weighty" Pennsylvania's assertion that because a driver's body is partially hidden by a car, an automobile driver may more easily make "unobserved movements" to assault an officer. The constitutionality of the officer's "pat-down" search of Mimms was resolved through a straightforward application of the rules of Terry v. Ohio, 392 US 1, and its progeny.
