Once in a while, someone requests a post on a particular topic. Today's post is in response to such a request -- which, as I understand it, is not based on any particular pending case. It involves the following scenario: an officer who works in a college town sees a young person walking out of a grocery store with a case of beer. What can the officer do to investigate what she suspects is an underage purchase of alcohol? If the buyer looks young enough, the officer can simply arrest him for a violation of G.S. 18B-302, which makes it illegal for a person under 21 to purchase beer. In the child pornography context, among others, courts have recognized that in appropriate circumstances, probable cause regarding a person's age can be based on the person's appearance. So if our hypothetical beer buyer is a Doogie Howser type, plainly far under 21, the officer can arrest him and then undertake whatever additional investigation is necessary to determine his age. Presumably, though, it isn't very often that an officer sees a ten-year-old leaving Harris Teeter with a case of Coors Light. More often, the beer buyer will be college-aged, and although the officer may suspect that he's under 21, the officer won't have probable cause based on the buyer's appearance alone. More likely, the officer will have reasonable suspicion based on the buyer's appearance, so one option is for the officer to conduct a Terry stop to investigate the possible underage purchase. Sometimes a [...]
Faculty Coordinators
