On October 31, 1963, Detective Martin McFadden, age 62 at the time of the incident, took action that would lead to one of the landmark cases in criminal procedure: Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968). At the time of the incident, Detective McFadden was a 39 year veteran of the Cleveland Police Department. His career ultimately would span 45 years with 41 of those years as a Detective, and he was noted for his ability to capture thieves and pickpockets especially “Louie the Dip” Finkelstein.

On the day in question, Detective McFadden would spot two individuals (later joined by a third) in front of a store “casing a job, a stick-up”. He had watched the individuals repeatedly walking to a store window, looking inside, and then walking away and conferring. He eventually confronted the individuals and ultimately arrested two of them on weapon’s charges after “frisking” them and finding their pistols.

The individuals were convicted and the case ultimately wound up before the Supreme Court where it was upheld. In short, the Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment reasonableness standard is not violated when a peace officer has a reasonable articulable suspicion (RAS) to conduct an investigatory stop. Two important notes from the ruling was that, first, the Court stated that mere “good faith” of the peace officer is not enough to justify such a stop.  Second, The Court also drew (and continues to draw) a distinction between that of a person being armed and that of a person being “armed and presently dangerous”. In other cases, the Court has ruled that there is not a firearms exception to the Fourth Amendment and thus their presence alone is no different that a person being in possession of a wallet (an actual example from a Supreme Court ruling).

Since the ruling in this case was handed down, investigatory stops have often been termed as “Terry Stops”. I take umbrage with this. Terry was one of the bad guys. Detective McFadden was the one that put forth some excellent police work; so, we should be calling these “McFadden Stops”, but alas, cops are like offensive lineman in that we only get close-up shots and our number called when forget the snap count or get caught holding.

The concept of reasonable articulable suspicion and the facts of the case are more detailed than what I have condensed here. The purpose of this article is to pay respects to Detective McFadden on the 50th anniversary of the incident.

Special thanks go out to retired Commander Bob Cermack of the Cleveland Police Department and the Cleveland Police Museum for providing pictures of Detective McFadden as well as other documents.

Detective McFadden at work.

Detective McFadden at his retirement party.

Detective McFadden’s obituary.