"I mean I have a PTSD reaction and I freak, I'm able to maintain, answer questions & keep my bearing but any cop that walks up to my car is going to note that I am very nervous."
I'm sorry to hear about that. Nervousness, in and of itself, is not a reason to restrain someone. Nervousness IS an articuable fact, which when combined with others may be cause to restrain someone.
"Ummmm......yeah, you got you're law degree where? I should listen to your internet legal practice.....why?"
I do not have a law degree, but that is irrelevant to whether the information that I possess is correct or not.
Basically, there is a ballancing act, decided by the courts, between the public interest in crime prevention and an individual's right to personal security and privacy.
Arrest requires probable cause. Detentions do not. Restraining someone is a form of detention. The act of placing someone in restraints is a detention, not an arrest; detention is necessary to effect an arrest but not the other way around.
A police stop is a seizure within the context of the Fourteenth Amendment. If the seizure is reasonable, then it is permissible, otherwise it is a violation of a person's Fourteenth Amendment rights.
If a LEO observes criminal activity, or activity which would lead a reasonable person to conclude that it was of a criminal nature, or if an informant provides sound and verified information to the LEO about a criminal activity, then a subsequent seizure is reasonable and permissible. If at the time of a stop, a LEO sees or has a reasonable belief that the suspect is armed, the LEO may "pat down" the suspect and seize any weapons that could cause harm to the LEO or another person during an arrest. If at the time of a stop, the LEO observes behavior or has a reasonable belief that the suspect posses a danger to anyone during the stop, then a subsequent seizure of the person is reasonable and permissable.
(Note, the following occurs after the fact. An individual, though their lawyer, "tells it to the judge," so to speak.)
If a search or a search and seizure was impermissible, under the exclusionary rule, the evidence gathered from that seizure is inadmissible in the defendant's criminal trial, except that the evidence may be used to disqualify a witness. There are exceptions to that rule, as you might expect. It is complicated and beyond our scope so I won't include them.
This is only one legal doctrine used to analyze evidence in a criminal trial, and each procedure (search and seizure) must be analyzed separately.
Complicated sounding, I know. It comes down to this, if a LEO has the right ot be doing something, such as a traffic stop or street encounter, and during the process observed articuable factors which would lead a reasonable LEO to restrain an individual it may be done, even without a particular suspicion that a crime is, has, or is about to happen.
Example: A LEO conducts a traffic stop, and during the course of the traffic stop observes a combination of factors which would lead a reasonable officer to conclude that it is necessary to place an indiviudal in the vehicle in hand cuffs. That may be done per the reasonableness standard. They may also, if an arrest is not effected, be taken off with the individual being free to go.
This was bit off the cuff, excuse me, but I think I hit on the highlights. Maybe someone else, even a lawyer, will choose to opine further.
"And you find this acceptable?"
No. I'm not of the "good ol' days" mind set. Many here are, though, in what I see as a misguided remembrance of the good ol' days which never where so good as remembered.
