Did not know that...cops here do it all the time, for their "safety." Thanks!
That basics of it is that if they have reasonable suspicion that the subject has or is committing a crime to justify the detention, and if they have reasonable suspicion that the subject is armed and presently dangerous to the officer, and if they have no information to dispel that suspicion such as verification from the state that the subject possess a valid license to carry a firearm....THEN "for officer safety" the officer may conduct a pat down search OUTSIDE the clothing, without consent, to check for weapons. If the officers feel something THROUGH THE CLOTHING that they have probable cause to believe is a weapon or other contraband, then and only then are they allowed to conduct an intrusive search and enter the pockets/inside the clothing to retrieve what they suspect is a weapon or contraband. Even if they find contraband, unless it is directly related to the reason for the stop, the contraband may be seized, but not entered as evidence. For example, speeding, I inform officer I have a gun, officer frisks me WITHOUT MY CONSENT and finds a bag of weed in a shirt pocket, the bag of weed can be seized, but not entered into evidence because it is not evidence relating to speeding - the reason for the stop - and is beyond the scope of the search conducted for weapons.
Subsequent Supreme Court decisions have held that the immediate area of a vehicle from which a weapon can be readily obtained falls under the rules of the Terry Frisk type search as well.
And that is why the officer will ALWAYS ask you for consent to search. If the officer asks you if he can frisk you, and you give consent, now the search is consensual and ANY evidence obtained during a search that was consented to can be entered as evidence. Then the burden of proof shifts to you that the consent for the search was coerced.
An example of an illegal action, violating the 4th Amendment would be for the officer conducting a frisk WITHOUT CONSENT to reach in the back pocket of a male and retrieve a wallet (unless the officer can articulate that he had reasonable suspicion to believe he felt a wallet holster containing a firearm), and then even more in violation would be to enter the wallet and retrieve ID.
So, on COPS, when you see the subject with his hands on the top of the vehicle and the officer is taking everything out of his pockets and laying it out on the top of the vehicle.... total violation of the 4th amendment... but, of course, the media is going to keep showing it so that we come to believe it is acceptable.
