eli5: what is reasonable suspicion and how do we quantify it?
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A cookie is missing from the cookie jar.
“Hey, you look like the kind of guy who might like cookies” That’s a hunch. Less than reasonable suspicion, and frankly not good enough.
“Hey, I’ve seen you eat cookies a lot AND i saw you near the cookie jar recently” That’s reasonable suspicion. You can point to at least *something* that’s relevant.
“Hey, you have cookie crumbs all over your shirt, there’s chocolate all over your fingers, your cheeks are buldging from eating something and you’re literally next to the cookie jar” That’s probable cause.
Also “Hey, the cookie jar is in a locked room but maybe you flew in Tom Cruise mission impossible style from the ceiling and picked the cookie jar lock despite being a random homeless guy with no MacGyver training and no access to lock picking tools” That would be *un*reasonable suspicion because that’s just a ridiculous assertion.
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Reasonable suspicion needs to be just that, reasonable. It can’t come from left field, and it can’t be just your gut feeling. You have to be able to point to specific things that bolster your suspicion of someone and their involvement. And they have to be relevant, they can’t just be “well he’s fat so he probably likes cookies” and it can’t be “aliens came and stole the cookies” because c’mon. But ultimately it’s a pretty low bar, and pretty subjective.
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