Reasonable Suspicion vs. Probable Cause

Yes, thank you sergent because those are the definitions that I'm not understanding.

Quote:

---

"Probable cause" exists when the totality of the circumstances would lead a person of ordinary care and prudence to entertain an honest and strong suspicion that the person to be arrested is guilty of a crime.

"reasonable suspicion" that: (1) criminal activity may be afoot and (2) the person you are about to detain is connected with that possible criminal activity.

---

*So probable cause is made by a "person of ordinary care and prudence" while reasonable suspicion is made by a "reasonable person."
--->To me, these seem like synonyms of each other, but please correct me if I am wrong.

*Probable cause uses the phrase "honest and strong suspicion" whereas reasonable suspicion uses simply "suspicion."
--->If, as your CPOLS reads, one's subjective thinking is invalid then who determines what "honest and strong" suspicion is versus mere suspicion? Isn't that based on the subjective thinking of the officer?

*The only main difference I see is that probable cause looks for the "totality of the circumstances" but even this seems close to reasonable suspicion like when an officer is required not to have mere suspicion alone, but to be able to articulate it (hence, "articulable facts"), no? At least that's what my professor told me (who's also a sergent but for SoCal).

^Those are mainly my concerns. Thanks for your assistance by the way.

Reasonable suspicion does not require a crime. Reasonable suspicion only requires sufficient articulation to believe that crime may be "afoot."

Probable cause requires that a crime be committed, or, that there be reason to believe that a crime was committed.

And the issue of subjective versus objective thinking is one of facts and legality. For instance, I might see a car full of young males of a sort that leads me to believe they might be members of a local street gang. I want to contact them and find out who they are and what they are up to. So, I follow and wait for a code violation of some sort (say, for rolling a stop sign in violation of VC 22450). Thus, while my reasonable suspicion for the detention is the Vehicle Code violation, my subjective reasoning is that I want to ID these possible gang members. Note that I also have probable cause to believe that a crime was committed, so I can issue a citation for the offense.

Now, where they are not the same might be a situation where I have a couple of youths loitering to the rear of closed businesses at 1 AM. I can't just say, "They looked suspicions, so I stopped them," that is not legally sufficient. But, if I can articulate WHY it was suspicious, it can be. So, if I can articulate the individual circumstances that lead me to believe they might be up to criminal activity (time of day, no general or easy access to pedestrian throughfares, history of break-ins, furtive movements or activity upon my appearance, etc.) I can justify a detention even if I have no crime. In such a case, I have articulable "reasonable suspicion" for a detention, but I lack "probable cause" to make an arrest.

Oh, and I was also in So. Cal., and taught courses on juvenile crime there.

Excellent. That answers all my doubts and concerns.

Thank you.