Kansas v.

Glover Case Brief

Facts:

A Kansas deputy county sheriff observed a truck travelling on the highway. The officer observed

no traffic violations, and had no initial reason to stop the vehicle. The officer ran the license

plates and discovered that the registered owner’s driver’s license was suspended. The deputy

assumed that the driver of the truck was the registered owner, and pulled over the truck on this

assumption. Only after the deputy stopped the truck did he confirm that the owner, Glover, was

the driver. Glover was charged with driving without a license as a habitual violator. Glover

moved to suppress the evidence, arguing that the deputy did not have the reasonable suspicion

necessary to perform the traffic stop. The factual record was not fully developed in the court

record, but the appeal was based on a simple set of stipulated facts.

Issue:

Is the Fourth Amendment standard for reasonable, articulable suspicion met when an officer pulls

over a vehicle based only on information that the registered owner has a suspended driver’s

license, and when the officer has no other evidence as to the driver’s identity?

Is an officer’s assumption that the driver of a vehicle is the registered owner sufficient to meet the

Fourth Amendment’s requirement for reasonable, articulable suspicion when the registered

owner’s license is suspended?

Rule:

When the officer lacks information negating an inference that the owner is driving the vehicle, an

investigative traffic stop made after running a vehicle’s license plate and learning that the

registered owner’s driver’s license has been revoked is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
Application and Analysis:

Petitioner Kansas argues that the Fourth Amendment permits police officers to stop citizens in

public and briefly investigate suspicious activity. Kansas elaborates that an officer may initiate a

Terry Stop of a driver when the officer has reasonable suspicion that the driver is violating the

law, including by driving with a suspended license. Kansas points out that the Fourth Amendment

permits such a stop, also known as a seizure, even when a citizen’s conduct could have a lawful

explanation, so an officer may still initiate a traffic stop of a vehicle where the vehicle’s owner

has a suspended license, even if the driver turns out to be someone other than the vehicle’s owner.

Kansas maintains that “an innocent motorist will be free to leave after only a brief encounter”

because the officer’s authority to stop the driver ceases once the officer learns that the driver has a

valid license. To elaborate on the permissible scope of a stop, Kansas analogizes the kind of

traffic stop at issue here to the constitutionality of roadside checkpoints, noting that a state’s

interest in roadway safety outweighs the “slight” intrusion of a checkpoint stop on drivers. Kansas

concludes that, if checkpoint stops of “suspicionless” drivers are constitutional, then an officer is

more than justified in initiating a traffic stop based on real suspicion that a driver is unlicensed

after observing a vehicle.

Respondent Charles Glover counters that a Terry Stop requires “particularized” reasonable

suspicion that the stopped person was acting illegally, and that this requirement would be

discarded if officers could always assume that the owner of a vehicle is the person driving it.

Glover posits that a Terry Stop’s lowered standard of reasonable suspicion is an exception to the

Fourth Amendment’s usual requirement of probable cause for searches and seizures. Accordingly,

Glover argues, the Supreme Court has limited the scope of these stops by refusing to create
 categorical rules about what facts automatically satisfy reasonable suspicion. Instead, Glover

contends that the reasonable suspicion analysis is always based on context and relevant

circumstances, and, thus, a bright-line rule for stopping motorists does not comport with the

Supreme Court’s reasonable suspicion case law. Further, Glover contends that expanding traffic

stops increases the risk that officers will intrude on drivers’ privacy by finding other justifications

for lengthening the stop, searching the vehicle, or arresting the driver. Glover also disputes

Kansas’s analogy to checkpoint stops, noting that the Supreme Court has repeatedly distinguished

individual traffic stops as more intrusive than general checkpoint stops.

Conclusion:

When the officer lacks information negating an inference that the owner is driving the vehicle, an

investigative traffic stop made after running a vehicle’s license plate and learning that the

registered owner’s driver’s license has been revoked is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.

An officer may initiate a brief investigative traffic stop when they have a particularized and

objective basis. Officers can make commonsense judgements and assumptions about human

behavior. The assumption that the driver is the registered owner is a commonsense inference.