Kansas v. Glover

THE FOURTH AMENDMENT’S REQUIREMENTS FOR A TRAFFIC STOP

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 so-called 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.

INFERENCES OFFICERS MAY MAKE ABOUT DRIVERS

Kansas argues that reasonable suspicion is “based on commonsense judgments and inferences about human behavior,” and reasons that one such inference would be that the person who drives a vehicle likely owns it, too. Kansas contends that lower courts who have considered the issue have “almost unanimously concluded” that officers may reasonably infer that the person driving a vehicle will most likely be the registered owner of that vehicle. Kansas also cites to statistical studies that suggest a high likelihood that the registered owner of a vehicle will drive it, even if that owner’s license is suspended. Kansas asserts that this inference is so widespread that some states have even established a rebuttable presumption in civil lawsuits that the registered owner of a vehicle is the one driving that vehicle.

Kansas further emphasizes that an inference linking the owner and driver of a vehicle can still be dispelled if an officer has information that contradicts this inference. Kansas continues that courts analyze an officer’s reasonable suspicion by examining the totality of the circumstances of which the officer was aware, so Kansas’s proposed owner-driver inference rule does not shift the burden of proof to the defendant because other evidence courts already consider will sometimes outweigh the officer’s owner-driver inference. To support this assertion, Kansas provides an example where an officer may not infer that the owner of a vehicle is driving because the officer knows that the owner is male, but observes that the driver on the road is female. In this case, however, Kansas asserts that Deputy Mehrer had no information suggesting that Glover was not the driver, so the officer could infer that Glover was driving his own truck.

Glover disputes Kansas’s claim that statistics alone may permit an officer to infer that the driver of a vehicle owns that vehicle. Glover argues that such statistics are often incomplete or misleading, and, by way of example, points out that Kansas’s cited studies show that many recidivist drivers continue to drive, but these studies fail to show how frequently those drivers use their own vehicles as compared to other users. Thus, Glover continues, the Court has never found a “one-size-fits-all” statistical-based assumption to satisfy the fact-intensive, context-specific reasonable suspicion analysis. Ultimately, Glover contends that Kansas cannot rely on statistics at this stage of appeal because the State failed to present these statistics during trial, where the trial judge could have tested their “reliability and relevance.” In addition, Glover suggests that Kansas’s analogy to an owner-driver presumption in civil cases is ill-founded because that presumption only arises when it is clear that the owner was present in the vehicle, and Deputy Mehrer had no evidence available to him at the time of the stop that suggested Glover was present in the truck.

Moreover, Glover emphasizes that the burden is on the State to establish that an officer possessed the requisite reasonable suspicion to perform a traffic stop. Accordingly, Glover argues that permitting a bright-line inference about a driver’s identity in all cases would unjustly shift the burden onto the defendant to prove that the officer had some other reason to doubt that the driver owned the vehicle. Glover concludes that the Fourth Amendment “requires a State to actually do the work” to prove reasonable suspicion, rather than resting on a statistical inference, and that Kansas failed to proffer any basis for reasonable suspicion in this case.

THE STANDARD OF SUSPICION APPLIED IN THE LOWER COURT

Kansas argues that Deputy Mehrer had an “objective and articulable basis” for stopping Glover’s vehicle. According to Kansas, Deputy Mehrer’s license plate check showed the vehicle was registered to Glover, and that Glover’s license had been revoked. Therefore, Kansas continues, because Deputy Mehrer made the commonsense inference that the vehicle’s owner is likely behind the wheel, he could suspect that Glover was operating his vehicle without a license.Kansas argues that the Supreme Court has consistently repeated that an officer making a stop needs only a “minimal level of objective justification.” Kansas contends that the Kansas Supreme Court adopted a more demanding standard than reasonable suspicion when it required further evidence that Glover was the person behind the wheel, and, therefore, the court’s decision should be reversed.

In response, Glover asserts that the lower court applied the correct reasonable suspicion standard, and that Kansas simply failed to provide any facts supporting that level of suspicion. Glover notes that, prior to stopping the vehicle, Deputy Mehrer did not observe any road violations, nor did he identify the driver of Glover’s vehicle. Therefore, Glover argues, Deputy Mehrer attempted to justify the stop entirely on the innocuous fact that someone with a suspended license owned the vehicle. Even further, Glover contends, the State presented no evidence about Deputy Mehrer’s training or experience in making traffic stops, so his inference cannot be considered reasonable or commonplace for police officers in general. Glover also notes that the trial judge made the opposite inference—that other people, such as family members, could have been driving Glover’s vehicle—and that the judge’s views as the factfinder “deserve deference” from the higher courts.