SCOTUSblog by Evan Lee 10/28/2019
Argument preview: Can the police stop a vehicle because its registered owner’s license has been suspended or revoked?
Next Monday, November 4, the Supreme Court will hear argument in a case that asks whether it is reasonable to suspect that the registered owner of a vehicle is currently its driver. In Kansas v. Glover, the state of Kansas warns of a serious threat to public safety should the judgment of the Kansas Supreme Court be affirmed, while the driver, Charles Glover, warns of dangerous police discretion if it is reversed.
The parties have stipulated to the following facts. While on routine morning patrol in or around Lawrence, Kansas, Sheriff’s Deputy Mark Mehrer saw a 1995 Chevy 1500 pickup and decided to run a check on the registration. Mehrer had not witnessed any traffic violations. The database check showed that the truck belonged to Glover, and that Glover’s license had been revoked. Mehrer did not see who was driving; he assumed it was Glover, the registered owner. When Mehrer stopped the truck, he discovered that Glover was in fact driving, and Glover was eventually charged as a habitual violator for driving with a revoked license.
At trial, Glover moved to suppress all the evidence growing out of the traffic stop on the ground that the traffic stop violated the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable seizures because Mehrer lacked reasonable suspicion that a crime had been committed. The trial judge suppressed the evidence, remarking that, in her family, all three cars were registered in her name, yet two of them were mostly driven by her husband and daughter. After a Kansas intermediate appellate court reversed, the Kansas Supreme Court reinstated the suppression order. It found that, without additional evidence, Mehrer’s assumption that the owner was driving was unjustified. Allowing an officer to assume that an owner with a revoked license was driving would effectively relieve the state of its burden to demonstrate reasonable suspicion, the state supreme court concluded.
More:
https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/10/argument-preview-can-the-police-stop-a-vehicle-because-its-registered-owners-license-has-been-suspended-or-revoked/