Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-556_e1pf.pdf
Page Number: 15.0

Cite as:  589 U. S. ____ (2020) 

3 

KAGAN, J., concurring 

with a revoked license will keep driving—that he has a his-
tory of disregarding driving rules—would no longer apply.
And without that, the case for assuming that an unlicensed 
driver is at the wheel is hardly self-evident.  It would have 
to  rest  on  an  idea  about  the  frequency  with  which  even 
those who had previously complied with driving laws would 
defy  a  State’s  penalty-backed  command  to  stay  off  the
roads.  But where would that idea come from?  As discussed 
above, I doubt whether our collective common sense could 
do the necessary work.  See supra, at 1.  Or otherwise said, 
I  suspect  that  any  common  sense  invoked  in  this  altered 
context would not much differ from a “mere ‘hunch’ ”—and 
so  “not  create  reasonable  suspicion.”  Prado  Navarette  v. 
California, 572 U. S. 393, 397 (2014) (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 
392 U. S. 1, 27 (1968)).

And even when, as under the revocation scheme here, a 
starting presumption of reasonable suspicion makes sense,
the defendant may show that in his case additional infor-
mation dictates the opposite result.  The Court is clear on 
this point, emphasizing that under the applicable totality-
of-the-circumstances test, “the presence of additional facts 
might dispel reasonable suspicion” even though an officer 
knows that a car on the road belongs to a person with a re-
voked license.  Ante, at 9; see ante, at 1 (stating that further
information  may  “negat[e]  an  inference  that  the  owner  is
the driver of the vehicle”).  Just as the Court once said of a 
trained drug-detection dog’s “alert,” the license-revocation 
signal is always subject to a defendant’s challenge, whether 
through cross-examination of the officer or introduction of 
his  own  fact  or  expert  witnesses.  Florida  v.  Harris,  568 
U. S. 237, 247 (2013).

That challenge may take any number of forms.  The Court 
offers a clear example of observational evidence dispelling 
reasonable  suspicion:  if  the  officer  knows  the  registered
owner of a vehicle is an elderly man, but can see the driver 
is a young woman.  See ante, at 9.  Similarly (if not as cut-