Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-556_e1pf.pdf
Page Number: 5.0

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

3 

Opinion of the Court 

driver of the vehicle” and that “the owner will likely disre-
gard  the  suspension  or  revocation  order  and  continue  to 
drive.”  Id., at 595–597, 422 P. 3d, at 68–70.  We granted 
Kansas’ petition for a writ of certiorari, 587 U. S. ___ (2019), 
and now reverse. 

II 
Under  this  Court’s  precedents,  the  Fourth  Amendment
permits an officer to initiate a brief investigative traffic stop
when he has “a particularized and objective basis for sus-
pecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity.” 
United States v. Cortez, 449 U. S. 411, 417–418 (1981); see 
also Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 21–22 (1968).  “Although a
mere ‘hunch’ does not create reasonable suspicion, the level 
of suspicion the standard requires is considerably less than 
proof  of  wrongdoing  by  a  preponderance  of  the  evidence, 
and  obviously  less  than  is  necessary  for  probable  cause.” 
Prado  Navarette  v.  California,  572  U. S.  393,  397  (2014) 
(quotation altered); United States v. Sokolow, 490 U. S. 1, 7 
(1989).

Because  it  is  a  “less  demanding”  standard,  “reasonable 
suspicion can be established with information that is differ-
ent in quantity or content than that required to establish
probable  cause.”  Alabama  v.  White,  496  U. S.  325,  330 
(1990).  The standard “depends on the factual and practical
considerations  of  everyday  life  on  which  reasonable  and 
prudent men, not legal technicians, act.”  Navarette, supra, 
at 402 (quoting Ornelas v. United States, 517 U. S. 690, 695 
(1996)  (emphasis  added;  internal  quotation  marks  omit-
ted)).  Courts  “cannot  reasonably  demand  scientific  cer-
tainty . . . where none exists.”  Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U. S. 
119, 125 (2000).  Rather, they must permit officers to make
“commonsense judgments and inferences about human be-
havior.”  Ibid.; see also Navarette, supra, at 403 (noting that
an  officer  “ ‘need  not  rule  out  the  possibility  of  innocent
conduct’ ”).