Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-556_e1pf.pdf
Page Number: 18.0

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

1 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

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No. 18–556 
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KANSAS, PETITIONER v. CHARLES GLOVER 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF KANSAS 

[April 6, 2020]

 JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, dissenting. 
In upholding routine stops of vehicles whose owners have
revoked licenses, the Court ignores key foundations of our 
reasonable-suspicion jurisprudence and impermissibly and 
unnecessarily reduces the State’s burden of proof.  I there-
fore dissent. 

I 

I  begin  with  common  ground.    The  Fourth  Amendment 
permits “brief investigatory” vehicle stops, United States v. 
Cortez, 449 U. S. 411, 417 (1981), on “facts that do not con-
stitute  probable  cause,”  United  States  v.  Brignoni-Ponce, 
422 U. S. 873, 881 (1975).  To assess whether an officer had 
the  requisite  suspicion  to  seize  a  driver,  past  cases  have
considered  the  “totality  of  the  circumstances—the  whole
picture,”  Cortez,  449  U. S.,  at  417,  and  analyzed  whether 
the officer assembled “fact on fact and clue on clue,” id., at 
419. 

The stop at issue here, however, rests on just one key fact: 
that the vehicle was owned by someone with a revoked li-
cense.  The majority concludes—erroneously, in my view—
that  seizing  this  vehicle  was  constitutional  on  the  record
below because drivers with revoked licenses (as opposed to
suspended licenses) in Kansas “have already demonstrated 
a disregard for the law or are categorically unfit to drive.” 
Ante, at 5.  This analysis breaks from settled doctrine and