Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-556_e1pf.pdf
Page Number: 10

8 

KANSAS v. GLOVER 

Opinion of the Court 

B 
Glover and the dissent also contend that adopting Kan-
sas’ view would eviscerate the need for officers to base rea-
sonable suspicion on “specific and articulable facts” partic-
ularized  to  the  individual,  see  Terry,  392  U. S.,  at  21, 
because  police  could instead  rely  exclusively  on  probabili-
ties.  Their argument carries little force. 

As an initial matter, we have previously stated that offic-
ers, like jurors, may rely on probabilities in the reasonable 
suspicion context.  See Sokolow, 490 U. S., at 8–9; Cortez, 
449  U. S.,  at  418.    Moreover,  as  explained  above,  Deputy 
Mehrer did not rely exclusively on probabilities.  He knew 
that  the  license  plate was  linked  to  a  truck  matching  the
observed vehicle and that the registered owner of the vehi-
cle had a revoked license.  Based on these minimal facts, he 
used common sense to form a reasonable suspicion that a 
specific individual was potentially engaged in specific crim-
inal activity—driving with a revoked license.  Traffic stops
of this nature do not delegate to officers “broad and unlim-
ited discretion” to stop drivers at random.  United States v. 
Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873, 882 (1975).  Nor do they al-
low  officers  to  stop  drivers  whose  conduct  is  no  different 
from any other driver’s.  See Brown v. Texas, 443 U. S. 47, 
52  (1979).    Accordingly,  combining  database  information
and commonsense judgments in this context is fully conso-
nant with this Court’s Fourth Amendment precedents.1 
—————— 

1 The dissent contends that this approach “pave[s] the road to finding 
reasonable suspicion based on nothing more than a demographic profile.” 
Post, at 6–7 (opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J.).  To alleviate any doubt, we reit-
erate that the Fourth Amendment requires, and Deputy Mehrer had, an
individualized suspicion that a particular citizen was engaged in a par-
ticular crime.  Such a particularized suspicion would be lacking in the 
dissent’s hypothetical scenario, which, in any event, is already prohibited
by our precedents.  See United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873, 
876 (1975) (holding that it violated the Fourth Amendment to stop and
“question [a vehicle’s] occupants [about their immigration status] when
the only ground for suspicion [was] that the occupants appear[ed] to be