Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-556_e1pf.pdf
Page Number: 13

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

1 

KAGAN, J., concurring 

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  KAGAN,  with  whom  JUSTICE  GINSBURG  joins,

concurring. 

When you see a car coming down the street, your common
sense tells you that  the registered owner may well be be-
hind the wheel.  See ante, at 4, 9.  Not always, of course.
Families  share  cars;  friends  borrow  them.    Still,  a  person
often buys a vehicle to drive it himself.  So your suspicion
that  the  owner  is  driving  would  be  perfectly  reasonable.
See ibid. 

Now, though, consider a wrinkle: Suppose you knew that 
the  registered  owner  of  the  vehicle  no  longer  had  a  valid 
driver’s  license.    That  added  fact  raises  a  new  question.
What  are  the  odds  that  someone  who  has  lost  his  license 
would continue to drive?  The answer is by no means obvi-
ous.  You might think that a person told not to drive on pain
of criminal penalty would obey the order—so that if his car 
was on the road, someone else (a family member, a friend) 
must be doing the driving.  Or you might have the opposite
intuition—that  a  person’s  reasons  for  driving  would  over-
come his worries about violating the law, no matter the pos-
sible punishment.  But most likely (let’s be honest), you just 
wouldn’t  know.  Especially  if  you’ve  not  had  your  own  li-
cense taken away, your everyday experience has given you
little basis to assess the probabilities.  Your common sense 
can therefore no longer guide you. 

Even so, Deputy Mark Mehrer had reasonable suspicion 
to stop the truck in this case, and I join the Court’s opinion