Opinion ID: 2041031
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Gravity of Public Interest

Text: In the cases noted above, only one seizure involved a public interest of sufficient gravity to justify dispensing with reasonable suspicion. In Martinez-Fuerte, the Court found that the substantial national interest in the effective control of aliens illegally crossing the Mexico-United States border outweighed the limited intrusion on the right to free travel; it cited language in Carroll v. U.S., 267 U.S. 132, 154, 45 S.Ct. 280, 285, 69 L.Ed. 543, 551 (1925), distinguishing seizures of American motorists from those whose objective was national self-protection. None of the public interests advanced in the other cases proved adequate to justify a stop on less than reasonable suspicion: Brignoni-Ponce (the valid interest in economic and social problems created by illegal immigration), Prouse (the legitimate interest in promoting safety on the highways), and Brown (crime prevention, a weighty social objective). In these cases, the interference with the lawful motoring public and the tendency of the designated problem to generate articulable grounds for identifying violators were the crucial criteria which convinced the Court that reasonable suspicion must be demonstrated.