Kansas v. Glover

Whether, for purposes of an investigative stop under the Fourth Amendment, it is reasonable for an officer to suspect that the registered owner of a vehicle is the one driving the vehicle absent any information to the contrary.

An officer’s registration check of a vehicle revealed that the owner lacked a valid driver’s license. Assuming the owner would also be the driver of the vehicle, the officer stopped Respondent. Respondent did own the vehicle and lacked a valid license. Respondent moved to suppress all evidence from the stop on the ground that the officer lacked reasonable suspicion to stop him under the Fourth Amendment. The district court granted Respondent’s motion to suppress, but the court of appeals reversed, reasoning that requiring an officer to gather additional evidence of a driver’s identity before stopping a vehicle would raise the reasonable suspicion standard for a stop to that of probable cause. The Kansas Supreme Court rejected the court of appeals reasoning while holding that, without more, the inference that a registered owner will be the driver of a vehicle does not satisfy the reasonable suspicion standard. In its brief to the United States Supreme Court, the State argues that the commonsense inference that an owner will be driving a vehicle satisfies reasonable suspicion. This is because courts must give due weight to an officer’s specific reasonable inferences under this minimal evidentiary standard. Petitioner further argues that in refusing this commonsense approach, the Kansas Supreme Court defied Supreme Court precedent instructing courts not to refine and elaborate the requirements of reasonable suspicion.