Brendlin v. California

551 U.S. 249 (2007)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

A Deputy Sheriff and his partner saw a parked Buick with expired registration tags. The Sheriff learned that an application for renewal of registration was being processed. The officers saw the car again, and the officers decided to pull the Buick over to verify that the permit matched the vehicle, even though there was nothing unusual about the permit or the way it was affixed. The driver, Karen Simeroth was asked for her license. The Sheriff saw D, whom he recognized in the front seat. He remembered that either Scott or Bruce Brendlin had dropped out of parole supervision and asked D to identify himself. The Sheriff verified that D was a parole violator with an outstanding no-bail warrant for his arrest. While he was in the patrol car, D briefly opened and then closed the passenger door of the Buick. Once reinforcements arrived, D was ordered out of the car at gunpoint, and put under arrest. When the police searched D incident to arrest, they found an orange syringe cap on his person. A patdown search of Simeroth revealed syringes and a plastic bag of a green leafy substance, and she was also arrested. Officers then searched the car and found tubing, a scale, and other things used to produce methamphetamine. D was charged with possession and manufacture of methamphetamine, and he moved to suppress the evidence. D argued that the officers lacked probable cause or reasonable suspicion to make the traffic stop. D claimed only that the traffic stop was an unlawful seizure of his person. The trial court denied the suppression motion because D was not seized until ordered out of the car and formally arrested. D pleaded guilty, subject to appeal on the suppression issue, and was sentenced to four years in prison. The California Court of Appeal reversed holding that D was seized by the traffic stop, which they held unlawful. The Supreme Court of California reversed. The State Supreme Court conceded that the officers had no reasonable basis to suspect unlawful operation of the car, but still held suppression unwarranted because a passenger “is not seized as a constitutional matter in the absence of additional circumstances that would indicate to a reasonable person that he or she was the subject of the peace officer’s investigation or show of authority.” D was not seized by the traffic stop because a passenger cannot submit to an officer’s show of authority while the driver controls the car, and that once a car has been pulled off the road, a passenger “would feel free to depart or otherwise to conduct his or her affairs as though the police were not present.” The Supreme Court granted certiorari to decide whether a traffic stop subjects a passenger, as well as the driver, to Fourth Amendment seizure.