The Court continued in relevant part: In Delaware v. Prouse, the United States Supreme Court held that a detention of a motorist to check credentials is unreasonable, except in situations in which there is at least reasonable and articulable suspicion that a motorist is unlicensed or the vehicle is unregistered, or either the vehicle or its occupants are otherwise subject to seizure for violating the law. 440 U.S. 648, 663 (1979). In Kansas v. Glover, the Supreme Court considered whether the Fourth Amendment allows a police officer to “initiate an investigative traffic stop after running a vehicle’s license plate and learning that the registered owner has a revoked driver’s license.” 140 S. Ct. 1183, 1186 (2020). The Court upheld the stop challenged in that case, pointing out that the deputy, after conducting a random query, “knew that the registered owner of the truck had a revoked license.” Id. at Based on that information, the deputy “drew the commonsense inference that Glover was likely the driver of the vehicle, which provided more than reasonable suspicion to initiate the stop.”
The majority in Glover observed that “the fact that the registered owner of a vehicle is not always the driver of the vehicle does not negate the reasonableness of the officer’s inference.” The Court found it significant that the Kansas “license-revocation scheme covers drivers who have already demonstrated a disregard for the law or are categorically unfit to drive.” The majority, however, took care to “emphasize the narrow scope of its holding,” noting that “the presence of additional facts might dispel reasonable suspicion. For example, if an officer knows that the registered owner of the vehicle is in his mid-sixties but observes that the driver is in her mid-twenties, then the totality of the circumstances would not raise a suspicion that the individual being stopped is engaged in wrongdoing.”
It is not clear that every driver with a revoked license “has already demonstrated a disregard for the law.” Failures to appear in municipal court lead to an administrative license suspension until the municipal court case ultimately resolves. Many people missed court for legitimate reasons and ultimately have their administrative license suspension vacated.
