U.S. Supreme Court rules that police may stop a car based upon the revoked driving privileges of the registered owner. In Kansas v. Glover, a deputy with the Douglas County, Kansas Sheriff’s Office was on routine patrol. The deputy ran a truck’s plates and determined the driver’s license of the registered owner to be revoked. Without observing any traffic infractions and without attempting to identify the driver, the deputy initiated a traffic stop.
The U.S. Supreme Court overruled the Kansas Supreme Court’s suppression of the stop holding, in part, that a “commonsense judgment and inferences about human behavior” permitted the deputy to assume that the registered owner was driving the car. For the opinion, see Kansas v. Glover.