## Facts

- A deputy sheriff stopped a car in which Bruce Edward Brendlin was a passenger after noticing registration that appeared expired, although a valid temporary permit was displayed.
- During the stop, the deputy requested the driver’s license and recognized Brendlin as a “Brendlin brother.”
- After learning there was an outstanding warrant for Brendlin, officers arrested Brendlin and the driver.
- Searches incident to the arrests and of the vehicle yielded drug-related items, including methamphetamine and paraphernalia.
- Brendlin was charged with possession and manufacture of methamphetamine.
- Brendlin moved to suppress the evidence as the fruit of an unlawful traffic stop, arguing the stop lacked reasonable suspicion or probable cause and that he was seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
- On appeal, the State conceded the stop itself was unjustified, but disputed whether Brendlin, as a passenger, could challenge it.

## Issues

1. Whether a passenger is seized for Fourth Amendment purposes when police stop the vehicle in which the passenger is riding.
2. If so, whether the passenger may challenge the constitutionality of the traffic stop and seek suppression of evidence derived from it.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the California Supreme Court and remanded.
- The Court unanimously held that when police make a traffic stop, a passenger, like the driver, is seized for Fourth Amendment purposes.
- Because a passenger is seized at the moment the car is stopped, the passenger may challenge the legality of the stop and seek suppression of evidence obtained as a result.

## Legal Principles

- A Fourth Amendment seizure occurs when officers, by physical force or show of authority, restrain a person’s freedom of movement through means intentionally applied, and the person submits to that authority.
- When a person’s submission is passive, the seizure inquiry is objective: whether, in light of all surrounding circumstances, a reasonable person would believe he was not free to leave or otherwise terminate the encounter.
- A traffic stop communicates to a reasonable passenger that the police are exercising control over the vehicle and its occupants such that no occupant is free to depart without police permission; no separate command to the passenger is required.
- The seizure determination does not turn on the officer’s subjective focus on the driver versus the passenger; it turns on how a reasonable person in the passenger’s position would understand the stop.
- The rule that passengers are seized during a traffic stop does not mean every incidental restriction caused by police activity constitutes a seizure; it applies to occupants of the stopped vehicle.

## Conclusion

The Court held that a traffic stop seizes all occupants of the vehicle, so a passenger has Fourth Amendment standing to contest an unlawful stop and to seek suppression of evidence obtained as a result.


Brendlin v. California, 551 U.S. 249 (2007)