## Facts

- Broward County Sheriff’s deputies conducted a drug-interdiction program that involved boarding buses at scheduled stops and asking passengers for permission to search luggage.
- Two uniformed deputies boarded an interstate bus during a stop, approached Terrance Bostick while he was seated, and requested to see his ticket and identification.
- The deputies asked for consent to search Bostick’s luggage for drugs and advised him that he could refuse consent.
- Bostick consented; the deputies searched his luggage, found cocaine, and arrested him.
- The encounter occurred in the confined bus aisle area, with one officer positioned by Bostick’s seat and another in the aisle, limiting Bostick’s movement given the setting.
- Bostick argued he did not feel free to terminate the encounter or refuse the search.

## Issues

1. Whether police questioning and requests for consent to search luggage directed at bus passengers, without articulable suspicion, are per se Fourth Amendment seizures because a passenger is not “free to leave” the bus.
2. What objective standard governs whether a bus encounter is a seizure under the Fourth Amendment.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the Florida Supreme Court and remanded.
- The Court rejected a categorical rule that every police encounter on a bus constitutes a seizure.
- The Court held that the proper inquiry is whether, under the totality of the circumstances, a reasonable passenger would feel free to decline the officers’ requests or otherwise terminate the encounter.
- The Court did not decide whether Bostick was seized on this record; it directed the state courts to apply the correct standard on remand.

## Legal Principles

- Consensual police-citizen encounters do not implicate the Fourth Amendment; officers may ask questions, request identification, and seek consent to search if they do not communicate that compliance is required.
- The “free to leave” formulation must be adjusted for confined or constrained settings where a person may not wish to leave for reasons independent of police conduct.
- In such settings, the seizure inquiry focuses on whether a reasonable person would feel free to refuse the requests or end the interaction, assessed under the totality of the circumstances.
- A location like a bus is relevant but not determinative; Fourth Amendment seizure analysis is context-specific and does not permit per se rules based solely on venue.

## Conclusion

The Court held that bus interdiction encounters are not automatically Fourth Amendment seizures and required courts to decide, case by case, whether a reasonable passenger would have felt able to refuse police requests or terminate the encounter.


Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429 (1991)