OCTOBER TERM, 1994

															Syllabus

															WILSON v. ARKANSAS CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF ARKANSAS No. 94-5707. Argued
March 28, 1995-Decided May 22,1995 Petitioner was convicted on state-law drug charges after the
Arkansas trial court denied her evidence-suppression motion, in
which she asserted that the search of her home was invalid because, inter alia, the police had violated the common-law principle
requiring them to announce their presence and authority before
entering. The State Supreme Court affirmed, rejecting petitioner's
argument that the common-law "knock and announce" principle is
required by the Fourth Amendment. Held: The common-law knock and announce principle forms a
part of the Fourth Amendment reasonableness inquiry. pp.
931-937.

															(a) An officer's unannounced entry into a home might, in some
circumstances, be unreasonable under the Amendment. In evaluating
the scope of the constitutional right to be secure in one's house,
this Court has looked to the traditional protections against
unreasonable searches and seizures afforded by the common law at
the time of the framing. Given the longstanding common-law
endorsement of the practice of announcement, and the wealth of
founding-era commentaries, constitutional provisions, statutes, and
cases espousing or supporting the knock and announce principle,
this Court has little doubt that the Amendment's Framers thought
that whether officers announced their presence and authority before
entering a dwelling was among the factors to be considered in
assessing a search's reasonableness. Nevertheless, the common-law
principle was never stated as an inflexible rule requiring
announcement under all circumstances. Countervailing law
enforcement interests-including, e. g., the threat of
physical harm to police, the fact that an officer is pursuing a
recently escaped arrestee, and the existence of reason to believe
that evidence would likely be destroyed if advance notice were
given-may establish the reasonableness of an unannounced entry. For
now, this Court leaves to the lower courts the task of determining
such relevant countervailing factors. Pp. 934-936.

															(b) Respondent's asserted reasons for affirming the judgment
below-that the police reasonably believed that a prior announcement
would have placed them in peril and would have produced an
unreasonable risk that petitioner would destroy easily disposable
narcotics evidence-may well provide the necessary justification for
the unannounced entry in this case. The case is remanded to allow
the state 928 Syllabus

															courts to make the reasonableness determination in the first
instance. P.937.

															317 Ark. 548, 878 S. W. 2d 755, reversed and remanded.

															THOMAS, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. John Wesley Hall, Jr., argued the cause and filed briefs
for petitioner. Winston Bryant, Attorney General of Arkansas, argued the
cause for respondent. With him on the briefs were Kent G. Holt, Vada Berger, and David R. Raupp, Assistant
Attorneys General, and Andrew D. Leipold. Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben argued the cause for the United
States as amicus curiae urging affirmance. With him on the brief
were Solicitor General Days, Assistant Attorney General Harris,
Paul A. Engelmayer, and Deborah Watson. * *Tracey Maclin, Steven R. Shapiro, and Ephraim
Margolin filed a brief for the American Civil Liberties Union
et al. as amicus curiae urging reversal.

															Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for
the State of California et al. by Daniel E. Lungren, Attorney General of California, Richard Rochman, Assistant
Attorney General, and Eleni M. Constantine, and by the
Attorneys General for their respective jurisdictions as follows: Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Grant Woods of Arizona, Gale A. Norton of Colorado, M. Jane Brady of
Delaware, Robert A. Butterworth of Florida, Margery S. Bronster of Hawaii, Alan G. Lance of Idaho, Jim Ryan of Illinois, Tom Miller of Iowa, Carla J. Stovall of Kansas, Chris
Gorman of Kentucky, Andrew Ketterer of Maine, J. Joseph Curran, Jr., of Maryland, Frank J. Kelley of Michigan, Mike Moore of Mississippi, Jeremiah W "Jay" Nixon of Missouri, Joseph P. Mazurek of Montana, Don Stenberg of Nebraska, Frankie Sue Del
Papa of Nevada, Deborah T. Poritz of New Jersey, Dennis C. Vacco of New York, Michael F. Easley of North Carolina, Betty Montgomery of Ohio, Theodore R. Kulongoski of Oregon, Jeffrey B. Pine of
Rhode Island, Charlie Condon of South Carolina, Mark
Bennett of South Dakota, Dan Morales of Texas, Jan
Graham of Utah, Jeffrey L. Amestoy of Vermont, and James S. Gilmore III of Virginia; for Wayne County,
Michigan, by John D. O'Hair and Timothy A. Baughman; and for Americans for Effective Law Enforcement, Inc., et al. by Fred E. Inbau, Wayne W Schmidt, James P. Manak, Richard M.
Weintraub, Robert L. Deschamps, and Bernard J. Farber. 929 JUSTICE THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court.

															At the time of the framing, the common law of search and seizure
recognized a law enforcement officer's authority to break open the
doors of a dwelling, but generally indicated that he first ought to
announce his presence and authority. In this case, we hold that
this common-law "knock and announce" principle forms a part of the
reasonableness inquiry under the Fourth Amendment.

															I

															During November and December 1992, petitioner Sharlene Wilson
made a series of narcotics sales to an informant acting at the
direction of the Arkansas State Police. In late November, the
informant purchased marijuana and methamphetamine at the home that
petitioner shared with Bryson Jacobs. On December 30, the informant
telephoned petitioner at her home and arranged to meet her at a
local store to buy some marijuana. According to testimony presented
below, petitioner produced a semiautomatic pistol at this meeting
and waved it in the informant's face, threatening to kill her if
she turned out to be working for the police. Petitioner then sold
the informant a bag of marijuana.

															The next day, police officers applied for and obtained warrants
to search petitioner's home and to arrest both petitioner and
Jacobs. Affidavits filed in support of the warrants set forth the
details of the narcotics transactions and stated that Jacobs had
previously been convicted of arson and firebombing. The search was
conducted later that afternoon. Police officers found the main door
to petitioner's home open. While opening an unlocked screen door
and entering the residence, they identified themselves as police
officers and stated that they had a warrant. Once inside the home,
the officers seized marijuana, methamphetamine, valium, narcotics
paraphernalia, a gun, and ammunition. They also found petitioner in
the bathroom, flushing marijuana down the toilet. Petitioner and
Jacobs were arrested and 930 charged with delivery of marijuana, delivery of methamphetamine,
possession of drug paraphernalia, and possession of marijuana.

															Before trial, petitioner filed a motion to suppress the evidence
seized during the search. Petitioner asserted that the search was
invalid on various grounds, including that the officers had failed
to "knock and announce" before entering her home. The trial court
summarily denied the suppression motion. After a jury trial,
petitioner was convicted of all charges and sentenced to 32 years
in prison.

															The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed petitioner's conviction on
appeal. 317 Ark. 548, 878 S. W. 2d 755 (1994). The court noted that
"the officers entered the home while they were identifying
themselves," but it rejected petitioner's argument that "the
Fourth Amendment requires officers to knock and announce prior to
entering the residence." Id., at 553, 878 S. W. 2d, at 758
(emphasis added). Finding "no authority for [petitioner's] theory
that the knock and announce principle is required by the Fourth
Amendment," the court concluded that neither Arkansas law nor the
Fourth Amendment required suppression of the evidence. Ibid. We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict among the lower
courts as to whether the common-law knock and announce principle
forms a part of the Fourth Amendment reasonableness inquiry.l 513
U. S. 1014 (1995). We hold that it does, and accordingly reverse
and remand.

															1 See, e. g., People v. Gonzalez, 211 Cal. App. 3d
1043, 1048, 259 Cal.

															Rptr. 846, 848 (1989) ("Announcement and demand for entry at the
time of service of a search warrant [are] part of Fourth Amendment
reasonableness"); People v. Saechao, 129 Ill. 2d 522,
531, 544 N. E. 2d 745,749 (1989) ("[T]he presence or absence of
such an announcement is an important consideration in determining
whether subsequent entry to arrest or search is constitutionally
reasonable") (internal quotation marks omitted); Com monwealth v. Goggin, 412 Mass. 200, 202,
587 N. E. 2d 785, 787 (1992) ("Our knock and announce rule is one
of common law which is not constitutionally compelled"). 931 II

															The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protects "[t]he right
of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." In evaluating
the scope of this right, we have looked to the traditional
protections against unreasonable searches and seizures afforded by
the common law at the time of the framing. See California v. Hodari D., 499
U. S. 621 , 624 (1991); United States v. Watson, 423 U. S. 411 ,
418420 (1976); Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132 , 149
(1925). "Although the underlying command of the Fourth Amendment is
always that searches and seizures be reasonable," New Jersey v. T. L. 0., 469 U. S. 325 , 337
(1985), our effort to give content to this term may be guided by
the meaning ascribed to it by the Framers of the Amendment. An
examination of the common law of search and seizure leaves no doubt
that the reasonableness of a search of a dwelling may depend in
part on whether law enforcement officers announced their presence
and authority prior to entering.

															Although the common law generally protected a man's house as
"his castle of defence and asylum," 3 W. Blackstone, Commentaries
*288 (hereinafter Blackstone), common-law courts long have held
that "when the King is party, the sheriff (if the doors be not
open) may break the party's house, either to arrest him, or to do
other execution of the K[ing]'s process, if otherwise he cannot
enter." Semayne's Case, 5 Co. Rep. 91a, 91b, 77 Eng. Rep.
194, 195 (K. B. 1603). To this rule, however, common-law courts
appended an important qualification: "But before he breaks it, he ought to signify the cause of his
coming, and to make request to open doors ... , for the law without
a default in the owner abhors the destruction or breaking of any
house (which is for the habitation and safety of man) by which
great damage and inconvenience might ensue to the party, when
no 932 default is in him; for perhaps he did not know of the process,
of which, if he had notice, it is to be presumed that he would obey
it .... " Ibid., 77 Eng. Rep., at 195-196. See also Case of Richard Curtis, Fost. 135, 137, 168 Eng.
Rep. 67, 68 (Crown 1757) ("[N]o precise form of words is required
in a case of this kind. It is sufficient that the party hath
notice, that the officer cometh not as a mere trespasser, but
claiming to act under a proper authority ... "); Lee v. Gansell, Lofft 374, 381-382, 98 Eng. Rep. 700, 705 (K. B.
1774) ("[A]s to the outer door, the law is now clearly taken" that
it is privileged; but the door may be broken "when the due
notification and demand has been made and refused").2

															Several prominent founding-era commentators agreed on this basic
principle. According to Sir Matthew Hale, the "constant practice"
at common law was that "the officer may break open the door, if he
be sure the offender is there, if after acquainting them of the
business, and demanding the prisoner, he refuses to open the door."
See 1 M. Hale, Pleas of the Crown *582. William Hawkins propounded
a similar principle: "the law doth never allow" an officer to break
open the door of a dwelling "but in cases of necessity," that is,
unless he "first signify to those in the house the cause of his
coming, and request them to give him admittance." 2 W. Hawkins,
Pleas of the Crown, ch. 14, § 1, p. 138 (6th ed. 1787).

															2 This "knock and announce" principle appears to predate even Se mayne's Case, which is usually cited as the judicial
source of the commonlaw standard. Semayne's Case itself
indicates that the doctrine may be traced to a statute enacted in
1275, and that at that time the statute was "but an affirmance of
the common law." 5 Co. Rep., at 91b, 77 Eng. Rep., at 196
(referring to 3 Edw. I, ch. 17, in 1 Statutes at Large from Magna
Carta to Hen. 6 (0. Ruffhead ed. 1769) (providing that if any
person takes the beasts of another and causes them "to be driven
into a Castle or Fortress," if the sheriff makes "solem[n]
deman[d]" for deliverance of the beasts, and if the person "did not
cause the Beasts to be delivered incontinent," the King "shall
cause the said Castle or Fortress to be beaten down without
Recovery")). 933 Sir William Blackstone stated simply that the sheriff may
"justify breaking open doors, if the possession be not quietly
delivered." 3 Blackstone *412.

															The common-law knock and announce principle was woven quickly
into the fabric of early American law. Most of the States that
ratified the Fourth Amendment had enacted constitutional provisions
or statutes generally incorporating English common law, see, e. g., N. J. Const. of 1776, § 22, in 5 Federal and
State Constitutions 2598 (F. Thorpe ed. 1909) ("[T]he common law of
England ... shall still remain in force, until [it] shall be
altered by a future law of the Legislature"); N. Y. Const. of 1777,
Art. 35, in id., at 2635 ("[S]uch parts of the common law of
England ... as ... did form the law of [New York on April 19, 1775]
shall be and continue the law of this State, subject to such
alterations and provisions as the legislature of this State shall,
from time to time, make concerning the same"); Ordinances of May
1776, ch. 5, § 6, in 9 Statutes at Large of Virginia 127 (w. Hening
ed. 1821) ("[T]he common law of England ... shall be the rule of
decision, and shall be considered as in full force, until the same
shall be altered by the legislative power of this colony"), and a
few States had enacted statutes specifically embracing the
common-law view that the breaking of the door of a dwelling was
permitted once admittance was refused, see, e. g., Act of Nov. 8, 1782, ch. 15, , 6, in Acts and Laws of Massachusetts
193 (1782); Act of Apr. 13, 1782, ch. 39, § 3, in 1 Laws of the
State of New York 480 (1886); Act of June 24, 1782, ch. 317, § 18,
in Acts of the General Assembly of New-Jersey (1784) (reprinted in
The First Laws of the State of New Jersey 293-294 (J. Cushing compo
1981)); Act of Dec. 23, 1780, ch. 925, § 5, in 10 Statutes at Large
of Pennsylvania 255 (J. Mitchell & H. Flanders compo 1904).
Early American courts similarly embraced the common-law knock and
announce principle. See, e. g., Walker v. Fox, 32 Ky. 404, 405 (1834); Burton v. Wilkinson, 18 Vt. 186, 189 (1846); Howe v. Butter field, 58 Mass. 302, 305 (1849). See generally
Blakey, The 934 Rule of Announcement and Unlawful Entry, 112 U. Pa. L. Rev. 499,
504-508 (1964) (collecting cases).

															Our own cases have acknowledged that the common-law principle of
announcement is "embedded in Anglo-American law," Miller v. United States, 357 U. S. 301 , 313
(1958), but we have never squarely held that this principle is an
element of the reasonableness inquiry under the Fourth Amendment.3
We now so hold. Given the longstanding common-law endorsement of
the practice of announcement, we have little doubt that the Framers
of the Fourth Amendment thought that the method of an officer's
entry into a dwelling was among the factors to be considered in
assessing the reasonableness of a search or seizure. Contrary to
the decision below, we hold that in some circumstances an officer's
unannounced entry into a home might be unreasonable under the
Fourth Amendment.

															This is not to say, of course, that every entry must be preceded
by an announcement. The Fourth Amendment's flexible requirement of
reasonableness should not be read to mandate a rigid rule of
announcement that ignores countervailing law enforcement interests.
As even petitioner concedes, the common-law principle of
announcement was never stated as an inflexible rule requiring
announcement under all circumstances. See Ker v. California, 374
U. S. 23 , 38 (1963) (plurality opinion) ("[I]t has been
recognized from the early common law that ... breaking is
permissible in executing an arrest under certain circumstances");
see also, e. g., 3 In Miller, our discussion focused on the statutory
requirement of announcement found in 18 U. S. C. § 3109 (1958 ed.),
not on the constitutional requirement of reasonableness. See 357 U.
S., at 306, 308, 313. See also Sabbath v. United
States, 391 U. S.
585 , 591, n. 8 (1968) (suggesting that both the "common law"
rule of announcement and entry and its "exceptions" were codified
in §3109); Ker v. California, 374 U. S. 23 , 40-41 (1963)
(plurality opinion) (reasoning that an unannounced entry was
reasonable under the "exigent circumstances" of that case, without
addressing the antecedent question whether the lack of announcement
might render a search unreasonable under other circumstances). 935 White & Wiltsheire, 2 Rolle 137, 138, 81 Eng.
Rep. 709, 710 (K. B. 1619) (upholding the sheriff's breaking of the
door of the plaintiff's dwelling after the sheriff's bailiffs had
been imprisoned in plaintiff's dwelling while they attempted an
earlier execution of the seizure); Pugh v. Griffith, 7 Ad. & E. 827, 840-841, 112 Eng. Rep. 681, 686 (K. B. 1838)
(holding that "the necessity of a demand ... is obviated, because
there was nobody on whom a demand could be made" and noting that White & Wiltsheire leaves open the possibility
that there may be "other occasions where the outer door may be
broken" without prior demand).

															Indeed, at the time of the framing, the common-law admonition
that an officer "ought to signify the cause of his coming," Semayne's Case, 5 Co. Rep., at 91b, 77 Eng. Rep., at 195,
had not been extended conclusively to the context of felony
arrests. See Blakey, supra, at 503 ("The full scope of the
application of the rule in criminal cases ... was never judicially
settled"); Launock v. Brown, 2 B. & Ald. 592,
593, 106 Eng. Rep. 482, 483 (K. B. 1819) ("It is not at present
necessary for us to decide how far, in the case of a person charged
with felony, it would be necessary to make a previous demand of
admittance before you could justify breaking open the outer door of
his house"); W. Murfree, Law of Sheriffs and Other Ministerial
Officers § 1163, p. 631 (1st ed. 1884) ("[A]lthough there has been
some doubt on the question, the better opinion seems to be that, in
cases of felony, no demand of admittance is necessary, especially
as, in many cases, the delay incident to it would enable the
prisoner to escape"). The common-law principle gradually was
applied to cases involving felonies, but at the same time the
courts continued to recognize that under certain circumstances the
presumption in favor of announcement necessarily would give way to
contrary considerations.

															Thus, because the common-law rule was justified in part by the
belief that announcement generally would avoid "the destruction or
breaking of any house ... by which great 936 damage and inconvenience might ensue," Semayne's Case,
supra, at 91b, 77 Eng. Rep., at 196, courts acknowledged that
the presumption in favor of announcement would yield under
circumstances presenting a threat of physical violence. See, e.
g., Read v. Case, 4 Conn. 166, 170 (1822) (plaintiff who
"had resolved ... to resist even to the shedding of blood ... was
not within the reason and spirit of the rule requiring notice"); Mahomed v. The Queen, 4 Moore 239, 247, 13 Eng. Rep.
293, 296 (P. C. 1843) ("While he was firing pistols at them, were
they to knock at the door, and to ask him to be pleased to open it
for them? The law in its wisdom only requires this ceremony to be
observed when it possibly may be attended with some advantage, and
may render the breaking open of the outer door unnecessary").
Similarly, courts held that an officer may dispense with
announcement in cases where a prisoner escapes from him and
retreats to his dwelling. See, e. g., ibid.; Allen v. Martin, 10 Wend. 300, 304 (N. Y. Sup. Ct. 1833). Proof of
"demand and refusal" was deemed unnecessary in such cases because
it would be a "senseless ceremony" to require an officer in pursuit
of a recently escaped arrestee to make an announcement prior to
breaking the door to retake him. Id., at 304. Finally,
courts have indicated that unannounced entry may be justified where
police officers have reason to believe that evidence would likely
be destroyed if advance notice were given. See Ker, supra, at 40-41 (plurality opinion); People We need not attempt a comprehensive catalog of the relevant
countervailing factors here. For now, we leave to the lower courts
the task of determining the circumstances under which an
unannounced entry is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. We
simply hold that although a search or seizure of a dwelling might
be constitutionally defective if police officers enter without
prior announcement, law enforcement interests may also establish
the reasonableness of an unannounced entry. 937 III

															Respondent contends that the judgment below should be affirmed
because the unannounced entry in this case was justified for two
reasons. First, respondent argues that police officers reasonably
believed that a prior announcement would have placed them in peril,
given their knowledge that petitioner had threatened a government
informant with a semiautomatic weapon and that Mr. Jacobs had
previously been convicted of arson and firebombing. Second,
respondent suggests that prior announcement would have produced an
unreasonable risk that petitioner would destroy easily disposable
narcotics evidence.

															These considerations may well provide the necessary
justification for the unannounced entry in this case. Because the
Arkansas Supreme Court did not address their sufficiency, however,
we remand to allow the state courts to make any necessary findings
of fact and to make the determination of reasonableness in the
first instance. The judgment of the Arkansas Supreme Court is
reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not
inconsistent with this opinion.4

															It is so ordered.

															4 Respondent and its amici also ask us to affirm the
denial of petitioner's suppression motion on an alternative ground:
that exclusion is not a constitutionally compelled remedy where the
unreasonableness of a search stems from the failure of
announcement. Analogizing to the "independent source" doctrine
applied in Segura v. United States, 468 U. S. 796 , 805,
813-816 (1984), and the "inevitable discovery" rule adopted in Nix v. Williams, 467 U. S. 431 , 440-448
(1984), respondent and its amici argue that any evidence
seized after an unreasonable, unannounced entry is causally
disconnected from the constitutional violation and that exclusion
goes beyond the goal of precluding any benefit to the government
flowing from the constitutional violation. Because this remedial
issue was not addressed by the court below and is not within the
narrow question on which we granted certiorari, we decline to
address these arguments.


OCTOBER TERM, 1995

															Syllabus

															WHREN ET AL. v. UNITED STATES

															CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT No. 95-5841. Argued April 17, 1996-Decided June 10, 1996 Plainclothes policemen patrolling a "high drug area" in an
unmarked vehicle observed a truck driven by petitioner Brown
waiting at a stop sign at an intersection for an unusually long
time; the truck then turned suddenly, without signaling, and sped
off at an "unreasonable" speed. The officers stopped the vehicle,
assertedly to warn the driver about traffic violations, and upon
approaching the truck observed plastic bags of crack cocaine in
petitioner Whren's hands. Petitioners were arrested. Prior to trial
on federal drug charges, they moved for suppression of the
evidence, arguing that the stop had not been justified by either a
reasonable suspicion or probable cause to believe petitioners were
engaged in illegal drug-dealing activity, and that the officers'
traffic-violation ground for approaching the truck was pretextual.
The motion to suppress was denied, petitioners were convicted, and
the Court of Appeals affirmed. Held: The temporary detention of a motorist upon probable
cause to believe that he has violated the traffic laws does not
violate the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable
seizures, even if a reasonable officer would not have stopped the
motorist absent some additional law enforcement objective. Pp.
809-819.

															(a) Detention of a motorist is reasonable where probable cause
exists to believe that a traffic violation has occurred. See, e. g., Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648 , 659.
Petitioners claim that, because the police may be tempted to use
commonly occurring traffic violations as means of investigating
violations of other laws, the Fourth Amendment test for traffic
stops should be whether a reasonable officer would have stopped the
car for the purpose of enforcing the traffic violation at issue.
However, this Court's cases foreclose the argument that ulterior
motives can invalidate police conduct justified on the basis of
probable cause. See, e. g., United States v. Robinson, 414
U. S. 218 , 221, n. 1,236. Subjective intentions play no role in
ordinary, probable-cause Fourth Amendment analysis. Pp.
809-813.

															(b) Although framed as an empirical question-whether the
officer's conduct deviated materially from standard police
practices-petitioners' proposed test is plainly designed to combat
the perceived danger of pretextual stops. It is thus inconsistent
with this Court's cases, which 807 make clear that the Fourth Amendment's concern with
"reasonableness" allows certain actions to be taken in certain
circumstances, whatever the subjective intent. See, e.
g., Robinson, supra, at 236. Nor can the Fourth Amendment's
protections be thought to vary from place to place and from time to
time, which would be the consequence of assessing the
reasonableness of police conduct in light of local law enforcement
practices. Pp. 813-816.

															(c) Also rejected is petitioners' argument that the balancing of
interests inherent in Fourth Amendment inquiries does not support
enforcement of minor traffic laws by plainclothes police in
unmarked vehicles, since that practice only minimally advances the
government's interest in traffic safety while subjecting motorists
to inconvenience, confusion, and anxiety. Where probable cause
exists, this Court has found it necessary to engage in balancing
only in cases involving searches or seizures conducted in a manner
unusually harmful to the individual. See, e. g., Tennessee v. Garner, 471
U. S. 1 . The making of a traffic stop out of uniform does not
remotely qualify as such an extreme practice. pp. 816-819. 53 F.3d
371 , affirmed.

															SCALIA, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. Lisa Burget Wright argued the cause for petitioners.

															With her on the briefs were A. J. Kramer, Neil H. Jaffee,
and G. Allen Dale. James A. Feldman argued the cause for the United
States.

															On the brief were Solicitor General Days, Acting Assistant
Attorney General Keeney, Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben, and Paul
A. Engelmayer. * *Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for
the American Civil Liberties Union by Steven R. Shapiro and Susan N. Herman; and for the National Association of
Criminal Defense Lawyers by Natman Schaye and Walter B.
Nash III. Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for
the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation by Kent S. Scheidegger and Charles L. Hobson; and for the State
of California et al. by Daniel E. Lungren, Attorney General
of California, George Williamson, Chief Assistant Attorney
General, Ronald A. Bass, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Joan Killeen and Catherine A. Rivlin, Supervising
Deputy Attorneys General, and Christina V. Kuo, Deputy
Attorney General; and by the Attorneys General for their respective
States as follows: M. Jane Brady of Delaware, 808 JUSTICE SCALIA delivered the opinion of the Court.

															In this case we decide whether the temporary detention of a
motorist who the police have probable cause to believe has
committed a civil traffic violation is inconsistent with the Fourth
Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable seizures unless a
reasonable officer would have been motivated to stop the car by a
desire to enforce the traffic laws.

															I

															On the evening of June 10, 1993, plainclothes vice-squad
officers of the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department
were patrolling a "high drug area" of the city in an unmarked car.
Their suspicions were aroused when they passed a dark Pathfinder
truck with temporary license plates and youthful occupants waiting
at a stop sign, the driver looking down into the lap of the
passenger at his right. The truck remained stopped at the
intersection for what seemed an unusually long time-more than 20
seconds. When the police car executed aU-turn in order to head back
toward the truck, the Pathfinder turned suddenly to its right,
without signaling, and sped off at an "unreasonable" speed. The
policemen followed, and in a short while overtook the Pathfinder
when it stopped behind other traffic at a red light. They pulled up
alongside, and Officer Ephraim Soto stepped out and approached the
driver's door, identifying himself as a police officer and
directing the driver, petitioner Brown, to put the vehicle in park.
When Soto drew up to the driver's

															Thomas J. Miller of Iowa, Carla J. Stovall of
Kansas, J. Joseph Curran, Jr., of Maryland, Mike Moore of
Mississippi, Frankie Sue Del Papa of Nevada, Deborah T. Poritz of
New Jersey, Dennis C. Vacco of New York, Michael F. Easley of North
Carolina, Betty D. Montgomery of Ohio, W A. Drew Edmondson of
Oklahoma, Charles W Burson of Tennessee, and Jan Graham of
Utah. Richard S. Michaels and Jeff Rubin filed a
brief for the California District Attorney's Association as amicus curiae. 809 window, he immediately observed two large plastic bags of what
appeared to be crack cocaine in petitioner Whren's hands.
Petitioners were arrested, and quantities of several types of
illegal drugs were retrieved from the vehicle.

															Petitioners were charged in a four-count indictment with
violating various federal drug laws, including 21 U. S. C. §§
844(a) and 860(a). At a pretrial suppression hearing, they
challenged the legality of the stop and the resulting seizure of
the drugs. They argued that the stop had not been justified by
probable cause to believe, or even reasonable suspicion, that
petitioners were engaged in illegal drug-dealing activity; and that
Officer Soto's asserted ground for approaching the vehicle-to give
the driver a warning concerning traffic violations-was pretextual.
The District Court denied the suppression motion, concluding that
"the facts of the stop were not controverted," and "[t]here was
nothing to really demonstrate that the actions of the officers were
contrary to a normal traffic stop." App. 5.

															Petitioners were convicted of the counts at issue here.

															The Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions, holding with
respect to the suppression issue that, "regardless of whether a
police officer subjectively believes that the occupants of an
automobile may be engaging in some other illegal behavior, a
traffic stop is permissible as long as a reasonable officer in the
same circumstances could have stopped the car for the
suspected traffic violation." 53 F.3d
371 , 374-375 (CADC 1995). We granted certiorari. 516 U. S. 1036
(1996).

															II

															The Fourth Amendment guarantees "[t]he right of the people to be
secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures." Temporary detention of
individuals during the stop of an automobile by the police, even if
only for a brief period and for a limited purpose, constitutes a
"seizure" of "persons" within the 810 meaning of this provision. See Delaware v. Prouse,
440 U. S. 648, 653 (1979); United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S. 543, 556 (1976); United
States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873 , 878
(1975). An automobile stop is thus subject to the constitutional
imperative that it not be "unreasonable" under the circumstances.
As a general matter, the decision to stop an automobile is
reasonable where the police have probable cause to believe that a
traffic violation has occurred. See Prouse, supra, at 659; Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U. S. 106, 109 (1977) (per curiam). Petitioners accept that Officer Soto had probable cause to
believe that various provisions of the District of Columbia traffic
code had been violated. See 18 D. C. Mun. Regs. §§ 2213.4 (1995)
("An operator shall ... give full time and attention to the
operation of the vehicle"); 2204.3 ("No person shall turn any
vehicle ... without giving an appropriate signal"); 2200.3 ("No
person shall drive a vehicle ... at a speed greater than is
reasonable and prudent under the conditions"). They argue, however,
that "in the unique context of civil traffic regulations" probable
cause is not enough. Since, they contend, the use of automobiles is
so heavily and minutely regulated that total compliance with
traffic and safety rules is nearly impossible, a police officer
will almost invariably be able to catch any given motorist in a
technical violation. This creates the temptation to use traffic
stops as a means of investigating other law violations, as to which
no probable cause or even articulable suspicion exists.
Petitioners, who are both black, further contend that police
officers might decide which motorists to stop based on decidedly
impermissible factors, such as the race of the car's occupants. To
avoid this danger, they say, the Fourth Amendment test for traffic
stops should be, not the normal one (applied by the Court of
Appeals) of whether probable cause existed to justify the stop; but
rather, whether a police officer, acting reasonably, would have
made the stop for the reason given. 811 A

															Petitioners contend that the standard they propose is consistent
with our past cases' disapproval of police attempts to use valid
bases of action against citizens as pretexts for pursuing other
investigatory agendas. We are reminded that in Florida v. Wells, 495 U. S.
1 , 4 (1990), we stated that "an inventory search[l] must not be
a ruse for a general rummaging in order to discover incriminating
evidence"; that in Col orado v. Bertine, 479 U. S. 367 , 372
(1987), in approving an inventory search, we apparently thought it
significant that there had been "no showing that the police, who
were following standardized procedures, acted in bad faith or for
the sole purpose of investigation"; and that in New York v. Burger, 482 U.
S. 691 , 716-717, n. 27 (1987), we observed, in upholding the
constitutionality of a warrantless administrative inspection,2 that
the search did not appear to be "a 'pretext' for obtaining evidence
of ... violation of ... penal laws." But only an undiscerning
reader would regard these cases as endorsing the principle that
ulterior motives can invalidate police conduct that is justifiable
on the basis of probable cause to believe that a violation of law
has occurred. In each case we were addressing the validity of a
search conducted in the absence of probable cause. Our
quoted statements simply explain that the exemption from the need
for probable cause (and warrant), which is accorded to searches
made for the purpose of inventory or administrative

															1 An inventory search is the search of property lawfully seized
and detained, in order to ensure that it is harmless, to secure
valuable items (such as might be kept in a towed car), and to
protect against false claims of loss or damage. See South
Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U. S. 364 , 369
(1976).

															2 An administrative inspection is the inspection of business
premises conducted by authorities responsible for enforcing a
pervasive regulatory scheme-for example, unannounced inspection of
a mine for compliance with health and safety standards. See Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U. S. 594 , 599-605
(1981). 812 regulation, is not accorded to searches that are not made
for those purposes. See Bertine, supra, at 371-372; Burger, supra, at 702-703.

															Petitioners also rely upon Colorado v. Bannister, 449 U. S. 1 (1980) (per curiam), a case which, like this one, involved a
traffic stop as the prelude to a plain-view sighting and arrest on
charges wholly unrelated to the basis for the stop. Petitioners
point to our statement that "[t]here was no evidence whatsoever
that the officer's presence to issue a traffic citation was a
pretext to confirm any other previous suspicion about the
occupants" of the car. Id., at 4, n. 4. That dictum at
most demonstrates that the Court in Bannister found no
need to inquire into the question now under discussion; not that it
was certain of the answer. And it may demonstrate even less than
that: If by "pretext" the Court meant that the officer really had
not seen the car speeding, the statement would mean only that there
was no reason to doubt probable cause for the traffic stop.

															It would, moreover, be anomalous, to say the least, to treat a
statement in a footnote in the per curiam Bannister opinion
as indicating a reversal of our prior law. Petitioners' difficulty
is not simply a lack of affirmative support for their position. Not
only have we never held, outside the context of inventory search or
administrative inspection (discussed above), that an officer's
motive invalidates objectively justifiable behavior under the
Fourth Amendment; but we have repeatedly held and asserted the
contrary. In United States v. Villamonte-Marquez, 462 U. S. 579 ,
584, n. 3 (1983), we held that an otherwise valid warrantless
boarding of a vessel by customs officials was not rendered invalid
"because the customs officers were accompanied by a Louisiana state
policeman, and were following an informant's tip that a vessel in
the ship channel was thought to be carrying marihuana." We flatly
dismissed the idea that an ulterior motive might serve to strip the
agents of their legal justification. In United States v. Robinson, 414
U. S. 218 (1973), we held that 813 a traffic-violation arrest (of the sort here) would not be
rendered invalid by the fact that it was "a mere pretext for a
narcotics search," id., at 221, n. 1; and that a lawful
post-arrest search of the person would not be rendered invalid by
the fact that it was not motivated by the officer-safety concern
that justifies such searches, see id., at 236. See also Gustafson v. Florida, 414 U. S. 260 , 266
(1973). And in Scott v. United States, 436 U. S. 128 , 138
(1978), in rejecting the contention that wiretap evidence was
subject to exclusion because the agents conducting the tap had
failed to make any effort to comply with the statutory requirement
that unauthorized acquisitions be minimized, we said that
"[sJubjective intent alone ... does not make otherwise lawful
conduct illegal or unconstitutional." We described Robinson as having established that "the fact that the officer does not have
the state of mind which is hypothecated by the reasons which
provide the legal justification for the officer's action does not
invalidate the action taken as long as the circumstances, viewed
objectively, justify that action." 436 U. S., at 136, 138.

															We think these cases foreclose any argument that the
constitutional reasonableness of traffic stops depends on the
actual motivations of the individual officers involved. We of
course agree with petitioners that the Constitution prohibits
selective enforcement of the law based on considerations such as
race. But the constitutional basis for objecting to intentionally
discriminatory application of laws is the Equal Protection Clause,
not the Fourth Amendment. Subjective intentions play no role in
ordinary, probable-cause Fourth Amendment analysis.

															B

															Recognizing that we have been unwilling to entertain Fourth
Amendment challenges based on the actual motivations of individual
officers, petitioners disavow any intention to make the individual
officer's subjective good faith the touchstone of "reasonableness."
They insist that the stand- 814 ard they have put forward-whether the officer's conduct deviated
materially from usual police practices, so that a reasonable
officer in the same circumstances would not have made the stop for
the reasons given-is an "objective" one.

															But although framed in empirical terms, this approach is plainly
and indisputably driven by subjective considerations. Its whole
purpose is to prevent the police from doing under the guise of
enforcing the traffic code what they would like to do for different
reasons. Petitioners' proposed standard may not use the word
"pretext," but it is designed to combat nothing other than the
perceived "danger" of the pretextual stop, albeit only indirectly
and over the run of cases. Instead of asking whether the individual
officer had the proper state of mind, the petitioners would have us
ask, in effect, whether (based on general police practices) it is
plausible to believe that the officer had the proper state of
mind.

															Why one would frame a test designed to combat pretext in such
fashion that the court cannot take into account actual and
admitted pretext is a curiosity that can only be explained by
the fact that our cases have foreclosed the more sensible option.
If those cases were based only upon the evidentiary difficulty of
establishing subjective intent, petitioners' attempt to root out
subjective vices through objective means might make sense. But they
were not based only upon that, or indeed even principally upon
that. Their principal basis-which applies equally to attempts to
reach subjective intent through ostensibly objective means-is
simply that the Fourth Amendment's concern with "reasonableness"
allows certain actions to be taken in certain circumstances, whatever the subjective intent. See, e. g., Robinson,
supra, at 236 ("Since it is the fact of custodial arrest which
gives rise to the authority to search, it is of no moment that [the
officer] did not indicate any subjective fear of the [arrestee] or
that he did not himself suspect that [the arrestee] was armed")
(footnotes omitted); Gustafson, supra, at 266 (same). But
even if our concern had been only an evidentiary one, 815 petitioners' proposal would by no means assuage it. Indeed, it
seems to us somewhat easier to figure out the intent of an
individual officer than to plumb the collective consciousness of
law enforcement in order to determine whether a "reasonable
officer" would have been moved to act upon the traffic violation.
While police manuals and standard procedures may sometimes provide
objective assistance, ordinarily one would be reduced to
speculating about the hypothetical reaction of a hypothetical
constable-an exercise that might be called virtual
subjectivity.

															Moreover, police enforcement practices, even if they could be
practicably assessed by a judge, vary from place to place and from
time to time. We cannot accept that the search and seizure
protections of the Fourth Amendment are so variable, cf. Gustafson, supra, at 265; United States v. Caceres, 440
U. S. 741 , 755-756 (1979), and can be made to turn upon such
trivialities. The difficulty is illustrated by petitioners'
arguments in this case. Their claim that a reasonable officer would
not have made this stop is based largely on District of Columbia
police regulations which permit plainclothes officers in unmarked
vehicles to enforce traffic laws "only in the case of a violation
that is so grave as to pose an immediate threat to the
safety of others." Metropolitan Police Department, Washington, D.
C., General Order 303.1, pt. 1, Objectives and Policies (A)(2)(4)
(Apr. 30, 1992), reprinted as Addendum to Brief for Petitioners.
This basis of invalidation would not apply in jurisdictions that
had a different practice. And it would not have applied even in the
District of Columbia, if Officer Soto had been wearing a uniform or
patrolling in a marked police cruiser.

															Petitioners argue that our cases support insistence upon police
adherence to standard practices as an objective means of rooting
out pretext. They cite no holding to that effect, and dicta in only
two cases. In Abel v. United States, 362 U. S. 217
(1960), the petitioner had been arrested by the Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS), on the basis of 816 an administrative warrant that, he claimed, had been issued on
pretextual grounds in order to enable the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) to search his room after his arrest. We
regarded this as an allegation of "serious misconduct," but
rejected Abel's claims on the ground that "[a] finding of bad faith
is ... not open to us on thee] record" in light of the findings
below, including the finding that "'the proceedings taken by the
[INS] differed in no respect from what would have been done in the
case of an individual concerning whom [there was no pending FBI
investigation],'" id., at 226-227. But it is a long leap
from the proposition that following regular procedures is some
evidence of lack of pretext to the proposition that failure to
follow regular procedures proves (or is an operational
substitute for) pretext. Abel, moreover, did not involve the
assertion that pretext could invalidate a search or seizure for
which there was probable cause-and even what it said about pretext
in other contexts is plainly inconsistent with the views we later
stated in Robinson, Gustafson, Scott, and Villamonte-Marquez. In the other case claimed to contain
supportive dicta, United States v. Robinson, 414 U. S. 218 (1973), in
approving a search incident to an arrest for driving without a
license, we noted that the arrest was "not a departure from
established police department practice." Id., at 221, n. 1.
That was followed, however, by the statement that "[w]e leave for
another day questions which would arise on facts different from
these." Ibid. This is not even a dictum that purports to
provide an answer, but merely one that leaves the question
open.

															III

															In what would appear to be an elaboration on the "reasonable
officer" test, petitioners argue that the balancing inherent in any
Fourth Amendment inquiry requires us to weigh the governmental and
individual interests implicated in a traffic stop such as we have
here. That balancing, petitioners claim, does not support
investigation of minor traffic in- 817 fractions by plainclothes police in unmarked vehicles; such
investigation only minimally advances the government's interest in
traffic safety, and may indeed retard it by producing motorist
confusion and alarm-a view said to be supported by the Metropolitan
Police Department's own regulations generally prohibiting this
practice. And as for the Fourth Amendment interests of the
individuals concerned, petitioners point out that our cases
acknowledge that even ordinary traffic stops entail "a possibly
unsettling show of authority"; that they at best "interfere with
freedom of movement, are inconvenient, and consume time" and at
worst "may create substantial anxiety," Prouse, 440 U. S.,
at 657. That anxiety is likely to be even more pronounced when the
stop is conducted by plainclothes officers in unmarked cars.

															It is of course true that in principle every Fourth Amendment
case, since it turns upon a "reasonableness" determination,
involves a balancing of all relevant factors. With rare exceptions
not applicable here, however, the result of that balancing is not
in doubt where the search or seizure is based upon probable cause.
That is why petitioners must rely upon cases like Prouse to
provide examples of actual "balancing" analysis. There, the police
action in question was a random traffic stop for the purpose of
checking a motorist's license and vehicle registration, a practice
that-like the practices at issue in the inventory search and
administrative inspection cases upon which petitioners rely in
making their "pretext" claim-involves police intrusion without
the probable cause that is its traditional justification. Our
opinion in Prouse expressly distinguished the case from a
stop based on precisely what is at issue here: "probable cause to
believe that a driver is violating anyone of the multitude of
applicable traffic and equipment regulations." Id., at 661.
It noted approvingly that "[t]he foremost method of enforcing
traffic and vehicle safety regulations ... is acting upon observed
violations," id., at 659, which afford the "'quantum of
individualized suspicion'" necessary to ensure that police 818 discretion is sufficiently constrained, id., at 654-655
(quoting United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S.,
at 560). What is true of Prouse is also true of other cases
that engaged in detailed "balancing" to decide the
constitutionality of automobile stops, such as Martinez-Fuerte, which upheld checkpoint stops, see 428 U.
S., at 556-562, and Brignoni-Ponce, which disallowed
so-called "roving patrol" stops, see 422 U. S., at 882-884: The
detailed "balancing" analysis was necessary because they involved
seizures without probable cause.

															Where probable cause has existed, the only cases in which we
have found it necessary actually to perform the "balancing"
analysis involved searches or seizures conducted in an
extraordinary manner, unusually harmful to an individual's privacy
or even physical interests-such as, for example, seizure by means
of deadly force, see Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U. S. 1 (1985),
unannounced entry into a home, see Wilson v. Arkansas, 514
U. S. 927 (1995), entry into a home without a warrant, see Welsh v. Wisconsin, 466 U. S. 740 (1984), or
physical penetration of the body, see Winston v. Lee, 470 U. S. 753 (1985). The making of a traffic stop out of uniform does not
remotely qualify as such an extreme practice, and so is governed by
the usual rule that probable cause to believe the law has been
broken "outbalances" private interest in avoiding police
contact.

															Petitioners urge as an extraordinary factor in this case that
the "multitude of applicable traffic and equipment regulations" is
so large and so difficult to obey perfectly that virtually everyone
is guilty of violation, permitting the police to single out almost
whomever they wish for a stop. But we are aware of no principle
that would allow us to decide at what point a code of law becomes
so expansive and so commonly violated that infraction itself can no
longer be the ordinary measure of the lawfulness of enforcement.
And even if we could identify such exorbitant codes, we do not know
by what standard (or what right) we would decide, as 819 petitioners would have us do, which particular provisions are
sufficiently important to merit enforcement.

															For the run-of-the-mine case, which this surely is, we think
there is no realistic alternative to the traditional common-law
rule that probable cause justifies a search and seizure.

															***

															Here the District Court found that the officers had probable
cause to believe that petitioners had violated the traffic code.
That rendered the stop reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, the
evidence thereby discovered admissible, and the upholding of the
convictions by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
Circuit correct. The judgment

															is

															Affirmed.


OCTOBER TERM, 1996

															Syllabus

															MARYLAND v. WILSON CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS OF MARYLAND No. 95-1268. Argued December 11, 1996-Decided February 19,
1997

															After stopping a speeding car in which respondent Wilson was a
passenger, a Maryland state trooper ordered Wilson out of the car
upon noticing his apparent nervousness. When Wilson exited, a
quantity of cocaine fell to the ground. He was arrested and charged
with possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. The Baltimore
County Circuit Court granted his motion to suppress the evidence,
deciding that the trooper's ordering him out of the car constituted
an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment. The Maryland
Court of Special Appeals affirmed, holding that the rule of Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U. S. 106, that an officer
may as a matter of course order the driver of a lawfully stopped
car to exit his vehicle, does not apply to passengers. Held: An officer making a traffic stop may order
passengers to get out of the car pending completion of the stop.
Statements by the Court in Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 1032 ,
1047-1048 (Mimms "held that police may order persons out of an automobile during a [traffic] stop" (emphasis added)),
and by Justice Powell in Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U. S. 128 , 155, n. 4 (Mimms held "that passengers ... have no Fourth
Amendment right not to be ordered from their vehicle, once a proper
stop is made" (emphasis added)), do not constitute binding
precedent, since the former statement was dictum, and the latter
was contained in a concurrence. Nevertheless, the Mimms rule
applies to passengers as well as to drivers. The Court therein
explained that the touchstone of Fourth Amendment analysis is the
reasonableness of the particular governmental invasion of a
citizen's personal security, 434 U. S., at 108-109, and that
reasonableness depends on a balance between the public interest and
the individual's right to personal security free from arbitrary
interference by officers, id., at 109. On the public interest side,
the same weighty interest in officer safety is present regardless
of whether the occupant of the stopped car is a driver, as in Mimms, see id., at 109-110, or a passenger, as here.
Indeed, the danger to an officer from a traffic stop is likely to
be greater when there are passengers in addition to the driver in
the stopped car. On the personal liberty side, the case for
passengers is stronger than that for the driver in the sense that
there is probable cause to believe that the driver has committed a
minor vehicular offense, see id., at 110, but there is no such
reason to stop or detain 409 passengers. But as a practical matter, passengers are already
stopped by virtue of the stop of the vehicle, so that the
additional intrusion upon them is minimal. Pp.411-415.

															106 Md. App. 24, 664 A. 2d 1, reversed and remanded.

															REHNQUIST, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
O'CONNOR, SCALIA, SOUTER, THOMAS, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ.,
joined. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which KENNEDY,
J., joined, post, p. 415. KENNEDY, J., filed a dissenting
opinion, post, p. 422.

															J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Attorney General of Maryland,
argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Gary E. Bair, Mary Ellen Barbera, and Kathryn Grill
Graeff, Assistant Attorneys General. Byron L. Warnken, by appointment of the Court, 519 U. S.
804 (1996), argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent.

															Attorney General Reno argued the cause for the United States as
amicus curiae urging reversal. On the brief were Acting Solicitor
General Dellinger, Acting Assistant Attorney General Keeney, Deputy
Solicitor General Dreeben, David C. Frederick, and Nina Goodman.
*

															*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for
the State of Ohio et al. by Betty D. Montgomery, Attorney
General of Ohio, Jeffrey S. Sutton, State Solicitor,
and Simon B. Karas and Stuart A. Cole, Assistant
Attorneys General, joined by the Attorneys General for their
respective jurisdictions as follows: Jeff Sessions of
Alabama, Grant Woods of Arizona, Winston Bryant of
Arkansas, Daniel E. Lungren of California, Gale A.
Norton of Colorado, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, M. Jane Brady of Delaware, Robert Butterworth of
Florida, James E. Ryan of Illinois, Tom Miller of
Iowa, Carla J. Stovall of Kansas, A. B. Chandler
III of Kentucky, Richard P. Ieyoub of Louisiana, Scott Harshbarger of Massachusetts, Frank J. Kelley of Michigan, Hubert Humphrey III of Minnesota, Mike Moore of Mississippi, Joseph P. Mazurek of
Montana, Don Stenberg of Nebraska, Frankie Sue Del
Papa of Nevada, Jeffrey R. Howard of New Hampshire, Tom Udall of New Mexico, Dennis C. Vacco of
New York, Michael F. Easley of North Carolina, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, W A. Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, Theodore Kulongoski of Oregon, Thomas
Corbett, Jr., of Pennsylvania, Jeffrey B. Pine of Rhode
Island, Charles Condon of South Carolina, Mark W
Barnett of South Dakota, 410 CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.

															In this case we consider whether the rule of Pennsylvania v.
Mimms, 434 U. S.
106 (1977) (per curiam), that a police officer may as a matter
of course order the driver of a lawfully stopped car to exit his
vehicle, extends to passengers as well. We hold that it does.

															At about 7:30 p.m. on a June evening, Maryland state trooper
David Hughes observed a passenger car driving southbound on 1-95 in
Baltimore County at a speed of 64 miles per hour. The posted speed
limit was 55 miles per hour, and the car had no regular license
tag; there was a torn piece of paper reading "Enterprise
Rent-A-Car" dangling from its rear. Hughes activated his lights and
sirens, signaling the car to pull over, but it continued driving
for another mile and a half until it finally did so.

															During the pursuit, Hughes noticed that there were three
occupants in the car and that the two passengers turned to look at
him several times, repeatedly ducking below sight level and then
reappearing. As Hughes approached the car on foot, the driver
alighted and met him halfway. The driver was trembling and appeared
extremely nervous, but nonetheless produced a valid Connecticut
driver's license. Hughes instructed him to return to the car and
retrieve the rental documents, and he complied. During this
encounter, Hughes noticed that the front-seat passenger, respondent
Jerry Lee Wilson, was sweating and also appeared extremely Charles W Burson of Tennessee, Jan Graham of Utah, Jeffrey L. Amestoy of Vermont, Julio A. Brady of the
U. S. Virgin Islands, Christine O. Gregoire of
Washington, Darrell McGraw, Jr., of West Virginia, and James E. Doyle of Wisconsin; for Americans for Effective Law
Enforcement, Inc., et al. by Fred E. Inbau, Wayne W Schmidt,
Robert Wennerholm, James P. Manek, John Kaye, Richard M.
Weintraub, and Bernard J. Farber; for the
National Association of Police Organizations, Inc., by William J. Johnson; and for the Criminal Justice
Legal Foundation by Kent S. Scheidegger and Charles L. Hobson. 411 nervous. While the driver was sitting in the driver's seat
looking for the rental papers, Hughes ordered Wilson out of the
car.

															When Wilson exited the car, a quantity of crack cocaine fell to
the ground. Wilson was then arrested and charged with possession of
cocaine with intent to distribute. Before trial, Wilson moved to
suppress the evidence, arguing that Hughes' ordering him out of the
car constituted an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment.
The Circuit Court for Baltimore County agreed, and granted
respondent's motion to suppress. On appeal, the Court of Special
Appeals of Maryland affirmed, 106 Md. App. 24, 664 A. 2d 1 (1995),
ruling that Pennsylvania v. Mimms does not apply to
passengers. The Court of Appeals of Maryland denied certiorari. 340
Md. 502, 667 A. 2d 342 (1995). We granted certiorari, 518 U. S.
1003 (1996), and now reverse.

															In Mimms, we considered a traffic stop much like the one
before us today. There, Mimms had been stopped for driving with an
expired license plate, and the officer asked him to step out of his
car. When Mimms did so, the officer noticed a bulge in his jacket
that proved to be a .38-caliber revolver, whereupon Mimms was
arrested for carrying a concealed deadly weapon. Mimms, like
Wilson, urged the suppression of the evidence on the ground that
the officer's ordering him out of the car was an unreasonable
seizure, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, like the Court of
Special Appeals of Maryland, agreed.

															We reversed, explaining that "[t]he touchstone of our analysis
under the Fourth Amendment is always 'the reasonableness in all the
circumstances of the particular governmental invasion of a
citizen's personal security,'" 434 U. S., at 108109 (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 , 19 (1968)),
and that reasonableness "depends 'on a balance between the public
interest and the individual's right to personal security free from
arbitrary interference by law officers,'" 434 U. S., at 109
(quoting United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873 , 412 878 (1975)). On the public interest side of the balance, we
noted that the State "freely concede[d]" that there had been
nothing unusual or suspicious to justify ordering Mimms out of the
car, but that it was the officer's "practice to order all drivers
[stopped in traffic stops] out of their vehicles as a matter of
course" as a "precautionary measure" to protect the officer's
safety. 434 U. S., at 109-110. We thought it "too plain for
argument" that this justification-officer safety-was "both
legitimate and weighty." Id., at 110. In addition, we
observed that the danger to the officer of standing by the driver's
door and in the path of oncoming traffic might also be
"appreciable." Id., at 111.

															On the other side of the balance, we considered the intrusion
into the driver's liberty occasioned by the officer's ordering him
out of the car. Noting that the driver's car was already validly
stopped for a traffic infraction, we deemed the additional
intrusion of asking him to step outside his car "de minimis."
Ibid. Accordingly, we concluded that "once a motor vehicle has
been lawfully detained for a traffic violation, the police officers
may order the driver to get out of the vehicle without violating
the Fourth Amendment's proscription of unreasonable seizures." Id., at 111, n. 6.

															Respondent urges, and the lower courts agreed, that this per
se rule does not apply to Wilson because he was a passenger,
not the driver. Maryland, in turn, argues that we have already
implicitly decided this question by our statement in Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 1032 (1983),
that "[i]n [Mimms], we held that police may order persons out of an automobile during a stop for a traffic
violation," id., at 1047-1048 (emphasis added), and by Justice
Powell's statement in Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U. S. 128 (1978),
that "this Court determined in [Mimms] that passengers in automobiles have no Fourth Amendment right not
to be ordered from their vehicle, once a proper stop is made," id.,
at 155, n. 4 (Powell, J., joined by Burger, C. J., concurring)
(emphasis added). We agree with respondent that the former
statement was dictum, and the 413 latter was contained in a concurrence, so that neither
constitutes binding precedent.

															We must therefore now decide whether the rule of Mimms applies
to passengers as well as to drivers.1 On the public interest side
of the balance, the same weighty interest in officer safety is
present regardless of whether the occupant of the stopped car is a
driver or passenger. Regrettably, traffic stops may be dangerous
encounters. In 1994 alone, there were 5,762 officer assaults and 11
officers killed during traffic pursuits and stops. Federal Bureau
of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports: Law Enforcement Officers
Killed and Assaulted 71, 33 (1994). In the case of passengers, the
danger of the officer's standing in the path of oncoming traffic
would not be present except in the case of a passenger in the left
rear seat, but the fact that there is more than one occupant of the
vehicle increases the possible sources of harm to the officer.2

															On the personal liberty side of the balance, the case for the
passengers is in one sense stronger than that for the driver. There
is probable cause to believe that the driver has committed a minor
vehicular offense, but there is no such reason to stop or detain
the passengers. But as a practical

															1 Respondent argues that, because we have generally eschewed
brightline rules in the Fourth Amendment context, see, e. g., Ohio v. Robinette, ante, p. 33, we should not
here conclude that passengers may constitutionally be ordered out
of lawfully stopped vehicles. But, that we typically avoid per
se rules concerning searches and seizures does not mean that we
have always done so; Mimms itself drew a bright line, and we
believe the principles that underlay that decision apply to
passengers as well.

															2JUSTICE STEVENS' dissenting opinion points out, post, at
416, that these statistics are not further broken down as to
assaults by passengers and assaults by drivers. It is, indeed,
regrettable that the empirical data on a subject such as this are
sparse, but we need not ignore the data which do exist simply
because further refinement would be even more helpful. JUSTICE
STEVENS agrees that there is "a strong public interest in
minimizing" the number of assaults on law officers, ibid., and we believe that our holding today is more likely to accomplish
that result than would be the case if his views were to
prevail. 414 matter, the passengers are already stopped by virtue of the stop
of the vehicle. The only change in their circumstances which will
result from ordering them out of the car is that they will be
outside of, rather than inside of, the stopped car. Outside the
car, the passengers will be denied access to any possible weapon
that might be concealed in the interior of the passenger
compartment. It would seem that the possibility of a violent
encounter stems not from the ordinary reaction of a motorist
stopped for a speeding violation, but from the fact that evidence
of a more serious crime might be uncovered during the stop. And the
motivation of a passenger to employ violence to prevent
apprehension of such a crime is every bit as great as that of the
driver.

															We think that our opinion in Michigan v. Summers, 452 U. S. 692 (1981), offers guidance by analogy here. There the police had
obtained a search warrant for contraband thought to be located in a
residence, but when they arrived to execute the warrant they found
Summers coming down the front steps. The question in the case
depended "upon a determination whether the officers had the
authority to require him to re-enter the house and to remain there
while they conducted their search." Id., at 695. In holding
as it did, the Court said: "Although no special danger to the police is suggested by the
evidence in this record, the execution of a warrant to search for
narcotics is the kind of transaction that may give rise to sudden
violence or frantic efforts to conceal or destroy evidence. The
risk of harm to both the police and the occupants is minimized if
the officers routinely exercise unquestioned command of the
situation." Id., at 702-703 (footnote omitted). In summary, danger to an officer from a traffic stop is likely
to be greater when there are passengers in addition to the driver
in the stopped car. While there is not the same basis for ordering
the passengers out of the car as there is 415 for ordering the driver out, the additional intrusion on the
passenger is minimal. We therefore hold that an officer making a
traffic stop may order passengers to get out of the car pending
completion of the stop.3

															The judgment of the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland is
reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings not inconsistent
with this opinion.

															It is so ordered.

															JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom JUSTICE KENNEDY joins,
dissenting.

															In Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U. S. 106 (1977) (per curiam), the Court answered the "narrow question"
whether an "incremental intrusion" on the liberty of a person who
had been lawfully seized was reasonable. Id., at 109. This
case, in contrast, raises a separate and significant question
concerning the power of the State to make an initial seizure of
persons who are not even suspected of having violated the law.

															My concern is not with the ultimate disposition of this
particular case, but rather with the literally millions of other
cases that will be affected by the rule the Court announces. Though
the question is not before us, I am satisfied thatunder the
rationale of Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (1968)-if a
police officer conducting a traffic stop has an articulable
suspicion of possible danger, the officer may order passengers to
exit the vehicle as a defensive tactic without running afoul of the
Fourth Amendment. Accordingly, I assume that the facts recited in
the majority's opinion provided a valid justi-

															3 Maryland urges us to go further and hold that an officer may
forcibly detain a passenger for the entire duration of the stop.
But respondent was subjected to no detention based on the stopping
of the car once he had left it; his arrest was based on probable
cause to believe that he was guilty of possession of cocaine with
intent to distribute. The question which Maryland wishes answered,
therefore, is not presented by this case, and we express no opinion
upon it. 416 fication for this officer's order commanding the passengers to
get out of this vehicle. 1 But the Court's ruling goes much
further. It applies equally to traffic stops in which there is not
even a scintilla of evidence of any potential risk to the police
officer. In those cases, I firmly believe that the Fourth Amendment
prohibits routine and arbitrary seizures of obviously innocent
citizens.

															I

															The majority suggests that the personal liberty interest at
stake here, which is admittedly "stronger" than that at issue in
Mimms, is outweighed by the need to ensure officer safety. Ante, at 413, 414-415. The Court correctly observes that
"traffic stops may be dangerous encounters." Ante, at 413.
The magnitude of the danger to police officers is reflected in the
statistic that, in 1994 alone, "there were 5,762 officer assaults
and 11 officers killed during traffic pursuits and stops." Ibid. There is, unquestionably, a strong public interest in
minimizing the number of such assaults and fatalities. The Court's
statistics, however, provide no support for the conclusion that its
ruling will have any such effect.

															Those statistics do not tell us how many of the incidents
involved passengers. Assuming that many of the assaults were
committed by passengers, we do not know how many occurred after the
passenger got out of the vehicle, how many took place while the
passenger remained in the vehicle, or indeed, whether any of them
could have been prevented

															1 The Maryland Court of Special Appeals held, inter alia, that the State had not properly preserved this claim during the
suppression hearing. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 4a. The State
similarly fails to press the point here. Pet. for Cert. 4, n. 1;
Brief for Petitioner 4, n. 1. The issue is therefore not before us,
and I am not free to concur in the Court's judgment on this
alternative ground. See Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U. S. 320 ,
327 (1985); this Court's Rule 14.1(a). 417 by an order commanding the passengers to exit.2 There is no
indication that the number of assaults was smaller in jurisdictions
where officers may order passengers to exit the vehicle without any
suspicion than in jurisdictions where they were then prohibited
from doing so. Indeed, there is no indication that any of the
assaults occurred when there was a complete absence of any
articulable basis for concern about the officer's safety-the only
condition under which I would hold that the Fourth Amendment
prohibits an order commanding passengers to exit a vehicle. In
short, the statistics are as consistent with the hypothesis that
ordering passengers to get out of a vehicle increases the danger of
assault as with the hypothesis that it reduces that risk.

															Furthermore, any limited additional risk to police officers must
be weighed against the unnecessary invasion that will be imposed on
innocent citizens under the majority's rule in the tremendous
number of routine stops that occur each day. We have long
recognized that "[b]ecause of the extensive regulation of motor
vehicles and traffic ... the extent of police-citizen contact
involving automobiles will be substantially greater than
police-citizen contact in a home or office." Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U. S. 433 , 441
(1973).3 Most traffic

															2 I am assuming that in the typical case the officer would not
order passengers out of a vehicle until after he had stopped his
own car, exited, and arrived at a position where he could converse
with the driver. The only way to avoid all risk to the officer, I
suppose, would be to adopt a routine practice of always issuing an
order through an amplified speaker commanding everyone to get out
of the stopped car before the officer exposed himself to the
possibility of a shot from a hidden weapon. Given the predicate for
the Court's ruling-that an articulable basis for suspecting danger
to the officer provides insufficient protection against the
possibility of a surprise assault-we must assume that every
passenger, no matter how feeble or infirm, must be prepared to
accept the "petty indignity" of obeying an arbitrary and sometimes
demeaning command issued over a loud speaker.

															3 See also New York v. Class, 475 U. S. 106 , 113
(1986); South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U. S. 364 ,368 (1976);
cf. Whren v. United States, 517 U. S. 806 , 810, 818
(1996). 418 stops involve otherwise law-abiding citizens who have committed
minor traffic offenses. A strong interest in arriving at a
destination-to deliver a patient to a hospital, to witness a
kickoff, or to get to work on time-will often explain a traffic
violation without justifying it. In the aggregate, these stops
amount to significant law enforcement activity.

															Indeed, the number of stops in which an officer is actually at
risk is dwarfed by the far greater number of routine stops. If
Maryland's share of the national total is about average, the State
probably experiences about 100 officer assaults each year during
traffic stops and pursuits. Making the unlikely assumption that
passengers are responsible for onefourth of the total assaults, it
appears that the Court's new rule would provide a potential benefit
to Maryland officers in only roughly 25 stops a year.4 These stops
represent a minuscule portion of the total. In Maryland alone,
there are something on the order of one million traffic stops each
year.5 Assuming that there are passengers in about half of the cars
stopped, the majority's rule is of some possible advantage to
police in only about one out of every twenty thousand traffic stops
in which there is a passenger in the car. And, any benefit is
extremely marginal. In the overwhelming majority of cases posing a
real threat, the officer would almost

															4 This figure may in fact be smaller. The majority's data
aggregate assaults committed during "[t]raffic [p]ursuits and
[s]tops." Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports:
Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted 71 (1994). In those
assaults that occur during the pursuit of a moving vehicle, it
would obviously be impossible for an officer to order a passenger
out of the car.

															5 Maryland had well over one million nontort motor vehicle cases
during a I-year period between 1994 and 1995. Annual Report of the
Maryland Judiciary 80 (1994-1995). Though the State does not
maintain a count of the number of stops performed each year, this
figure is probably a fair rough proxy. The bulk of these cases
likely represent a traffic stop, and this total does not include
those stops in which the police officer simply gave the driver an
informal reprimand. I presume that these figures are representative
of present circumstances. 419 certainly have some ground to suspect danger that would justify
ordering passengers out of the car.

															In contrast, the potential daily burden on thousands of innocent
citizens is obvious. That burden may well be "minimal" in
individual cases. Ante, at 415. But countless citizens who
cherish individual liberty and are offended, embarrassed, and
sometimes provoked by arbitrary official commands may well consider
the burden to be significant.6 In all events, the aggregation of
thousands upon thousands of petty indignities has an impact on
freedom that I would characterize as substantial, and which in my
view clearly outweighs the evanescent safety concerns pressed by
the majority.

															II

															The Court concludes today that the balance of convenience and
danger that supported its holding in Mimms applies to
passengers of lawfully stopped cars as well as drivers. In Mimms itself, however, the Court emphasized the fact that
the intrusion into the driver's liberty at stake was "occasioned
not by the initial stop of the vehicle, which was admittedly
justified, but by the order to get out of the car." 434 U. S., at
111. The conclusion that "this additional intrusion can only be
described as de minimis" rested on the premise that the
"police have already lawfully decided that the driver shall be
briefly detained." Ibid. 7

															6 The number of cases in which the command actually protects the
officer from harm may well be a good deal smaller than the number
in which a passenger is harmed by exposure to inclement weather, as
well as the number in which an ill-advised command is improperly
enforced. Consider, for example, the harm caused to a passenger by
an inadequately trained officer after a command was issued to exit
the vehicle in Board of Comm'rs of Bryan Cty. v. Brown, 67 F.3d
1174 (CA5 1995), cert. granted, 517 U. S. 1154
(1996).

															7Dissenting in Mimms, I criticized the Court's reasoning
and, indeed, predicted the result that the majority reaches today.
434 U. S., at 122-123. 420 In this case as well, the intrusion on the passengers' liberty
occasioned by the initial stop of the vehicle is not challenged.
That intrusion was a necessary by-product of the lawful detention
of the driver. But the passengers had not yet been seized at the
time the car was pulled over, any more than a traffic jam caused by
construction or other stateimposed delay not directed at a
particular individual constitutes a seizure of that person. The
question is whether a passenger in a lawfully stopped car may be
seized, by an order to get out of the vehicle, without any evidence
whatsoever that he or she poses a threat to the officer or has
committed an offense.8

															To order passengers about during the course of a traffic stop,
insisting that they exit and remain outside the car, can hardly be
classified as a de minimis intrusion. The traffic violation
sufficiently justifies subjecting the driver to detention and some
police control for the time necessary to conclude the business of
the stop. The restraint on the liberty of blameless passengers that
the majority permits is, in contrast, entirely arbitrary. 9

															In my view, wholly innocent passengers in a taxi, bus, or
private car have a constitutionally protected right to decide
whether to remain comfortably seated within the vehicle rather than
exposing themselves to the elements and the observation of curious
bystanders. The Constitution should not be read to permit law
enforcement officers to order innocent passengers about simply
because they have the misfor-

															8 The order to the passenger is unquestionably a "seizure"
within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. As we held in United
States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873 , 878
(1975): "The Fourth Amendment applies to all seizures of the
person, including seizures that involve only a brief detention
short of traditional arrest. Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U. S. 721 (1969); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 , 16-19
(1968)."

															9 Cf. Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U. S. 85 , 91 (1979) ("
'[A] person's mere propinquity to others independently suspected of
criminal activity does not, without more, give rise to probable
cause to search that person'" (citing Sibron v. New
York, 392 U. S.
40 , 62-63 (1968))). 421 tune to be seated in a car whose driver has committed a minor
traffic offense.

															Unfortunately, the effect of the Court's new rule on the law may
turn out to be far more significant than its immediate impact on
individual liberty. Throughout most of our history the Fourth
Amendment embodied a general rule requiring that official searches
and seizures be authorized by a warrant, issued "upon probable
cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly
describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to
be seized." 10 During the prohibition era, the exceptions for
warrantless searches supported by probable cause started to replace
the general rule.ll In 1968, in the landmark "stop and frisk" case Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (1968), the
Court placed its stamp of approval on seizures supported by
specific and articulable facts that did not establish probable
cause. The Court crafted Terry as a narrow exception to the
general rule that "the police must, whenever practicable, obtain
advance judicial approval of searches and seizures through the
warrant procedure." Id., at 20. The intended scope of the
Court's major departure from prior practice was reflected in its
statement that the "demand for specificity in the information upon
which police action is predicated is the central teaching of this
Court's Fourth Amendment jurisprudence." Id., at 21, n. 18;
see also id., at 27. In the 1970's, the Court twice rejected
attempts to justify suspicionless seizures that caused only
"modest" intrusions on the liberty of passengers in automobiles. United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873 , 879-880
(1975); Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648 ,
662-663

															10 See, e. g., Amos v. United States, 255 U. S. 313 ,
315 (1921); Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383 , 393
(1914).

															11 See, e. g., Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132 ,
149 (1925) (automobile search). We had also recognized earlier in
dictum the now wellestablished doctrine permitting warrantless
searches incident to a valid arrest. See Weeks, 232 U. S.,
at 392; see also J. Landynski, Search and Seizure and the Supreme
Court 87 (1966). 422 (1979).12 Today, however, the Court takes the unprecedented step
of authorizing seizures that are unsupported by any individualized
suspicion whatsoever.

															The Court's conclusion seems to rest on the assumption that the
constitutional protection against "unreasonable" seizures requires
nothing more than a hypothetically rational basis for intrusions on
individual liberty. How far this ground-breaking decision will take
us, I do not venture to predict. I fear, however, that it may pose
a more serious threat to individual liberty than the Court
realizes.

															I respectfully dissent.

															JUSTICE KENNEDY, dissenting.

															I join in the dissent by JUSTICE STEVENS and add these few
observations.

															The distinguishing feature of our criminal justice system is its
insistence on principled, accountable decisionmaking in individual
cases. If a person is to be seized, a satisfactory explanation for
the invasive action ought to be established by an officer who
exercises reasoned judgment under all the circumstances of the
case. This principle can be accommodated even where officers must
make immediate decisions to ensure their own safety.

															Traffic stops, even for minor violations, can take upwards of 30
minutes. When an officer commands passengers innocent of any
violation to leave the vehicle and stand by the side of the road in
full view of the public, the seizure is serious, not trivial. As
JUSTICE STEVENS concludes, the command to exit ought not to be
given unless there are objective circumstances making it reasonable
for the officer to issue the order. (We do not have before us the
separate question whether passengers, who, after all, are in the
car by choice,

															12 Dissenting in Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648 (1979),
then-JusTIcE REHNQUIST characterized the motorist's interest in
freedom from random stops as "only the most diaphanous of citizen
interests." Id., at 666. 423 can be ordered to remain there for a reasonable time while the
police conduct their business.)

															The requisite showing for commanding passengers to exit need be
no more than the existence of any circumstance justifying the order
in the interests of the officer's safety or to facilitate a lawful
search or investigation. As we have acknowledged for decades,
special latitude is given to the police in effecting searches and
seizures involving vehicles and their occupants. See, e. g., Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U. S. 42 (1970); New
York v. Class, 475 U. S. 106 (1986); New York v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454 (1981).
Just last Term we adhered to a rule permitting vehicle stops if
there is some objective indication that a violation has been
committed, regardless of the officer's real motives. See Whren v. United States, 517 U. S. 806 (1996). We
could discern no other, workable rule. Even so, we insisted on a
reasoned explanation for the stop.

															The practical effect of our holding in Whren, of course,
is to allow the police to stop vehicles in almost countless
circumstances. When Whren is coupled with today's holding,
the Court puts tens of millions of passengers at risk of arbitrary
control by the police. If the command to exit were to become
commonplace, the Constitution would be diminished in a most public
way. As the standards suggested in dissent are adequate to protect
the safety of the police, we ought not to suffer so great a
loss.

															Since a myriad of circumstances will give a cautious officer
reasonable grounds for commanding passengers to leave the vehicle,
it might be thought the rule the Court adopts today will be little
different in its operation than the rule offered in dissent. It
does no disservice to police officers, however, to insist upon
exercise of reasoned judgment. Adherence to neutral principles is
the very premise of the rule of law the police themselves defend
with such courage and dedication.

															Most officers, it might be said, will exercise their new power
with discretion and restraint; and no doubt this often 424 will be the case. It might also be said that if some
jurisdictions use today's ruling to require passengers to exit as a
matter of routine in every stop, citizen complaints and political
intervention will call for an end to the practice. These arguments,
however, would miss the point. Liberty comes not from officials by
grace but from the Constitution by right.

															For these reasons, and with all respect for the opinion of the
Court, I dissent.