Court Says Passengers Have Rights When Car Is Stopped By Police

Monday, June 18th 2007, 10:52 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Passengers, like drivers, have a constitutional right to challenge the legality of police decisions to stop cars in which they are traveling, the Supreme Court said Monday.

Bruce Brendlin was convicted of drug possession after a sheriff's deputy stopped a car in which he was a passenger in Yuba City, Calif., in 2001.

Brendlin was wanted for a parole violation, although the deputy who ordered the car to pull over didn't know beforehand that Brendlin was in the vehicle.

Brendlin appealed his conviction, arguing that the drug evidence should be suppressed because it was found as the result of an illegal stop. The state has since conceded there was no basis to stop the car.

But California also argued that Brendlin's conviction should stand because only the driver was covered by the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. The state said drivers, not passengers, are the focus of traffic stops.

Justice David Souter, writing for a unanimous court, disagreed. ``We think that in these circumstances, any reasonable passenger would have understood the police officers to be exercising control to the point that no one in the car was free to depart without police permission,'' Souter said. ``A traffic stop necessarily curtails the travel a passenger has chosen just as much as it halts the driver.''

The American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP backed Brendlin, arguing that a ruling in the state's favor would encourage police to conduct arbitrary traffic stops to target passengers, especially minorities, who lack the same rights as drivers.

Souter underscored their concern. ``Holding that the passenger in a private car is not...seized in a traffic stop would invite police officers to stop cars with passengers regardless of probable cause or reasonable suspicion of anything illegal,'' he said.

Most state and federal courts already permit challenges by passengers. California, Colorado and Washington state do not.

Brendlin's case is complicated by the existence of an outstanding arrest warrant against him, which the state said would have justified a search even if passengers can challenge traffic stops. The Supreme Court ordered California courts to sort out whether his conviction, and four-year prison term, may be sustained on other grounds.

The case is Brendlin v. California, 06-8120.