Traffic Stops: Reasonable Suspicion vs. “Hunch:”

• Traffic Stops
• Reasonable Suspicion vs. “Hunch"

Making a traffic stop on a vehicle based upon an officer’s knowledge that the owner’s driver’s license has been revoked is legal, even if it is unknown for sure who is driving the vehicle, at least in the absence other information that negates the inference that the driver of that vehicle is its registered owner.

Douglas County Deputy Sheriff Mark Mehrer, in the State of Kansas, observed a 1995 Chevrolet 1500 pickup truck with Kansas plates, being driven on the public streets.  Running a random radio check on the plates, Deputy Mehrer discovered that the vehicle was registered to a Charles Glover Jr. and that Mr. Glover’s driver’s license had been revoked.  Assuming that it was Mr. Glover (i.e., defendant) who was driving the vehicle, but without making any attempts to verify this assumption, Deputy Mehrer made a traffic stop.  No moving violations had been observed.  The sole reason for the stop was the fact that the vehicle’s owner had a revoked driver’s license.  As it turned out, it was in fact defendant/Glover who was driving.  Charged in state court with driving as a “habitual violator,” defendant filed ....