Recent Supreme Court case. Kansas vs Glover. Basically SC ruled 8-1 that an officer running a plate and finding the owner is suspended is sufficient RS to make a stop to determine if the registered owner is the driver.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-556_e1pf.pdf

Sovereign citizens are crying

One factor not mentioned is Kansas suspends licenses only rarely when the driver has pretty much proven to be a complete jackass and scofflaw.  This sort of stop might not fly in other states that suspend licenses more quickly.  A nice summary and analysis here:

https://reason.com/2020/04/07/commonsense-suspicion-thoughts-on-kansas-v-glover/

Interesting article in that the author doesn’t really say much of anything.

His current position: Orin S. Kerr is a Professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.  

That should have been enough for me but I dug a little deeper and went to his Twitter account. Big time liberal.

To your point.....I think it’s valid. The state courts can choose not to accept this as a valid reason for a stop or interpret it very strictly. Clearly from the legal decision, it’s not a broad “yes you can always stop a vehicle if the registered owner is suspended”. It’s still somewhat limited in scope. Interestingly, those who have darkly tinted windows have just made this stop much more easy to justify.

I'm split on this...….I would say its absolutely responsible suspicion to pull over a vehicle when the ALPR hits on a suspended license.


I'm trying to get my head around ALPR being ruled constitutional, as it just reads plates everywhere, it doesn't provide a justification to read them in the first place.



My IANAL opinion is if they had just cause to run the plate, and it hits on a suspended license then its a good stop, even if the behavior wasn't necessarily illegal it was just an indicator illegal behavior was going on.

KY has been operating this way for a while now.  If a registered owner shows a warrant it's reasonable suspicion to make the stop UNLESS you know the driver is not the registered owner.  If you aren't sure or just don't know, the stop is good.

Good lord that website.  

The plate number and associated info is public information, no justification needed.

It's libertarian so there's something for everyone to hate.

Fair enough I suppose.

LPRs don’t run plates. They log plate numbers and hit on stolen/missing person entries (in the case of the LE side) and repo entries (on the commercial side). For example...let’s say you have plate number 123ABC out of Kansas. Maine issues the same plate number of 123ABC. The Maine plate is on a stolen vehicle. You drive by an LPR in your Kansas 123ABC plated vehicle. The LPR will hit on your plate as a stolen plate and it’s up to the officer to verify the plate on your car is the stolen one or not the stolen one.

Most people don't have a clue how the LPR system actually works.

LE doesn’t need a reason to run a plate. The only thing they can’t do is to run a plate for personal reasons. Simply running plates on vehicles during the normal course of patrol work is totally fine and no reason is required beyond normal police patrol duties.

Some states link the drivers driving status to the plate entry. Most do not so for those that do not, the officer would have to run the plate and then search the name of the owner and run that person. (Good luck if the owner’s name is John Smith)

Good decision. Reaping this president’s appointments.

Ah yes, the Kansas Supreme Court of freaking idiots

Overturn by the big boys (and lady’s)so often you wonder what they get paid fork

I don’t think they can compare to the 9th Circuit in overturned decisions. I seem to recall reading somewhere that the 9th Circuit is the most overturned court in the US. They might be trying to compete though!

Damn road pirates, harassing innocent boat captains.

Doesn't sound like it will make much difference except to give more solid legal backing to what was already happening.