BRENDLIN v. CALIFORNIA

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Syllabus
BRENDLIN v. CALIFORNIA
certiorari to the supreme court of california
No. 06–8120. Argued April 23, 2007—Decided June 18, 2007
After officers stopped a car to check its registration without reason to
believe it was being operated unlawfully, one of them recognized peti
tioner Brendlin, a passenger in the car. Upon verifying that Brendlin
was a parole violator, the officers formally arrested him and searched
him, the driver, and the car, finding, among other things, methamphet
amine paraphernalia. Charged with possession and manufacture of
that substance, Brendlin moved to suppress the evidence obtained in
searching his person and the car, arguing that the officers lacked proba
ble cause or reasonable suspicion to make the traffic stop, which was an
unconstitutional seizure of his person. The trial court denied the mo
tion, but the California Court of Appeal reversed, holding that Brendlin
was seized by the traffic stop, which was unlawful. Reversing, the
State Supreme Court held that suppression was unwarranted because
a passenger is not seized as a constitutional matter absent additional
circumstances that would indicate to a reasonable person that he was
the subject of the officer’s investigation or show of authority.
Held: When police make a traffic stop, a passenger in the car, like the
driver, is seized for Fourth Amendment purposes and so may challenge
the stop’s constitutionality. Pp. 254–263.
(a) A person is seized and thus entitled to challenge the government’s
action when officers, by physical force or a show of authority, terminate
or restrain the person’s freedom of movement through means intention
ally applied. Florida v. Bostick, 501 U. S. 429, 434; Brower v. County
of Inyo, 489 U. S. 593, 597. There is no seizure without that person’s
actual submission. See, e. g., California v. Hodari D., 499 U. S. 621,
626, n. 2. When police actions do not show an unambiguous intent to
restrain or when an individual’s submission takes the form of passive
acquiescence, the test for telling when a seizure occurs is whether, in
light of all the surrounding circumstances, a reasonable person would
have believed he was not free to leave. E. g., United States v. Menden
hall, 446 U. S. 544, 554 (principal opinion). But when a person “has no
desire to leave” for reasons unrelated to the police presence, the “coer
cive effect of the encounter” can be measured better by asking whether
“a reasonable person would feel free to decline the officers’ requests
or otherwise terminate the encounter.” Bostick, supra, at 435–436.
Pp. 254–256.

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Syllabus
(b) Brendlin was seized because no reasonable person in his position
when the car was stopped would have believed himself free to “termi
nate the encounter” between the police and himself. Bostick, supra, at
436. Any reasonable passenger would have understood the officers to
be exercising control to the point that no one in the car was free to
depart without police permission. A traffic stop necessarily curtails a
passenger’s travel just as much as it halts the driver, diverting both
from the stream of traffic to the side of the road, and the police activity
that normally amounts to intrusion on “privacy and personal security”
does not normally (and did not here) distinguish between passenger and
driver. United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S. 543, 554. An offi
cer who orders a particular car to pull over acts with an implicit claim
of right based on fault of some sort, and a sensible person would not
expect the officer to allow people to come and go freely from the physical
focal point of an investigation into faulty behavior or wrongdoing. If
the likely wrongdoing is not the driving, the passenger will reasonably
feel subject to suspicion owing to close association; but even when the
wrongdoing is only bad driving, the passenger will expect to be subject
to some scrutiny, and his attempt to leave would be so obviously likely
to prompt an objection from the officer that no passenger would feel
free to leave in the first place. It is also reasonable for passengers
to expect that an officer at the scene of a crime, arrest, or investiga
tion will not let people move around in ways that could jeopardize his
safety. See, e. g., Maryland v. Wilson, 519 U. S. 408, 414–415. The
Court’s conclusion comports with the views of all nine Federal Courts
of Appeals, and nearly every state court, to have ruled on the question.
Pp. 256–259.
(c) The State Supreme Court’s contrary conclusion reflects three
premises with which this Court respectfully disagrees. First, the view
that the police only intended to investigate the car’s driver and did not
direct a show of authority toward Brendlin impermissibly shifts the
issue from the intent of the police as objectively manifested to the mo
tive of the police for taking the intentional action to stop the car.
Applying the objective Mendenhall test resolves any ambiguity by
showing that a reasonable passenger would understand that he was sub
ject to the police display of authority. Second, the state court’s assump
tion that Brendlin, as the passenger, had no ability to submit to the
police show of authority because only the driver was in control of the
moving car is unavailing. Brendlin had no effective way to signal sub
mission while the car was moving, but once it came to a stop he could,
and apparently did, submit by staying inside. Third, there is no basis
for the state court’s fear that adopting the rule this Court applies would
encompass even those motorists whose movement has been impeded due

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to the traffic stop of another car. An occupant of a car who knows he
is stuck in traffic because another car has been pulled over by police
would not perceive the show of authority as directed at him or his car.
Pp. 259–263.
(d) The state courts are left to consider in the first instance whether
suppression turns on any other issue. P. 263.
38 Cal. 4th 1107, 136 P. 3d 845, vacated and remanded.
Souter, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
Elizabeth M. Campbell, by appointment of the Court, 549
U. S. 1263, argued the cause for petitioner. With her on the
briefs were Jeffrey T. Green, Richard A. Kaplan, and Sarah
O’Rourke Schrup.
Clifford E. Zall, Deputy Attorney General of California,
argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief
were Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Manuel M.
Medeiros, State Solicitor General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief
Assistant Attorney General, Michael P. Farrell, Senior As
sistant Attorney General, Donald E. de Nicola, Deputy
State Solicitor, Michael A. Canzoneri, Supervising Deputy
Attorney General, and Doris A. Calandra, Deputy Attor
ney General.*
Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court.
When a police officer makes a traffic stop, the driver of the
car is seized within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.
The question in this case is whether the same is true of a
passenger. We hold that a passenger is seized as well and
so may challenge the constitutionality of the stop.
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the American
Civil Liberties Union et al. by Steven R. Shapiro, Reginald T. Shuford,
Dennis D. Parker, Susan N. Herman, Dennis Courtland Hayes, and Ken
neth Kimerling; and for the National Association of Criminal Defense
Lawyers et al. by Jonathan E. Nuechterlein, Sambhav Sankar, Pamela
Harris, and Frances H. Pratt.
Kym L. Worthy and Timothy A. Baughman filed a brief of amicus cu
riae for Wayne County, Michigan, urging affirmance.

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I
Early in the morning of November 27, 2001, Deputy Sher
iff Robert Brokenbrough and his partner saw a parked Buick
with expired registration tags. In his ensuing conversation
with the police dispatcher, Brokenbrough learned that an ap
plication for renewal of registration was being processed.
The officers saw the car again on the road, and this time
Brokenbrough noticed its display of a temporary operating
permit with the number “11,” indicating it was legal to drive
the car through November. App. 115. The officers decided
to pull the Buick over to verify that the permit matched the
vehicle, even though, as Brokenbrough admitted later, there
was nothing unusual about the permit or the way it was af
fixed. Brokenbrough asked the driver, Karen Simeroth, for
her license and saw a passenger in the front seat, petitioner
Bruce Brendlin, whom he recognized as “one of the Brendlin
brothers.” Id., at 65. He recalled that either Scott or
Bruce Brendlin had dropped out of parole supervision and
asked Brendlin to identify himself.1 Brokenbrough re
turned to his cruiser, called for backup, and verified that
Brendlin was a parole violator with an outstanding no-bail
warrant for his arrest. While he was in the patrol car,
Brokenbrough saw Brendlin briefly open and then close the
passenger door of the Buick. Once reinforcements arrived,
Brokenbrough went to the passenger side of the Buick, or
dered him out of the car at gunpoint, and declared him under
arrest. When the police searched Brendlin incident to ar
rest, they found an orange syringe cap on his person. A
patdown search of Simeroth revealed syringes and a plastic
bag of a green leafy substance, and she was also formally
arrested. Officers then searched the car and found tubing,
a scale, and other things used to produce methamphetamine.
1 The parties dispute the accuracy of the transcript of the suppression
hearing and disagree as to whether Brendlin gave his name or the false
name “Bruce Brown.” App. 115.

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Brendlin was charged with possession and manufacture of
methamphetamine, and he moved to suppress the evidence
obtained in the searches of his person and the car as fruits of
an unconstitutional seizure, arguing that the officers lacked
probable cause or reasonable suspicion to make the traffic
stop. He did not assert that his Fourth Amendment rights
were violated by the search of Simeroth’s vehicle, cf. Rakas
v. Illinois, 439 U. S. 128 (1978), but claimed only that the
traffic stop was an unlawful seizure of his person. The trial
court denied the suppression motion after finding that the
stop was lawful and Brendlin was not seized until Broken
brough ordered him out of the car and formally arrested him.
Brendlin pleaded guilty, subject to appeal on the suppression
issue, and was sentenced to four years in prison.
The California Court of Appeal reversed the denial of the
suppression motion, holding that Brendlin was seized by the
traffic stop, which the court held unlawful. 8 Cal. Rptr. 3d
882 (2004) (officially depublished). By a narrow majority,
the Supreme Court of California reversed. The State Su
preme Court noted California’s concession that the officers
had no reasonable basis to suspect unlawful operation of the
car, 38 Cal. 4th 1107, 1114, 136 P. 3d 845, 848 (2006),2 but still
held suppression unwarranted because a passenger “is not
seized as a constitutional matter in the absence of additional
circumstances that would indicate to a reasonable person
that he or she was the subject of the peace officer’s investiga
tion or show of authority,” id., at 1111, 136 P. 3d, at 846.
The court reasoned that Brendlin was not seized by the traf
fic stop because Simeroth was its exclusive target, id., at
1118, 136 P. 3d, at 851, that a passenger cannot submit to an
officer’s show of authority while the driver controls the car,
2 California conceded that the police officers lacked reasonable suspicion
to justify the traffic stop because a “ ‘vehicle with an application for re
newal of expired registration would be expected to have a temporary oper
ating permit.’ ” 38 Cal. 4th, at 1114, 136 P. 3d, at 848 (quoting Brief for
Respondent California in No. S123133 (Sup. Ct. Cal.), p. 24).

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id., at 1118–1119, 136 P. 3d, at 851–852, and that once a car
has been pulled off the road, a passenger “would feel free to
depart or otherwise to conduct his or her affairs as though
the police were not present,” id., at 1119, 136 P. 3d, at 852.
In dissent, Justice Corrigan said that a traffic stop entails
the seizure of a passenger even when the driver is the sole
target of police investigation because a passenger is detained
for the purpose of ensuring an officer’s safety and would not
feel free to leave the car without the officer’s permission.
Id., at 1125, 136 P. 3d, at 856.
We granted certiorari to decide whether a traffic stop sub
jects a passenger, as well as the driver, to Fourth Amend
ment seizure, 549 U. S. 1177 (2007). We now vacate.
II
A
A person is seized by the police and thus entitled to chal
lenge the government’s action under the Fourth Amendment
when the officer, “ ‘by means of physical force or show of
authority,’ ” terminates or restrains his freedom of move
ment, Florida v. Bostick, 501 U. S. 429, 434 (1991) (quoting
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 19, n. 16 (1968)), “through means
intentionally applied,” Brower v. County of Inyo, 489 U. S.
593, 597 (1989) (emphasis in original). Thus, an “unintended
person . . . [may be] the object of the detention,” so long as
the detention is “willful” and not merely the consequence of
“an unknowing act.” Id., at 596; cf. County of Sacramento
v. Lewis, 523 U. S. 833, 844 (1998) (no seizure where a police
officer accidentally struck and killed a motorcycle passenger
during a high-speed pursuit). A police officer may make a
seizure by a show of authority and without the use of physi
cal force, but there is no seizure without actual submission;
otherwise, there is at most an attempted seizure, so far as
the Fourth Amendment is concerned. See California v.
Hodari D., 499 U. S. 621, 626, n. 2 (1991); Lewis, supra, at
844, 845, n. 7.

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When the actions of the police do not show an unambigu
ous intent to restrain or when an individual’s submission to
a show of governmental authority takes the form of passive
acquiescence, there needs to be some test for telling when a
seizure occurs in response to authority, and when it does not.
The test was devised by Justice Stewart in United States v.
Mendenhall, 446 U. S. 544 (1980), who wrote that a seizure
occurs if “in view of all of the circumstances surrounding the
incident, a reasonable person would have believed that he
was not free to leave,” id., at 554 (principal opinion). Later
on, the Court adopted Justice Stewart’s touchstone, see, e. g.,
Hodari D., supra, at 627; Michigan v. Chesternut, 486 U. S.
567, 573 (1988); INS v. Delgado, 466 U. S. 210, 215 (1984), but
added that when a person “has no desire to leave” for rea
sons unrelated to the police presence, the “coercive effect of
the encounter” can be measured better by asking whether
“a reasonable person would feel free to decline the officers’
requests or otherwise terminate the encounter,” Bostick,
supra, at 435–436; see also United States v. Drayton, 536
U. S. 194, 202 (2002).
The law is settled that in Fourth Amendment terms a traf
fic stop entails a seizure of the driver “even though the pur
pose of the stop is limited and the resulting detention quite
brief.” Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648, 653 (1979); see
also Whren v. United States, 517 U. S. 806, 809–810 (1996).
And although we have not, until today, squarely answered
the question whether a passenger is also seized, we have said
over and over in dicta that during a traffic stop an officer
seizes everyone in the vehicle, not just the driver. See, e. g.,
Prouse, supra, at 653 (“[S]topping an automobile and detain
ing its occupants constitute a ‘seizure’ within the meaning
of [the Fourth and Fourteenth] Amendments”); Colorado v.
Bannister, 449 U. S. 1, 4, n. 3 (1980) (per curiam) (“There
can be no question that the stopping of a vehicle and the
detention of its occupants constitute a ‘seizure’ within the
meaning of the Fourth Amendment”); Berkemer v. McCarty,

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468 U. S. 420, 436–437 (1984) (“[W]e have long acknowledged
that stopping an automobile and detaining its occupants
constitute a seizure” (internal quotation marks omitted));
United States v. Hensley, 469 U. S. 221, 226 (1985) (“[S]top
ping a car and detaining its occupants constitute a seizure”);
Whren, supra, at 809–810 (“Temporary detention of individu
als 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 meaning of [the Fourth
Amendment]”).
We have come closest to the question here in two cases
dealing with unlawful seizure of a passenger, and neither
time did we indicate any distinction between driver and pas
senger that would affect the Fourth Amendment analysis.
Delaware v. Prouse considered grounds for stopping a car
on the road and held that Prouse’s suppression motion was
properly granted. We spoke of the arresting officer’s testi
mony that Prouse was in the back seat when the car was
pulled over, see 440 U. S., at 650, n. 1, described Prouse as
an occupant, not as the driver, and referred to the car’s “oc
cupants” as being seized, id., at 653. Justification for stop
ping a car was the issue again in Whren v. United States,
where we passed upon a Fourth Amendment challenge by
two petitioners who moved to suppress drug evidence found
during the course of a traffic stop. See 517 U. S., at 809.
Both driver and passenger claimed to have been seized ille
gally when the police stopped the car; we agreed and held
suppression unwarranted only because the stop rested on
probable cause. Id., at 809–810, 819.
B
The State concedes that the police had no adequate justi
fication to pull the car over, see n. 2, supra, but argues that
the passenger was not seized and thus cannot claim that the
evidence was tainted by an unconstitutional stop. We re
solve this question by asking whether a reasonable person

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in Brendlin’s position when the car stopped would have be
lieved himself free to “terminate the encounter” between the
police and himself. Bostick, 501 U. S., at 436. 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.
A traffic stop necessarily curtails the travel a passenger
has chosen just as much as it halts the driver, diverting both
from the stream of traffic to the side of the road, and the
police activity that normally amounts to intrusion on “pri
vacy and personal security” does not normally (and did not
here) distinguish between passenger and driver. United
States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S. 543, 554 (1976). An of
ficer who orders one particular car to pull over acts with an
implicit claim of right based on fault of some sort, and a
sensible person would not expect a police officer to allow
people to come and go freely from the physical focal point of
an investigation into faulty behavior or wrongdoing. If the
likely wrongdoing is not the driving, the passenger will rea
sonably feel subject to suspicion owing to close association;
but even when the wrongdoing is only bad driving, the pas
senger will expect to be subject to some scrutiny, and his
attempt to leave the scene would be so obviously likely to
prompt an objection from the officer that no passenger would
feel free to leave in the first place. Cf. Drayton, supra, at
197–199, 203–204 (finding no seizure when police officers
boarded a stationary bus and asked passengers for permis
sion to search for drugs).3
3 Of course, police may also stop a car solely to investigate a passenger’s
conduct. See, e. g., United States v. Rodriguez-Diaz, 161 F. Supp. 2d 627,
629, n. 1 (Md. 2001) (passenger’s violation of local seatbelt law); People v.
Roth, 85 P. 3d 571, 573 (Colo. App. 2003) (passenger’s violation of littering
ordinance). Accordingly, a passenger cannot assume, merely from the fact
of a traffic stop, that the driver’s conduct is the cause of the stop.

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It is also reasonable for passengers to expect that a police
officer at the scene of a crime, arrest, or investigation will
not let people move around in ways that could jeopardize his
safety. In Maryland v. Wilson, 519 U. S. 408 (1997), we held
that during a lawful traffic stop an officer may order a pas
senger out of the car as a precautionary measure, without
reasonable suspicion that the passenger poses a safety risk.
Id., at 414–415; cf. Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U. S. 106
(1977) (per curiam) (driver may be ordered out of the car as
a matter of course). In fashioning this rule, we invoked our
earlier statement that “ ‘[t]he risk of harm to both the police
and the occupants is minimized if the officers routinely ex
ercise unquestioned command of the situation.’ ” Wilson,
supra, at 414 (quoting Michigan v. Summers, 452 U. S. 692,
702–703 (1981)). What we have said in these opinions prob
ably reflects a societal expectation of “ ‘unquestioned [police]
command’ ” at odds with any notion that a passenger would
feel free to leave, or to terminate the personal encounter
any other way, without advance permission. Wilson, supra,
at 414.4
Our conclusion comports with the views of all nine Federal
Courts of Appeals, and nearly every state court, to have
ruled on the question. See United States v. Kimball, 25
F. 3d 1, 5 (CA1 1994); United States v. Mosley, 454 F. 3d 249,
253 (CA3 2006); United States v. Rusher, 966 F. 2d 868, 874,
n. 4 (CA4 1992); United States v. Grant, 349 F. 3d 192, 196
(CA5 2003); United States v. Perez, 440 F. 3d 363, 369 (CA6
2006); United States v. Powell, 929 F. 2d 1190, 1195 (CA7
1991); United States v. Ameling, 328 F. 3d 443, 446–447, n. 3
(CA8 2003); United States v. Twilley, 222 F. 3d 1092, 1095
4 Although the State Supreme Court inferred from Brendlin’s decision
to open and close the passenger door during the traffic stop that he was
“awar[e] of the available options,” 38 Cal. 4th 1107, 1120, 136 P. 3d 845,
852 (2006), this conduct could equally be taken to indicate that Brendlin
felt compelled to remain inside the car. In any event, the test is not what
Brendlin felt but what a reasonable passenger would have understood.

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(CA9 2000); United States v. Eylicio-Montoya, 70 F. 3d 1158,
1163–1164 (CA10 1995); State v. Bowers, 334 Ark. 447, 451–
452, 976 S. W. 2d 379, 381–382 (1998); State v. Haworth, 106
Idaho 405, 405–406, 679 P. 2d 1123, 1123–1124 (1984); People
v. Bunch, 207 Ill. 2d 7, 13, 796 N. E. 2d 1024, 1029 (2003);
State v. Eis, 348 N. W. 2d 224, 226 (Iowa 1984); State v.
Hodges, 252 Kan. 989, 1002–1005, 851 P. 2d 352, 361–362
(1993); State v. Carter, 69 Ohio St. 3d 57, 63, 630 N. E. 2d
355, 360 (1994) (per curiam); State v. Harris, 206 Wis. 2d
243, 253–258, 557 N. W. 2d 245, 249–251 (1996). And the
treatise writers share this prevailing judicial view that a pas
senger may bring a Fourth Amendment challenge to the le
gality of a traffic stop. See, e. g., 6 W. LaFave, Search and
Seizure § 11.3(e), pp. 194, 195, and n. 277 (4th ed. 2004 and
Supp. 2007) (“If either the stopping of the car, the length
of the passenger’s detention thereafter, or the passenger’s
removal from it are unreasonable in a Fourth Amendment
sense, then surely the passenger has standing to object to
those constitutional violations and to have suppressed any
evidence found in the car which is their fruit” (footnote omit
ted)); 1 W. Ringel, Searches & Seizures, Arrests and Confes
sions § 11:20, p. 11–98 (2d ed. 2007) (“[A] law enforcement
officer’s stop of an automobile results in a seizure of both the
driver and the passenger”).5
C
The contrary conclusion drawn by the Supreme Court of
California, that seizure came only with formal arrest, reflects
three premises as to which we respectfully disagree. First,
the State Supreme Court reasoned that Brendlin was not
seized by the stop because Deputy Sheriff Brokenbrough
only intended to investigate Simeroth and did not direct a
5 Only two State Supreme Courts, other than California’s, have stood
against this tide of authority. See People v. Jackson, 39 P. 3d 1174, 1184–
1186 (Colo. 2002) (en banc); State v. Mendez, 137 Wash. 2d 208, 222–223,
970 P. 2d 722, 729 (1999).

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show of authority toward Brendlin. The court saw Broken
brough’s “flashing lights [as] directed at the driver,” and
pointed to the lack of record evidence that Brokenbrough
“was even aware [Brendlin] was in the car prior to the vehi
cle stop.” 38 Cal. 4th, at 1118, 136 P. 3d, at 851. But that
view of the facts ignores the objective Mendenhall test of
what a reasonable passenger would understand. To the ex
tent that there is anything ambiguous in the show of force
(was it fairly seen as directed only at the driver or at the car
and its occupants?), the test resolves the ambiguity, and here
it leads to the intuitive conclusion that all the occupants were
subject to like control by the successful display of authority.
The State Supreme Court’s approach, on the contrary, shifts
the issue from the intent of the police as objectively mani
fested to the motive of the police for taking the intentional
action to stop the car, and we have repeatedly rejected at
tempts to introduce this kind of subjectivity into Fourth
Amendment analysis. See, e. g., Whren, 517 U. S., at 813
(“Subjective intentions play no role in ordinary, probable
cause Fourth Amendment analysis”); Chesternut, 486 U. S.,
at 575, n. 7 (“[T]he subjective intent of the officers is relevant
to an assessment of the Fourth Amendment implications of
police conduct only to the extent that that intent has been
conveyed to the person confronted”); Mendenhall, 446 U. S.,
at 554, n. 6 (principal opinion) (disregarding a Government
agent’s subjective intent to detain Mendenhall); cf. Rakas,
439 U. S., at 132–135 (rejecting the “target theory” of Fourth
Amendment standing, which would have allowed “any crimi
nal defendant at whom a search was directed” to chal
lenge the legality of the search (internal quotation marks
omitted)).
California defends the State Supreme Court’s ruling on
this point by citing our cases holding that seizure requires a
purposeful, deliberate act of detention. See Brief for Re
spondent 9–14. But Chesternut, supra, answers that argu
ment. The intent that counts under the Fourth Amendment

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is the “intent [that] has been conveyed to the person con
fronted,” id., at 575, n. 7, and the criterion of willful restric
tion on freedom of movement is no invitation to look to sub
jective intent when determining who is seized. Our most
recent cases are in accord on this point. In Lewis, 523 U. S.
833, we considered whether a seizure occurred when an offi
cer accidentally ran over a passenger who had fallen off a
motorcycle during a high-speed chase, and in holding that no
seizure took place, we stressed that the officer stopped
Lewis’s movement by accidentally crashing into him, not
“through means intentionally applied.” Id., at 844 (empha
sis deleted; internal quotation marks omitted). We did not
even consider, let alone emphasize, the possibility that the
officer had meant to detain the driver only and not the pas
senger. Nor is Brower, 489 U. S. 593, to the contrary, where
it was dispositive that “Brower was meant to be stopped by
the physical obstacle of the roadblock—and that he was so
stopped.” Id., at 599. California reads this language to
suggest that for a specific occupant of the car to be seized he
must be the motivating target of an officer’s show of author
ity, see Brief for Respondent 12, as if the thrust of our obser
vation were that Brower, and not someone else, was “meant
to be stopped.” But our point was not that Brower alone
was the target but that officers detained him “through
means intentionally applied”; if the car had had another occu
pant, it would have made sense to hold that he too had been
seized when the car collided with the roadblock. Neither
case, then, is at odds with our holding that the issue is
whether a reasonable passenger would have perceived that
the show of authority was at least partly directed at him,
and that he was thus not free to ignore the police presence
and go about his business.
Second, the Supreme Court of California assumed that
Brendlin, “as the passenger, had no ability to submit to the
deputy’s show of authority” because only the driver was in
control of the moving vehicle. 38 Cal. 4th, at 1118, 1119, 136

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262 BRENDLIN v. CALIFORNIA
Opinion of the Court
P. 3d, at 852. But what may amount to submission depends
on what a person was doing before the show of authority: a
fleeing man is not seized until he is physically overpowered,
but one sitting in a chair may submit to authority by not
getting up to run away. Here, Brendlin had no effective
way to signal submission while the car was still moving on
the roadway, but once it came to a stop he could, and appar
ently did, submit by staying inside.
Third, the State Supreme Court shied away from the rule
we apply today for fear that it “would encompass even those
motorists following the vehicle subject to the traffic stop
who, by virtue of the original detention, are forced to slow
down and perhaps even come to a halt in order to accommo
date that vehicle’s submission to police authority.” Id., at
1120, 136 P. 3d, at 853. But an occupant of a car who knows
that he is stuck in traffic because another car has been pulled
over (like the motorist who cannot even make out why the
road is suddenly clogged) would not perceive a show of au
thority as directed at him or his car. Such incidental re
strictions on freedom of movement would not tend to affect
an individual’s “sense of security and privacy in traveling in
an automobile.” Prouse, 440 U. S., at 662. Nor would the
consequential blockage call for a precautionary rule to avoid
the kind of “arbitrary and oppressive interference by [law]
enforcement officials with the privacy and personal security
of individuals” that the Fourth Amendment was intended to
limit. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S., at 554.6
6 California claims that, under today’s rule, “all taxi cab and bus passen
gers would be ‘seized’ under the Fourth Amendment when the cab or bus
driver is pulled over by the police for running a red light.” Brief for
Respondent 23. But the relationship between driver and passenger is not
the same in a common carrier as it is in a private vehicle, and the expecta
tions of police officers and passengers differ accordingly. In those cases,
as here, the crucial question would be whether a reasonable person in
the passenger’s position would feel free to take steps to terminate the
encounter.

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263 Cite as: 551 U. S. 249 (2007)
Opinion of the Court
Indeed, the consequence to worry about would not flow
from our conclusion, but from the rule that almost all courts
have rejected. Holding that the passenger in a private car
is not (without more) seized in a traffic stop would invite
police officers to stop cars with passengers regardless of
probable cause or reasonable suspicion of anything illegal.7
The fact that evidence uncovered as a result of an arbitrary
traffic stop would still be admissible against any passengers
would be a powerful incentive to run the kind of “roving
patrols” that would still violate the driver’s Fourth Amend
ment right. See, e. g., Almeida-Sanchez v. United States,
413 U. S. 266, 273 (1973) (stop and search by Border Patrol
agents without a warrant or probable cause violated the
Fourth Amendment); Prouse, supra, at 663 (police spot check
of driver’s license and registration without reasonable suspi
cion violated the Fourth Amendment).
* * *
Brendlin was seized from the moment Simeroth’s car came
to a halt on the side of the road, and it was error to deny his
suppression motion on the ground that seizure occurred only
at the formal arrest. It will be for the state courts to con
sider in the first instance whether suppression turns on any
other issue. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Califor
nia is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceed
ings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
7 Compare Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648, 663 (1979) (requiring “at
least articulable and reasonable suspicion” to support random, investiga
tive traffic stops), and United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873,
880–884 (1975) (same), with Whren v. United States, 517 U. S. 806, 810
(1996) (“[T]he decision to stop an automobile is reasonable where the police
have probable cause to believe that a traffic violation has occurred”), and
Atwater v. Lago Vista, 532 U. S. 318, 354 (2001) (“If an officer has probable
cause to believe that an individual has committed even a very minor crimi
nal offense in his presence, he may, without violating the Fourth Amend
ment, arrest the offender”).