United States v. Arvizu

United States v. Arvizu
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued November 27, 2001 Decided January 15, 2002
Full case name	United States of America v. Ralph Arvizu
Citations	534 U.S. 266 (more) 122 S. Ct. 744; 151 L. Ed. 2d 740
Case history
Prior	Defendant convicted in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona. Conviction reversed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, 232 F.3d 1241 (9th Cir. 2000). The Court granted certiorari, 532 U.S. 1065 (2001).
Holding
Under the totality of the circumstances, reasonable suspicion supported a border patrol agent's decision to stop a motorist traveling on an isolated road in a forested area of southern Arizona near the Mexican border, even if each of the reasons the officer gave for the stop, viewed in isolation, had an innocent explanation.
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy David Souter · Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer
Case opinions
Majority	Rehnquist, joined by unanimous
Concurrence	Scalia
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. IV

United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266 (2002), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously reaffirmed the proposition that the Fourth Amendment required courts to analyze the reasonableness of a traffic stop based on the totality of the circumstances instead of examining the plausibility of each reason an officer gives for stopping a motorist individually.