The NAACP filed an amicus in support of petitioner’s argument that a passenger, like the driver, is seized for Fourth Amendment purposes when police make a traffic stop. The NAACP joined the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Northern California and the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund on the brief.
On June 18, 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Brendlin that a passenger in a vehicle subject to a traffic stop is "detained" for purposes of the Fourth Amendment, thus allowing the passenger to contest the legality of the traffic stop (and, importantly, to have evidence against him suppressed as the fruit of the unlawful stop). The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the California Supreme Court and remanded the case.
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