Supreme Court Reverses Ruling on Police Stop in 7-2 Decision

The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 on Monday to reverse a lower court decision that had found a Washington, D.C., police officer improperly stopped a man in a vehicle. The high court’s unsigned opinion emphasized that officers can rely on the "totality of the circumstances" to justify reasonable suspicion for stops or arrests. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the lone dissenter, argued the court overstepped by intervening in a routine factual evaluation by the lower court. Justice Sonia Sotomayor also dissented but declined to join Jackson’s opinion, isolating Jackson even among liberal justices. The case stemmed from a 2 a.m. 2023 police dispatch call reporting a suspicious vehicle. When officers arrived, two people fled the car while the remaining passenger slowly backed out with a door open. The D.C. attorney general’s office defended the stop as justified by the combined circumstances.