ARKANSAS v. SULLIVAN

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769 OCTOBER TERM, 2000
Per Curiam
ARKANSAS v. SULLIVAN
on petition for writ of certiorari to the
supreme court of arkansas
No. 00–262. Decided May 29, 2001
When the Arkansas police officer who stopped respondent Sullivan for
speeding and improper window tinting remembered intelligence on
Sullivan regarding narcotics, he arrested Sullivan for traffic violations
and carrying a weapon and, during an inventory search of the vehicle,
discovered a bag of drugs and drug-related materials. Sullivan was
charged with, inter alia, various state-law drug offenses. The trial
court granted Sullivan’s motion to suppress the evidence seized from his
vehicle on the basis that his arrest was a pretext to search him and
therefore violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. After af-
firming, the Arkansas Supreme Court denied the State’s rehearing peti-
tion, rejecting the State’s argument that the court took into account the
officer’s subjective motivation in disregard of Whren v. United States,
517 U. S. 806, and holding that, even if Whren precludes inquiry into an
arresting officer’s subjective motivation, that court could interpret the
United States Constitution more broadly than this Court.
Held: The State Supreme Court’s decision on rehearing is flatly contrary
to this Court’s controlling precedent. Its decision that the drug-related
evidence should be suppressed because the police officer had an im-
proper subjective motivation for making the stop cannot be squared
with this Court’s holding in Whren, supra, at 813, that “[s]ubjective
intentions play no role in ordinary, probable-cause Fourth Amendment
analysis.” The State Supreme Court’s alternative holding, that it may
interpret the Federal Constitution to provide greater protection than
this Court’s own precedents provide, is foreclosed by Oregon v. Hass,
420 U. S. 714.
Certiorari granted; 340 Ark. 315, 11 S. W. 3d 526, and 340 Ark. 318–A,
16 S. W. 3d 551, reversed and remanded.
Per Curiam.
In November 1998, Officer Joe Taylor of the Conway,
Arkansas, Police Department stopped respondent Sullivan
for speeding and for having an improperly tinted wind-
shield. Taylor approached Sullivan’s vehicle, explained the
reason for the stop, and requested Sullivan’s license, regis-

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770 ARKANSAS v. SULLIVAN
Per Curiam
tration, and insurance documentation. Upon seeing Sulli-
van’s license, Taylor realized that he was aware of “ ‘intelli-
gence on [Sullivan] regarding narcotics.’ ” 340 Ark. 318–A,
318–B, 16 S. W. 3d 551, 552 (2000). When Sullivan opened
his car door in an (unsuccessful) attempt to locate his regis-
tration and insurance papers, Taylor noticed a rusted roofing
hatchet on the car’s floorboard. Taylor then arrested Sulli-
van for speeding, driving without his registration and insur-
ance documentation, carrying a weapon (the roofing hatchet),
and improper window tinting.
After another officer arrived and placed Sullivan in his
squad car, Officer Taylor conducted an inventory search of
Sullivan’s vehicle pursuant to the Conway Police Depart-
ment’s Vehicle Inventory Policy. Under the vehicle’s arm-
rest, Taylor discovered a bag containing a substance that
appeared to him to be methamphetamine as well as nu-
merous items of suspected drug paraphernalia. As a result
of the detention and search, Sullivan was charged with vari-
ous state-law drug offenses, unlawful possession of a weapon,
and speeding.
Sullivan moved to suppress the evidence seized from his
vehicle on the basis that his arrest was merely a “pretext
and sham to search” him and, therefore, violated the Fourth
and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Consti-
tution. Pet. for Cert. 3. The trial court granted the sup-
pression motion and, on the State’s interlocutory appeal,
the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed. 340 Ark. 315, 11
S. W. 3d 526 (2000). The State petitioned for rehearing,
contending that the court had erred by taking into ac-
count Officer Taylor’s subjective motivation, in disregard
of this Court’s opinion in Whren v. United States, 517 U. S.
806 (1996). Over the dissent of three justices, the court re-
jected the State’s argument that Whren makes “the ulterior
motives of police officers . . . irrelevant so long as there is
probable cause for the traffic stop” and denied the State’s
rehearing petition. 340 Ark., at 318–B, 16 S. W. 3d, at
552.

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771 Cite as: 532 U. S. 769 (2001)
Per Curiam
The Arkansas Supreme Court declined to follow Whren on
the ground that “much of it is dicta.” 340 Ark., at 318–B,
16 S. W. 3d, at 552. The court reiterated the trial judge’s
conclusion that “the arrest was pretextual and made for the
purpose of searching Sullivan’s vehicle for evidence of a
crime,” and observed that “we do not believe that Whren
disallows” suppression on such a basis. Id., at 318–C, 16
S. W. 3d, at 552. Finally, the court asserted that, even if it
were to conclude that Whren precludes inquiry into an ar-
resting officer’s subjective motivation, “there is nothing that
prevents this court from interpreting the U. S. Constitution
more broadly than the United States Supreme Court, which
has the effect of providing more rights.” 340 Ark., at
318–C, 16 S. W. 3d, at 552.
Because the Arkansas Supreme Court’s decision on re-
hearing is flatly contrary to this Court’s controlling prece-
dent, we grant the State’s petition for a writ of certiorari and
reverse.* As an initial matter, we note that the Arkansas
Supreme Court never questioned Officer Taylor’s authority
to arrest Sullivan for a fine-only traffic violation (speeding),
and rightly so. See Atwater v. Lago Vista, ante, p. 318.
Rather, the court affirmed the trial judge’s suppression of
the drug-related evidence on the theory that Officer Taylor’s
arrest of Sullivan, although supported by probable cause,
nonetheless violated the Fourth Amendment because Taylor
had an improper subjective motivation for making the stop.
The Arkansas Supreme Court’s holding to that effect cannot
be squared with our decision in Whren, in which we noted
our “unwilling[ness] to entertain Fourth Amendment chal-
lenges based on the actual motivations of individual officers,”
*Sullivan’s motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis is granted.
We have jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1257 notwithstanding the ab-
sence of final judgment in the underlying prosecution. See New York v.
Quarles, 467 U. S. 649, 651, n. 1 (1984) (“[S]hould the State convict re-
spondent at trial, its claim that certain evidence was wrongfully sup-
pressed will be moot. Should respondent be acquitted at trial, the State
will be precluded from pressing its federal claim again on appeal”).

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772 ARKANSAS v. SULLIVAN
Ginsburg, J., concurring
and held unanimously that “[s]ubjective intentions play no
role in ordinary, probable-cause Fourth Amendment analy-
sis.” 517 U. S., at 813. That Whren involved a traffic stop,
rather than a custodial arrest, is of no particular moment;
indeed, Whren itself relied on United States v. Robinson, 414
U. S. 218 (1973), for the proposition that “a traffic-violation
arrest . . . [will] not be rendered invalid by the fact that
it was ‘a mere pretext for a narcotics search.’ ” 517 U. S.,
at 812–813.
The Arkansas Supreme Court’s alternative holding, that
it may interpret the United States Constitution to provide
greater protection than this Court’s own federal constitu-
tional precedents provide, is foreclosed by Oregon v. Hass,
420 U. S. 714 (1975). There, we observed that the Oregon
Supreme Court’s statement that it could “ ‘interpret the
Fourth Amendment more restrictively than interpreted by
the United States Supreme Court’ ” was “not the law and
surely must be an inadvertent error.” Id., at 719, n. 4. We
reiterated in Hass that while “a State is free as a matter
of its own law to impose greater restrictions on police ac-
tivity than those this Court holds to be necessary upon
federal constitutional standards,” it “may not impose such
greater restrictions as a matter of federal constitutional law
when this Court specifically refrains from imposing them.”
Id., at 719.
The judgment of the Arkansas Supreme Court is reversed,
and the case is remanded for further proceedings not incon-
sistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Ginsburg, with whom Justice Stevens, Jus-
tice O’Connor, and Justice Breyer join, concurring.
The Arkansas Supreme Court was moved by a concern
rooted in the Fourth Amendment. Validating Kenneth Sul-
livan’s arrest, the Arkansas court feared, would accord police
officers disturbing discretion to intrude on individuals’ lib-

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773 Cite as: 532 U. S. 769 (2001)
Ginsburg, J., concurring
erty and privacy. See 340 Ark. 318–A, 318–B, 16 S. W. 3d
551, 552 (2000) (expressing unwillingness “to sanction con-
duct where a police officer can trail a targeted vehicle with
a driver merely suspected of criminal activity, wait for the
driver to exceed the speed limit by one mile per hour, arrest
the driver for speeding, and conduct a full-blown inventory
search of the vehicle with impunity”). But this Court has
held that such exercises of official discretion are unlimited by
the Fourth Amendment. See Atwater v. Lago Vista, ante,
p. 318; Whren v. United States, 517 U. S. 806 (1996). Given
the Court’s current case law, I join the Court’s opinion.
In Atwater, which recognized no constitutional limitation
on arrest for a fine-only misdemeanor offense, this Court re-
lied in part on a perceived “dearth of horribles demanding
redress.” Ante, at 353. Although I joined a dissenting
opinion questioning the relevance of the Court’s conclusion
on that score, see ante, at 372 (opinion of O’Connor, J.),
I hope the Court’s perception proves correct. But if it does
not, if experience demonstrates “anything like an epidemic
of unnecessary minor-offense arrests,” ante, at 353 (opinion
of the Court), I hope the Court will reconsider its recent
precedent. See Vasquez v. Hillery, 474 U. S. 254, 266 (1986)
(observing that Court has departed from stare decisis when
necessary “to bring its opinions into agreement with ex-
perience and with facts newly ascertained”) (quoting Burnet
v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co., 285 U. S. 393, 412 (1932) (Bran-
deis, J., dissenting)).