208
Souter, J., dissenting
we to say, after holding that Brown's consent was voluntary, that Drayton's consent was ineffectual simply because the police at that point had more compelling grounds to detain him. After taking Brown into custody, the officers were entitled to continue to proceed on the basis of consent and to ask for Drayton's cooperation.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Souter, with whom Justice Stevens and Justice Ginsburg join, dissenting.
Anyone who travels by air today submits to searches of the person and luggage as a condition of boarding the aircraft. It is universally accepted that such intrusions are necessary to hedge against risks that, nowadays, even small children understand. The commonplace precautions of air travel have not, thus far, been justified for ground transportation, however, and no such conditions have been placed on passengers getting on trains or buses. There is therefore an air of unreality about the Court's explanation that bus passengers consent to searches of their luggage to "enhanc[e] their own safety and the safety of those around them." Ante, at 205. Nor are the other factual assessments underlying the Court's conclusion in favor of the Government more convincing.
The issue we took to review is whether the police's examination of the bus passengers, including respondents, amounted to a suspicionless seizure under the Fourth Amendment.1 If it did, any consent to search was plainly
1 The Court proceeds to resolve the voluntariness issue on the heels of its seizure enquiry, but the voluntariness of respondents' consent was not within the question the Court accepted for review. Accord, Reply Brief for United States 20, n. 7 (stating that the consent issue "is not presented by this case; the question here is whether there was an illegal seizure
Page: Index Previous 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007