346
Opinion of the Court
rule of constitutional law on the understanding that when historical practice fails to speak conclusively to a claim grounded on the Fourth Amendment, courts are left to strike a current balance between individual and societal interests by subjecting particular contemporary circumstances to traditional standards of reasonableness. See Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U. S. 295, 299-300 (1999); Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U. S. 646, 652-653 (1995). Atwater accordingly argues for a modern arrest rule, one not necessarily requiring violent breach of the peace, but nonetheless forbidding custodial arrest, even upon probable cause, when conviction could not ultimately carry any jail time and when the government shows no compelling need for immediate detention.15
If we were to derive a rule exclusively to address the un-contested facts of this case, Atwater might well prevail. She was a known and established resident of Lago Vista with no place to hide and no incentive to flee, and common sense says she would almost certainly have buckled up as a condition of driving off with a citation. In her case, the physical incidents of arrest were merely gratuitous humiliations imposed by a police officer who was (at best) exercising
be "reluctant . . . to conclude that the Fourth Amendment proscribes a practice that was accepted at the time of adoption of the Bill of Rights and has continued to receive the support of many state legislatures," Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U. S. 1, 26 (1985) (dissenting opinion), as the practice of making warrantless misdemeanor arrests surely was and has, see supra, at 337-345. Because here the dissent "claim[s] that [a] practic[e] accepted when the Fourth Amendment was adopted [is] now constitutionally impermissible," the dissent bears the "heavy burden" of justifying a departure from the historical understanding. 471 U. S., at 26.
15 Although it is unclear from Atwater's briefs whether the rule she proposes would bar custodial arrests for fine-only offenses even when made pursuant to a warrant, at oral argument Atwater's counsel "concede[d] that if a warrant were obtained, this arrest . . . would . . . be reasonable." Tr. of Oral Arg. 5.
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