Arkansas v. Sullivan, 532 U.S. 769, 4 (2001) (per curiam)

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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 analysis." 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 constitutional 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 activity 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 inconsistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Justice Ginsburg, with whom Justice Stevens, Justice O'Connor, and Justice Breyer join, concurring.

The Arkansas Supreme Court was moved by a concern rooted in the Fourth Amendment. Validating Kenneth Sullivan's arrest, the Arkansas court feared, would accord police officers disturbing discretion to intrude on individuals' lib-

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