A routine Fourth Amendment case rarely sparks much attention, especially when the Supreme Court resolves it with a 7–2 majority. But this one carried a sharper edge, largely because of the tone of the dissent and the unusual lineup of justices. Justice Elena Kagan joined the conservative bloc, while Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson stood alone in dissent, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor declining to sign onto Jackson’s opinion.
The case centered on a police encounter in Washington, D.C., in the early hours of February 2023. Officer Clifford Vanterpool responded to a radio dispatch about a suspicious vehicle parked outside an apartment building. Around 2:00 a.m., he arrived at the location in a marked cruiser. What happened next became the crux of the legal dispute.
🚨 The Supreme Court, in a summary reversal, held that police had reasonable suspicion to stop a driver after passengers fled and he began backing away, faulting the lower court for a “divide-and-conquer” analysis of the facts.
Justice Jackson was the sole dissenter. pic.twitter.com/qeBATUM68U
— SCOTUS Wire (@scotus_wire) April 20, 2026
As Vanterpool pulled into the parking lot, two individuals abruptly fled from the vehicle. The officer had not issued commands or otherwise engaged them at that point. At least one car door remained open as they ran. Meanwhile, the driver began backing out of the parking space, with the rear door still ajar. Vanterpool moved in, parking behind the vehicle, exiting his cruiser, drawing his weapon, and ordering the driver to raise his hands.
The defendant, identified as “RW,” later faced multiple charges, including unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and possession of stolen property. He challenged the stop, arguing that the officer lacked reasonable suspicion under the Fourth Amendment. A lower court agreed, finding that the circumstances did not justify the seizure.
That conclusion did not hold. The Supreme Court reversed, effectively ruling that the combination of factors—the late hour, the reported suspicious vehicle, the sudden flight of two occupants, and the driver’s attempt to leave with doors open—met the threshold for reasonable suspicion. In practical terms, the majority treated the situation as a textbook example of when an officer can briefly detain someone to investigate.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has issued another sole stinging dissent. In a 7-2 decision (with liberal justice Elena Kagan joining the majority), the Court upheld the authority of police to make a stop based on the totality of the circumstances...
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) April 20, 2026
Jackson’s dissent took issue with how the majority characterized those facts. She accused the Court of “wordsmithing,” suggesting that the opinion reshaped the narrative to fit a legal conclusion rather than applying established standards to the situation as it unfolded. That phrasing drew attention outside the Court, including criticism from law professor Jonathan Turley, who argued that her use of the term missed the mark or overstated the majority’s approach.
...The stop that Jackson (and the DC Circuit) found to be unjustified occurred after a call over a suspicious vehicle at 2am. When they arrived, two people ran from the car and the remaining passenger slowly began backing out of the parking lot with a door still open...
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) April 20, 2026
The disagreement here is less about the legal framework—reasonable suspicion remains a well-established doctrine—and more about how specific facts are interpreted within it. For the majority, the sequence of events pointed clearly toward suspicion. For Jackson, the concern was that the Court adjusted its description of those events in a way that lowered the bar for police stops.
Even in a case without sweeping constitutional novelty, the divide illustrates how much hinges on framing. Slight differences in how a situation is described can determine whether a stop is deemed lawful or a violation, and that tension continues to surface, even in decisions that otherwise appear straightforward.