U. S. Supreme Court sides with car passengers.

The United States Supreme Court has ruled UNANIMOUSLY in an opinion delivered by Justice David Souter, Brendlin v. California, 551 U. S. 1 (2007), that when a police officer stops a vehicle, its passengers are seized for Fourth Amendment purposes just like the driver. As such, a passenger can exercise his/her constitutional right to challenge the legality of the stop.

The Court has always ruled that drivers have the constitutional right, but it has NEVER ruled, until now, that passengers also have that same right.