The Supreme Court of the United States issued a per curium opinion in April 2026 analyzing reasonable suspicion. There is no new or groundbreaking principle announced by the Court, but it is a great collection of prior caselaw principles consolidated in a very short opinion that is useful to prosecutors if they get a RAS challenge in a case.
The facts are as follows: An officer got a late night dispatch about a specific suspicious vehicle at 2:00 am that needed to be checked out. When officer arrived at the apartment complex he located the vehicle, and before turning on lights or even trying to approach the car, two passengers jumped out of the car and ran away from the scene. Directly after this the driver began to back up out of the parking stall with the rear door still open.
The DC Court of Appeals had ruled that the dispatch call and two people running from the car had no basis in the case, and said a person backing up out of a stall with a rear door open two feet was not reasonable suspicion. SCOTUS, rebuking the DC Court of Appeals for not following the principle of "the whole picture" under totality of the circumstances, overturned the case. SCOTUS held that the officer "clearly had reasonable suspicion."
Take a look at the opinion if you have a RAS challenge. It is very helpful and has many good statemetns for us to use from various cases over the years. You can find the entire opinion here: DC v RW.
