# United States v. Cortez > Supreme Court of the United States · January 21, 1981 · 449 U.S. 411 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9428132 ## Case - **Full name:** UNITED STATES v. CORTEZ Et Al. - **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States - **Decided:** January 21, 1981 - **Citations:** 449 U.S. 411; 49 U.S.L.W. 4099; 101 S. Ct. 690; 66 L. Ed. 2d 621; 1981 U.S. LEXIS 58 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Concurrence by Stewart - **Judges:** Burger, Brennán, White, Blackmun, Powell, Rehnquist, Stevens, Stewart, Marshall - **Cited by:** 5,290 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases. - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9428132 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - stating that although “objective facts, meaningless to the untrained, can be combined with permissible deductions from such facts to form a legitimate basis for suspicion of a particular person and for action on that suspicion[,]” reliance on special training cannot establish … - stating that the process of developing 10 reasonable suspicion sufficient to justify a brief investigatory stop “does not deal with 11 hard certainties, but with probabilities” developed from “common sense conclusions 12 about human behavior . . . as understood by those versed… - holding that, in determining what cause is suffi- cient to justify the stop, the court must take into account the “whole picture,” and “[biased upon that whole picture, the detaining officers must have a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person s… - stating that the process of developing reasonable suspicion sufficient to justify a brief investigatory stop “does not deal with hard certainties, but with probabilities” developed from “common sense conclusions about human behavior . . . as understood by those versed in the f… - explaining that “the process [of determining probable cause] does not deal with hard certainties, but with probabilities” and that law enforcement officers are permitted to “formulate[ ] certain common-sense conclusions about human behavior.” ## Opinion text Justice Stewart, concurring in the result. The Border Patrol officers in this case knew, or had rationally deduced, that “Chevron” had repeatedly shepherded illegal aliens up from the border; that his treks had commonly ended early in the morning around milepost 122 on Highway 86; that he usually worked on weekends; that he probably had made no trips for two weeks; and that trips were most likely when the weather was good. Knowing of this pattern, the officers could reasonably anticipate, even if they could not guarantee, the arrival of another group of aliens, led by Chevron, at milepost 122 on the first clear weekend night in late January 1977. Route 86 leads through almost uninhabited country, so little traveled in the hours of darkness that only 15 to 20 westbound vehicles passed the police during the five hours they watched that Sunday night. Only two vehicles capacious enough to carry a sizable group of illegal aliens went by. One of those two vehicles not only drove past them, but returned in the opposite direction after just enough time had elapsed for a journey to milepost 122 and back. This nocturnal round trip into “desolate desert terrain” would in any event have been puzzling. Coming when and as it did, surely the most likely explanation for it was that Chevron was again shepherding aliens. In sum, the Border Patrol officers had discovered an abundance of “specific articulable facts” which, “together with rational inferences from [them],” entirely warranted a “suspicion that the vehicl[e] contain [ed] aliens who [might] be illegally in the country.” United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, *423 422 U. S. 873, 884 . Because the information possessed by the officers thus met the requirements established by the Brignoni-Ponce case for the kind of stop made here, I concur in the reversal of the judgment of the Court of Appeals. --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9428132. Public record. Not legal advice.