• Joined by: Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Antonin Scalia, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and Justice Elena Kagan

Writing for the Court, Justice Anthony Kennedy held that the categorical authority of law enforcement to detain occupants incident to the execution of a search warrant under Michigan v. Summers (1981) “is limited to the immediate vicinity of the premises to be searched.” Kennedy emphasized that Fourth Amendment seizures are reasonable only if supported by probable cause, noting that while Summers created a narrow categorical exception permitting officers to detain the occupants of the premises while a search is conducted, this authority exists only because it involved a slight intrusion on personal liberty against a substantial underlying justification for law enforcement. Kennedy asserted that because an exception granting detention authority without individualized suspicion is a significant departure from standard Fourth Amendment rules, “it must be circumscribed.” He explained that once an occupant departs beyond the immediate vicinity, the search-related law enforcement justifications diminish while the intrusiveness of the seizure increases, requiring officers to justify the detention under standard Fourth Amendment principles, such as reasonable suspicion under Terry v. Ohio (1968) or probable cause for an arrest.

Reviewing the three law enforcement interests recognized in Summers (officer safety, facilitating the completion of the search, and preventing flight), Kennedy found that none justify expanding detention authority beyond the immediate vicinity. Regarding officer safety, Kennedy explained that a departing occupant who has left the scene “posed little risk to the officers at the scene,” and extending detention authority to remote locations “would reach beyond the rationale of ensuring the integrity of the search by detaining those who are in fact on the scene.” Moving to the facilitation the search, Kennedy noted that while on-site occupants might distract officers or, conversely, assist by opening locked doors, this interest “would have no limiting principle were it to be applied to persons beyond the premises of the search.” Lastly, on the issue of preventing flight, Kennedy clarified that this interest serves “to preserve the integrity of the search by controlling those persons who are on the scene,” while an unbounded flight justification “might be used to argue for detention... of any regular occupant regardless of his or her location at the time of the search.” On the intrusion side, Kennedy emphasized that detaining a resident at home involves only an “incremental intrusion,” but a public detention away from the premises “will resemble a full-fledged arrest” and involves the additional “indignity of a compelled transfer back to the premises.” In light of this, Kennedy established that a spatial constraint defined by immediate vicinity is required and directed lower courts in closer cases to evaluate factors such as “the lawful limits of the premises, whether the occupant was within the line of sight of his dwelling, the ease of reentry from the occupant’s location, and other relevant factors.”

Applying this to Bailey’s case, Kennedy found that the police conducted an unconstitutional seizure by detaining Bailey nearly a mile away from the search location. Kennedy highlighted that the detectives observed Bailey leave his apartment, tailed his car for approximately one mile, pulled him over in a fire station parking lot, subjected him to a public patdown, placed him in handcuffs, seized his keys, and forcibly transported him back to the apartment in a patrol car. Noting these facts, Kennedy explained that because Bailey was stopped “at a point beyond any reasonable understanding of immediate vicinity,” Summers couldn’t justify his detention. Ultimately, Kennedy concluded that Bailey’s detention was unconstitutional as a detention incident to the execution of a search warrant but left open the question of whether the stop was lawful under Terry v. Ohio.