The court today handed down decisions in 3 more cases, including Powerex v. Reliant Energy- a case that I blogged about here (and a little here). The court has further put off the highly anticpated school cases as well as the Bong Hits 4 Jesus case. Interesting. The court is expected to release one or more opinions on Thursday, so we’ll see what happens then.

The ruling in PowerEx came down on technicalities, and those are never fun. The ruling in Brendlin v. California, on the other hand, presents an interesting situation. Brendlin was a passenger in a car that was pulled over for a questionable registration tag. The officer noticed that Brendlin was in violation of his parole, arrested him, and found drug paraphernalia in the car after a search. The lower courts held that Brendling was not subject to seizure until he was actually arrested by the officer and Brendlin claims that he was subject to constitutional protections on unlawful seizure as soon as the car was pulled over (the same protection that drivers receive.) The court held, 9-0, that passengers are subject to seizure because “a reasonable person would have believed he was not free to leave.”

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