517 U.S. 806 (1996)
On the evening of June 10, 1993, plainclothes vice-squad officers of the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department were patrolling a high drug area of the city in an unmarked car.1 Their suspicions were aroused when they passed a dark Pathfinder truck with temporary license plates and youthful occupants waiting at a stop sign. The driver was looking down into the lap of the passenger at his right. The truck remained stopped at the intersection for more than 20 seconds.2
When the police car executed a U-turn to head back toward the truck, the Pathfinder turned suddenly to its right without signaling and sped off at an unreasonable speed.3 The policemen followed and overtook the Pathfinder when it stopped behind other traffic at a red light.4
Officer Ephraim Soto stepped out and approached the driver’s door, identifying himself as a police officer and directing the driver, petitioner Brown, to put the vehicle in park.5 When Soto drew up to the driver’s window, he immediately observed two large plastic bags of what appeared to be crack cocaine in petitioner Whren’s hands.6 Petitioners were arrested, and quantities of several types of illegal drugs were retrieved from the vehicle.7
Petitioners were charged in a four-count indictment with violating federal drug laws, including 21 U.S.C. §§ 844(a) and 860(a).8 At a pretrial suppression hearing, they challenged the legality of the stop and the resulting seizure of the drugs.9 They argued that the stop had not been justified by probable cause or reasonable suspicion of illegal drug-dealing activity and that Officer Soto’s asserted ground for approaching the vehicle was pretextual.10
The District Court denied the suppression motion.11 Petitioners were convicted of the counts at issue.12 The Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions.13 The Supreme Court granted certiorari.14
Whether the temporary detention of a motorist, who the police have probable cause to believe has committed a civil traffic violation, is inconsistent with the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable seizures unless a reasonable officer would have been motivated to stop the car by a desire to enforce the traffic laws?15
The Fourth Amendment permits the temporary detention of a motorist whenever police have probable cause to believe that a traffic violation has occurred.16 The constitutional reasonableness of such a stop does not turn on the actual motivations of the officers.17 Subjective intentions play no role in ordinary probable-cause Fourth Amendment analysis.18 Claims of selective enforcement based on race are governed by the Equal Protection Clause rather than the Fourth Amendment.19
Yes. The officers observed the Pathfinder turn without signaling and drive at an unreasonable speed, supplying probable cause to believe that civil traffic violations had occurred under District of Columbia regulations.20 That probable cause rendered the stop reasonable under the Fourth Amendment regardless of any additional investigative motives the officers may have possessed.21
The temporary detention was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment because the officers possessed probable cause to believe that traffic violations had occurred, the evidence discovered was therefore admissible, and the Court of Appeals correctly upheld the convictions.22