claim of right

Early in the morning of November 27, 2001, Deputy Sheriff Robert Brokenbrough and his partner saw a parked Buick with expired registration tags. In his ensuing conversation with the police dispatcher, Brokenbrough learned that an application for renewal of registration was being processed. The officers saw the car again on the road, and this time Brokenbrough noticed its display of a temporary operating permit with the number eleven, indicating it was legal to drive the car through November. The officers decided to pull the Buick over to verify that the permit matched the vehicle, even though there was nothing unusual about the permit or the way it was affixed. Brokenbrough asked the driver, Karen Simeroth, for her license and saw a passenger in the front seat, petitioner Bruce Brendlin, whom he recognized as one of the Brendlin brothers. He recalled that either Scott or Bruce Brendlin had dropped out of parole supervision and asked Brendlin to identify himself. Brokenbrough returned to his cruiser, called for backup, and verified that Brendlin was a parole violator with an outstanding no-bail warrant for his arrest. While he was in the patrol car, Brokenbrough saw Brendlin briefly open and then close the passenger door of the Buick. Once reinforcements arrived, Brokenbrough went to the passenger side of the Buick, ordered him out of the car at gunpoint, and declared him under arrest. When the police searched Brendlin incident to arrest, they found an orange syringe cap on his person. A patdown search of Simeroth revealed syringes and a plastic bag of a green leafy substance, and she was also formally arrested. Officers then searched the car and found tubing, a scale, and other things used to produce methamphetamine. Brendlin was charged with possession and manufacture of methamphetamine, and he moved to suppress the evidence obtained in the searches of his person and the car as fruits of an unconstitutional seizure, arguing that the officers lacked probable cause or reasonable suspicion to make the traffic stop. The trial court denied the suppression motion after finding that the stop was lawful and Brendlin was not seized until Brokenbrough ordered him out of the car and formally arrested him. Brendlin pleaded guilty, subject to appeal on the suppression issue, and was sentenced to four years in prison. The California Court of Appeal reversed the denial of the suppression motion, holding that Brendlin was seized by the traffic stop, which they held unlawful. By a narrow majority, the Supreme Court of California reversed.

The City of Chicago, acting under an 1872 Illinois statute that became part of its charter in 1875, passed an ordinance on October 9, 1880, to open and widen Rockwell Street from West 18th Street to West 19th Street by condemning parcels of land owned by individuals and parts of the right of way of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad Company within the city limits. On November 12, 1890, the city filed a petition in the Circuit Court of Cook County seeking condemnation of the property and asking that just compensation be ascertained by a jury, with the railroad company admitted as a defendant along with other interested parties. The jury awarded one dollar as just compensation to the railroad company for the parts of its right of way to be used for the street, while awarding compensation to individual owners for their parcels. The railroad moved for a new trial, which was overruled, and final judgment was entered in execution of the award. The judgment was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Illinois in 149 Illinois 457. After affirmance the railroad company sued out a writ of error to the United States Supreme Court. The railroad had raised claims under the Fourteenth Amendment in its motion for new trial and in its assignment of errors filed in the state supreme court. The Illinois statute provided no provision for an answer by defendants in condemnation proceedings, but the railroad asserted its federal claims in the written motion to set aside the verdict and grant a new trial.