Texas v. Brown

The Court held the officer did not violate the Fourth Amendment in seizing the balloon. The “plain view” doctrine provides grounds for a warrantless seizure of a suspicious item when the officer’s access to the item has some prior justification under the Fourth Amendment. Here, the officer’s initial stop of the defendant’s vehicle was valid, and his actions in shining his flashlight into the car and changing his position to see what was inside did not violate any privacy rights. The “immediately apparent” requirement of the “plain view” doctrine does not mean that a police officer “know” that certain items are contraband or evidence of a crime. The officer must only have probable cause at the moment of seizure. Probable cause is a flexible, common sense standard, merely requiring that the facts available to the officer would warrant a person of reasonable caution to believe that certain items may be contraband or stolen property or useful as evidence of a crime. The officer had probable cause to believe that the balloon contained a controlled substance.