U.S. Supreme Court Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S.

648 (1979)
2. Except where there is at least articulable and reasonable suspicion that a motorist is unlicensed or that an automobile is not registered, or that either the vehicle or an occupant is otherwise subject to seizure for violation of law, stopping an automobile and detaining the driver in order to check his driver's license and the registration of the automobile are unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Pp. 440 U. S. 653-663. (a) Stopping an automobile and detaining its occupants constitute a "seizure" within the meaning of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, even though the purpose of the stop is limited and the resulting detention quite brief. The permissibility of a particular law enforcement practice is judged by balancing its intrusion on the individual's Fourth Amendment interests against its promotion of legitimate governmental interests. Pp. 440 U. S. 653-655.

U.S. Supreme Court Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47 (1979)

The application of the Texas statute to detain appellant and require him to identify himself violated the Fourth Amendment because the officers lacked any reasonable suspicion to believe that appellant was engaged or had engaged in criminal conduct. Detaining appellant to require him to identify himself constituted a seizure of his person subject to the requirement of the Fourth Amendment that the seizure be "reasonable." Cf. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1; United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873. The Fourth Amendment requires that such a seizure be based on specific, objective facts indicating that society's legitimate interests require such action, or that the seizure be carried out pursuant to a plan embodying explicit, neutral limitations on the conduct of individual officers. Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648.

U.S. Supreme Court Terry v. US, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968)
Terry v. Ohio, supra, reaffirmed the settled principles that "a search which is reasonable at its inception may violate the Fourth Amendment by virtue of its intolerable intensity and scope" and that the "scope of the search must be 'strictly tied to and justified by' the circumstances which rendered its initiation permissible." (392 U.S. at pp. 17-19 [20 L.Ed.2d at pp 903-404].)