[1] A 6–3 decision reversed the weapons conviction of a Long Island man who had been detained when police followed his vehicle after he left his apartment just before it was to be searched.

On Thursday, July 28, 2005, officers of the Suffolk County, New York, police department obtained a warrant to search the basement apartment of a house for a .380-caliber handgun.

The warrant was obtained based on a tip by a confidential informant who told police officers that he had seen the gun on a previous weekend when purchasing drugs at the apartment from a man named "Polo."

In the ruling, three justifications were identified for detaining occupants while executing a search warrant: (1) the legitimate law enforcement interest in preventing flight in the event that incriminating evidence is found, (2) the interest in minimizing the risk of harm to the officers, and (3) the orderly completion of the search, which may be facilitated if the occupants of the premises are present.

This case presents the question whether the rule of Summers extends to the detention of a former occupant who has left the immediate vicinity of the premises before the warrant is executed.

Thus, unlike Summers, the detention adds more significantly to "the public stigma associated with the search" and involves both "the inconvenience" and "the indignity" of being transported by the police.

[4]He argues that this is one way in which the rule from Michigan v. Summers has been "extended well beyond what the Court's initial rationale should reasonably allow" and, as a result, has "put at risk the very liberty interests that it was designed to protect.

Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy agreed that the Michigan v. Summers ruling was broad enough to cover the pursuit and detention of a suspect who had left the scene.

Joined by Justices Ginsburg and Kagan, he however argued that once suspects leave the immediate vicinity, the scope and balancing tests of the Michigan v. Summers ruling should no longer apply because ordinary law enforcement interests would then take over: "The Summers exception is appropriately predicated only on law enforcement's interest in carrying out the search unimpeded by violence or other disruptions ...