What is Probable Cause, and Why Should We Care?: The Costs, Benefits, and Meaning of Individualized Suspicion

Taslitz defines probable cause as having four components: one quantitative, one qualitative, one temporal, and one moral. He focuses on the last of these components. "Individualized suspicion," the US Supreme Court has suggested, is perhaps the most important of the four components of probable cause. That is a position with which he heartily agree.

The other three components each play only a supporting role. But individualized suspicion is the beating heart that gives probable cause its vitality.