Racially Biased Pretextual Traffic Stops

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Racially Biased Pretextual Traffic Stops

The interviews excerpted here show that racially biased pretextual traffic stops have a
strong and immediate impact on the individual African-American drivers involved. These
stops are not the minor inconveniences they might seem to those who are not subjected to
them. Rather, they are experiences that can wound the soul and cause psychological scar
tissue to form. And the statistics show that these experiences are not simply disconnected
anecdotes or exaggerated versions of personal experiences, but rather established and
persistent patterns of law enforcement conduct. It may be that these stops do not spring
from racism on the part of individual officers, or even from the official policies of the
police departments for which they work. Nevertheless, the statistics leave little doubt
that, whatever the source of this conduct by police, it has a disparate and degrading
impact on blacks.
But racial profiling is important not only because of the damage it does, but also because
of the connections between stops of minority drivers and other, larger issues of criminal
justice and race. Put another way, driving while black reflects, illustrates, and
aggravates some of the most important problems we face today when we debate issues
involving race, the police, the courts, punishment, crime control, criminal justice, and
constitutional law.
A. The Impact on the Innocent
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches
and seizures, and specifies some of the requirements to be met in order to procure a
warrant for a search. Since 1961--and earlier in the federal court system--the Supreme
Court has required the exclusion of any evidence obtained through an unconstitutional
search or seizure. From its inception, the exclusionary rule has inspired spirited
criticism. Cardozo himself said that the criminal is to go free because the constable has
blundered, capturing the idea that the bad guy, caught red handed, gets a tremendous
windfall when he escapes punishment because of a mistake in the police officer's
behavior. We need not even go all the way back to Cardozo to hear the argument that the
exclusion of evidence protects--and rewards--only the guilty.
The justification advanced for the exclusionary rule is that while the guilty may receive
the most direct benefit when a court suppresses evidence because of a constitutional
violation, the innocent--all the rest of us--are also better of...

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