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May 21, 2008
MA; Supreme Judicial Court allows use of statistical evidence of racial profiling
SJC allows use of statistical evidence of racial profiling
By DENISE LAVOIE Associated Press
05/21/2008
Daily Hampshire Gazette
BOSTON - Drivers who are stopped by police and suspect racial profiling can use statistical information to make their case, and if they prove it, evidence seized during the stop should be thrown out, the state's highest court ruled Tuesday.
The Supreme Judicial Court said that defendants can compare the racial composition of people stopped by police along a certain stretch of road with the racial composition of all the people who use the road.
If the statistics show "impermissible discrimination" based on race, then the burden shifts to prosecutors to show that the traffic stop was not motivated by race, the court ruled.
Defense attorneys hailed the ruling as an important step for minorities who have long believed they are stopped by police because of their skin color, not a traffic violation.
"The court is saying that if the real reason for the stop was race ... then that is selective enforcement (of the law), and you can't enforce traffic laws based on race," said Murray Kohn, a staff attorney for the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the state's public defender agency.
The ruling came in the case of Andres Lora, who was a passenger in a car that was stopped by state police on Interstate 290 in Auburn on Dec. 20, 2001.
The driver was not operating erratically, but had committed a traffic violation by driving in the left lane when there was no traffic in the center or right lanes.
After a state trooper stopped the car and returned to his cruiser to run a check on the driver, he saw Lora step out of the car. When he went to tell Lora to get back into the car, he saw a small bag on the driver's side floor containing cocaine.
Lora was charged with cocaine trafficking, but later filed a motion to throw out the cocaine as evidence, arguing that the traffic stop was unconstitutional because the trooper initiated the stop based on his dark skin.
Lora's lawyer introduced statistics showing the trooper had a history of disproportionately stopping and citing nonwhite motorists for motor vehicle violations. A Superior Court judge found that the statistical evidence created an "inference of purposeful discrimination," and agreed to suppress the cocaine found in the car.
The SJC overturned the lower court's ruling, finding that the statistical evidence presented by Lora wasn't enough to rebut the state's claim that the trooper had acted in good faith and without intending to discriminate. The court found that Lora's statistics - which compared the racial makeup of drivers who were stopped along a stretch of I-290 with the racial makeup of the town of Auburn - were unreliable and not accepted within the scientific community.
But the SJC concluded that legitimate statistical evidence demonstrating disparate treatment based on race can be offered by defendants.
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Posted by lois at May 21, 2008 08:34 AM