Written by Gregory Monte.
If you think that police officers should be upheld as paragons of the law, you may not like the results of a recent study by Stanford University:
“The largest-ever study of alleged racial profiling during traffic stops has found that blacks, who are pulled over more frequently than whites by day, are much less likely to be stopped after sunset, when ‘a veil of darkness’ masks their race.”
This was no piddling study either. It spanned 5 years and analyzed 95 million traffic stops. Here are some of the things that it discovered:
- “when drivers were pulled over, officers searched the cars of blacks and Hispanics more often than whites.”
- In two states that have legalized marijuana: “… while this change resulted in fewer searches overall, and thus fewer searches of blacks and Hispanics, minorities were still more likely than whites to have their cars searched after a pull-over.”
So, racial bias appears to exist when it comes to traffic stops.
I think I will file this story away with related stories about how cops routinely lie on the witness stand. If you want to check out some of those stories, the links are below:
Cops Would Never Lie in Court … Right?
“Testilying” – How Cops Routinely Lie in the Courtroom
Your Traffic Ticket Testimony is Trivial and Trifling in a Trial.
Free Resources
The Basic Speeding Ticket Defense
This is a 9 page review of the most basic way to beat a speeding ticket – even if you actually were speeding. This particular strategy will almost always work, but it does depend on one aspect of the circumstances surrounding your ticket. For the strategy to be effective, there must be an issue with the speed limit signs, themselves. It’s all about the need of states/localities to comply with their “Obedience to Traffic Control Devices” statutes.
Click to Download the Free “Basic Speeding Ticket Defense”
Applying the Traffic Ticket Defense Method to Challenge a Citation.
This is a seven-page, detailed explanation of my three-step method for challenging any traffic ticket. I use the “Driving at a Safe Speed” statute from Pennsylvania to illustrate this method, but it can be applied to any other statute that you might be cited for in the vehicle code.
In addition, no matter what state you live in, the procedure is the same: you need to understand the statute you allegedly violated, look for technicalities in that statute and (most importantly) find case law to support/reveal those technicalities.
Click to Download the Free “Applying the Traffic Ticket Defense Method to Challenge a Citation”
The Pennsylvania Stop Sign Defense Strategy in a Nutshell.
This is a one-page, eight-point summary of the strategy I discovered while researching ways of beating unfair stop sign tickets. It is specifically geared to Pennsylvania but can also be applied to most other states.
Click to Download the Free “Pennsylvania Stop Sign Defense Strategy in a Nutshell”
My Son’s Opening Trial Statement at the Court of Common Pleas.
This is an elegant, one-page, powerfully concise expression of my defense strategy.
The Brief – My Son’s Case Brief for the Court of Common Pleas
- An eighteen-page argument for why an illegal stop sign is not enforceable.
- Requested by the President Judge at Wayne County, PA, Court of Common Pleas.
- A highly distilled application of the Pennsylvania Stop Sign Ticket Defense.
Traffic Ticket Defense Blog 