Legislation and Litigation

United States v. Armstrong

Citation: 517 U.S. 456 (Supreme Court 1996)

Parties: United States, Christopher Lee Armstrong, Robert Rozelle, Aaron Hampton, Freddie Mack, Shelton Auntwan Martin

Posture: affirmed granting of discovery on selective enforcement claim

Facts and Holding: The African-American defendants, who were indicted on crack-related charges, moved for discovery on their selective prosecution claim. The Court cited the need to defer to the prosecutor’s decisionmaking process as chief among reasons why this defendant, who was challenging the racial disparity in crack cocaine sentencing, hadn’t met the rigorous standard required to earn discovery on his Equal Protection claim. “Clear evidence” must be presented to show that the officers acted with discriminatory intent and achieved discriminatory impact. Moreover, the statistical evidence offered by Armstrong (both national statistics of disparities and statistics taken from crack prosecutions in the same federal district) was not, in the Court’s opinion, nearly strong enough to establish the similarly situated requirement for discriminatory impact let alone (the tacit inference seems to be) to warrant an inference of discriminatory intent.

United States v. Brignoni-Ponce

Citation: 422 U.S. 873 (Supreme Court 1975)

Parties: United States, Felix Humberto Brignoni-Ponce

Claims / Causes of Action: 4th Am.

Posture: affirmed conviction

Facts and Holding: Hispanic motorists were stopped and questioned by border agents at checkpoint because of their apparent Mexican ancestry. Defendant was arrested and convicted of transporting aliens, and raised the 4th Amendment issue on appeal. The Supreme Court affirmed the 9th Circuit's reversal of his conviction, holding that the 4th Amendment did not allow border agents to go on roving patrol and stop vehicles near the border to question occupants about citizenship when the sole basis for stop was ethnicity. The requirement of reasonable suspicion is waived only at the border and its functional equivalents.

Other: Interesting language: "Large numbers of native-born and naturalized citizens have the physical characteristics identified with Mexican ancestry, and even in the border area a relatively small proportion of them are aliens. The likelihood that any given person of Mexican ancestry is an alien is high enough to make Mexican appearance a relevant factor, but standing alone it does not justify stopping all Mexican-Americans to ask if they are aliens." 886-87

United States v. Martinez-Fuerte (consolidated cases)

Citation: 428 U.S. 543 (Supreme Court 1976)

Parties: United States, Amado Martinez-Fuerte, Jose Jiminez-Garcia, Raymond Rangel Guillen, Fernando Medrano-Barragan

Claims / Causes of Action: 4th Am.

Posture: affirmed one respondent's conviction and reversed and remanded the other caseswith directions to affirm the conviction of another respondent

Facts and Holding: Hispanic travelers were stopped and referred to secondary inspection area at border checkpoints in Texas and California. The Supreme Court resolved the circuit split by holding that large, if not exclusive, reliance on apparent Mexican ancestry would support reasonable suspicion for border checkpoint stops (though, as Brignoni-Ponce ruled, not for roving patrol stops). The initial stop of the motorists was lawful and therefore no particularized suspicion was needed for referral to secondary area.

United States v. Sokolow

Citation: 490 U.S. 1 (Supreme Court 1989)

Parties: United States, Andrew Sokolow

Posture: reinstated conviction

Facts and Holding: The Court ruled that the law enforcement use of a drug courier profile is permissible when articulating a basis for reasonable suspicion. Profile characteristics can include use of alias, evasive behavior, cash payment for tickets, short trip to major drug city, nervousness, clothing, unchecked luggage. Neither race nor ethnicity was used in the profile. Justice Marshall, in dissent, criticized reliance on "chameleon-like" profiles.

Other: Interesting language: "Since 1974, the DEA has trained narcotics officers to identify drug smugglers on the basis of the sort of circumstantial evidence at issue here." 10 n.6

Whren v. United States

Citation: 517 U.S. 806 (Supreme Court 1996)

Parties: United States, Michael A. Whren, James L. Brown

Claims / Causes of Action: 4th Am.

Posture: affirmed judgment

Facts and Holding: Minority motorists stopped for traffic violation in high crime area were charged with crack offenses. After conviction, they appealed. The Court affirmed the suppression of evidence, ruling that the 4th Amendment permits investigative stops based on an officer's objective justification and the officer's subjective intent or pretext is irrelevant. "[T]he constitutional reasonableness of traffic stops [does not] depend[] on the actual motivations of the individual officers involved." 811-12.

Rizzo v. Goode

Citation: 423 U.S. 362 (Supreme Court 1976)

Parties: Class action on behalf of all residents of the City of Philadelphia, with an included class of all black residents of Philadelphia, Frank L. Rizzo, Hillel S. Levinson, Joseph F. O'Neill, Morton B. Solomon, William Murphy, James H. J. Tate, Fred T. Corletto, Arlen Spector

Posture: reversed granting of injunction

Facts and Holding: Minority Philadelphia residents formed class to challenge widespread police misconduct aimed at minority residents. The case grew out of individual claims some plaintiffs had against individual officers for misconduct, and two separate class actions were consolidated by the district judge for final disposition. The Court held that the plaintiffs lacked the requisite personal stake in the outcome, i.e., the order overhauling police disciplinary procedures, where the problems involving misconduct by a small number of city policemen were fairly typical of those afflicting police departments in major urban areas and none of the defendant city officers was alleged to have acted affirmatively in deprivation of the constitutional rights of the plaintiff classes. Therefore, there was no occasion for federal equitable relief against such officers.

Terry v. Ohio

Citation: 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868 (1968) (Supreme Court 1968)

Parties: Terry, State of Ohio

Claims / Causes of Action: 4th Am.

Posture: affirmed denial of, motion to suppress

Facts and Holding: An officer observed two men standing on a street corner. Over the course of his observation, he watched as one of the two men would walk up to a store window, look inside, then return to talk to his companion. The officer observed this occur approximately a dozen times. The two men were joined by a third man. The officer suspected that the three men were "casing" the store and confronted the men, asking for their names. The men mumbled responses, at which point the officer turned the respondant (Terry) around and patted him down. The officer felt the breast pocket of Terry's jacket and discovered a pistol. Terry was charged with carrying a concealed weapon. He moved to suppress the evidence at trial on the grounds that the officer lacked sufficient probable cause to search him. The Supreme Court ruled that an officer is justified in conducting a carefully limited search of persons whom he reasonably suspects to be dangerous in order to discover any weapons which might be used to assault him or other nearby, even in the absence of probable cause for arrest.