On March 27, 1999, Artemus Lyles, an African-American male, was driving on Interstate 287 in a 1986 Cadillac that he had just purchased at an auction. Lyles was pulled over by two New York State troopers because his exhaust was emitting fumes. The troopers issued Lyles a ticket for the offense and then searched Lyles’ person, with his consent. They also searched Lyles’ car without his consent. The searches produced nothing and the troopers permitted Lyles to drive away. Together the stop and search detained Lyles for an hour and twenty minutes.
Lyles was stopped again by the same State troopers a short time later on the same day. This time Lyles was stopped for driving with an obstructed windshield. At this stop a State Police sergeant arrived and Lyles was handcuffed and required to open his trunk so that the troopers could inspect its contents. The troopers found only lawful items and no tickets were issued. Lyles was eventually allowed to drive away after being detained for an hour.
Lyles sued the State of New York for the actions of the troopers claiming, among other things, violations of the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article 1 § 12 of the New York State Constitution with respect to the search and seizure of Lyles’ person and vehicle. The claim also alleged that the troopers’ conduct was racially motivated thus violating the Equal Protection Clauses of both the Federal and State Constitutions.
The State asked that the claim be dismissed based on Lyles’ failure to file the claim within the jurisdictional time limit. The New York State Court of Appeals found that although Lyles timely served his notice of intention to file a claim, he waited three years before filing and serving the claim. The late filing of the claim placed Lyles beyond the two-year time limit. The Court therefore dismissed the claim and did not examine the merits of Lyles’ Constitutional claims.
What if there was a known pattern of drug running along the
areas of Interstate 287 where Lyles was stopped twice and police knew and records
showed that a majority of those arrested on that stretch of road for drugs were
African American males? What would the Court have decided had it reached the
merits of Lyles’ constitutional claim of discrimination, i.e. violation of
Equal Protection?
Use the
controversial case of Brown v. City of Oneonta, discussed in the paper
linked at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=490842
and the Wikipedia entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_While_Black
to discuss your answer.
The paper
(first link) may be downloaded for free from the link using the Social Science
Research Network. Students may read the
entire paper or just the first six pages, which describes the basis for the
lawsuit in Brown. An important
difference between Lyles (with the hypothetical facts added above) and Brown
is that in Brown the police were investigating a recent crime following
the description given by an alleged victim. That is why the federal court found
the searches to be constitutional. In Lyles, there was no report of a
crime or description. But in both cases the police undertook a “dragnet” search
based upon race, which many contend is the essence of unjust racial
profiling.
In the United States Supreme Court case Korematsu v.
United States (323 U.S. 214(1944)), Korematsu, an American citizen of
Japanese ancestry, was convicted for violating a military order requiring all
citizens of Japanese ancestry be excluded from Military Areas along the West
Coast of the United States. He
challenged his conviction, claiming that it was racially discriminatory.
The United States Supreme Court held that the order was
valid and upheld Korematsu’s conviction, even though there was no evidence of
his disloyalty. This was a time of war and Japan was our enemy. The decision by Justice Black stated:
Our task would be simple, our duty clear, were this a case
involving the imprisonment of a loyal citizen in a concentration camp because
of racial prejudice. Regardless of the true nature of the assembly and
relocation centers -- and we deem it unjustifiable to call them concentration
camps, with all the ugly connotations that term implies -- we are dealing
specifically with nothing but an exclusion order. To cast this case into
outlines of racial prejudice, without reference to the real military dangers
which were presented, merely confuses the issue. Korematsu was not excluded
from the Military Area because of hostility to him or his race. He was excluded
because we are at war with the Japanese Empire, because the properly
constituted military authorities feared an invasion of our West Coast and felt
constrained to take proper security measures, because they decided that the
military urgency of the situation demanded that all citizens of Japanese
ancestry be segregated from the West Coast temporarily, and, finally, because
Congress, reposing its confidence in this time of war in our military leaders
-- as inevitably it must -- determined that they should have the power to do
just this. There was evidence of disloyalty on the part of some, the military
authorities considered that the need for
action was great, and time was short. We cannot -- by availing ourselves
of the calm perspective of hindsight -- now say that, at that time, these
actions were unjustified.
Justice Murphy, one of
the three dissenting Justices in the case, wrote:
The military
command was therefore justified in adopting all reasonable means necessary to
combat these dangers. In adjudging the military action taken in light of the
then apparent dangers, we must not erect too high or too meticulous standards;
it is necessary only that the action have some reasonable relation to the
removal of the dangers of invasion, sabotage and espionage. But the exclusion,
either temporarily or permanently, of all persons with Japanese blood in their
veins has no such reasonable relation. And that relation is lacking because the
exclusion order necessarily must rely for its reasonableness upon the
assumption that all persons of Japanese ancestry may have a dangerous tendency
to commit sabotage and espionage and to aid our Japanese enemy in other ways.
It is difficult to believe that reason, logic, or experience could be
marshalled in support of such an assumption….
I dissent,
therefore, from this legalization of racism. Racial discrimination in any form
and in any degree has no justifiable part whatever in our democratic way of
life. It is unattractive in any setting, but it is utterly revolting among a
free people who have embraced the principles set forth in the Constitution of
the United States. All residents of this nation are kin in some way by blood or
culture to a foreign land. Yet they are primarily and necessarily a part of the
new and distinct civilization of the United States. They must, accordingly, be
treated at all times as the heirs of the American experiment, and as entitled
to all the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.
Compare
the facts of Lyles with those of Korematsu and explain whether
you think the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision or dissent would have been used to
support a decision in Lyles, if the NYS Court of Appeals did not dismiss
the case because it was filed too late.
It was
the fact of war and its exigencies that justified the exclusion order in Korematsu, according to the Court’s majority. Students might consider: Would our current “war on drugs” or “war on
terrorism” similarly justify Lyles’ stops?
Would the less intrusive nature of a car stop compared with an exclusion
order be important in considering Lyles’ constitutionality compared with
Korematsu’s?
In 1981, Korematsu’s conviction was overturned and in 1998
President Bill Clinton bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Fred
Korematsu. http://www.medaloffreedom.com/FredKorematsu.htm