scottmorgan's blog

We Support NYPD's Plan to Use Written Consent Forms

2008-07-01T08:55:59Z

Since many of our supporters may be skeptical of NYPD when it comes to matters of search and seizure, I'd like to clarify that this is a very good thing:The New York City Police Department wants suspects to sign a consent form before searching their homes or cars, a move that eliminates the need for a warrant and is meant to provide police a layer of legal protection, Newsday has learned.The initiative was put in place because consent searches are often challenged at trial - and jurors too often believe the suspect's claim that police never got permission to conduct the search, police sources said.At the same time, sources said, there has been concern within the NYPD about a handful of cases in which an officer's truthfulness was recently called into question. [Newsday]Written consent policies are a win-win situation for police and the public. When consent is given in writing, police have an easier time demonstrating in court that consent was given voluntarily. Since evidence seized during a consent search is almost always legally admissible, defendants challenging such evidence must argue that consent was given involuntarily or not at all. As a result, police spend a considerable amount of time in court defending the manner in which consent was obtained. A written form goes a long way towards resolving such conflicts.For the citizen, written consent provides a quick reminder that permitting searches is optional, while simultaneously creating an added layer of protection in disputes over whether consent was given voluntarily. The form will go a long way towards resolving widespread concerns about police erroneously claiming to have received consent before conducting a search. Finally, there's an additional important point illustrated here. As Newsday reports, "jurors too often believe the suspect's claim that police never got permission to conduct the search, police sources said." For anyone questioning the viability of refusing consent during a police encounter, this should go a long way towards explaining how asserting 4th Amendment rights can help citizens achieve a more desirable outcome. It serves as a helpful reminder that, even if police violate your rights and search despite your refusal, any evidence they discover can be effectively challenged in court. Obviously, this is a frequent occurrence if NYPD cites such outcomes as a reason for moving towards a written consent policy.Given the significance of the citizen's decision whether or not to permit police to look through his/her belongings, a written form is just the obvious, common sense approach to establishing whether consent was given.Update: Pete Guither at DrugWarRant has a good post discussing the NYPD policy and explaining why it is never in the citizen's interest to consent to a police search.

Does Our Information Interfere With Good Police Work?

2008-06-10T08:48:11Z

Check out this comment on our blog, which accuses Flex Your Rights of compromising police work by helping serious criminals evade prosecution:

"With no physical evidence, no ability to interview the suspect, no ability to conduct a warrantless search, and no ability to develop probable cause for a search warrant, how will an investigator successfully prosecute a rape? a murder? a robbery?"

I understand that concern, but there's a simple reason why it's far overblown. The crimes that take the biggest toll on our communities aren't solved through warrantless searches. Police who are investigating a rape, robbery, or murder aren't using consent searches to investigate their suspects. Overwhelmingly, consent searches are used to attempt to discover crimes that weren't known until the search was conducted. They have absolutely no impact on clearance rates for reported crimes.

With regards to the 5th amendment right against self-incrimination, police must give Miranda warnings before conducting a custodial interrogation anyway. Regardless of our information, or the Miranda warning, many guilty suspects will continue to confess when confronted with the evidence against them.

The situations in which our advice to remain silent is more likely to make a difference is in cases in which the police suspect a crime may be afoot, but don't have evidence and must intimidate the suspect into self-incrimination, i.e. "If you have drugs, we're gonna find 'em. You might as well just hand it over and we'll go easier on you." Again, this will have no effect on clearance rates for reported crimes, except, ironically, to the extent that this type of policing draws resources away from investigating unsolved violent crimes.

There are exceptions, of course, and the possibility that a guilty person may evade prosecution for a serious crime by asserting constitutional rights always exists regardless of our website. That's a risk our forefathers took when drafting a constitution that's designed to make it very hard to convict the innocent. Sometimes the guilty must go free in order to preserve the integrity of our constitutional principles and protect law-abiding citizens from the potentially life-changing consequences of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I could go on all day about this, but the best evidence that our work isn't undermining good police work is that police aren't opposed to it. Many officers actively support the work that we do here. They do not, for the most part, share this dismal assessment of the potential harms contained in public know-your-rights education, for the reasons listed above, among others. We've gotten a few angry emails from law-enforcement, but far more that are appreciative. Our supporters include former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper, former San Jose Police Chief Joseph McNamara, National Black Police Association President Ronald Hampton, and many other current and former law enforcement professionals.

Good police work seldom requires that the suspect foolishly waive constitutional rights or recklessly incriminate him/herself. We've accompanied on-duty law-enforcement around Washington D.C. and observed urban police work first-hand. At no point did 4th or 5th amendment protections become an obstacle to the officers we spent time with, and we dealt with some very serious incidents.

In sum, we've put a considerable amount of thought and research into the implications of our work and concluded that the benefits far outweigh the potential costs. Over the past five years, that conclusion has been thoroughly supported by the feedback we've received from both police and the public.

Judge Says Stun Guns Can't Be Mentioned in Autopsies

2008-05-08T01:56:51Z

This is creepy:AKRON, Ohio - A medical examiner must change her autopsy findings to delete any reference that stun guns contributed to the deaths of three people involved in confrontations with law enforcement officers, a judge ruled.Friday's decision was a victory for Taser International Inc., which had challenged rulings by Summit County Medical Examiner Lisa Kohler, including a case in which five sheriff's deputies are charged in the death a jail inmate who was restrained by the wrists and ankles and hit with pepper spray and a stun gun. [kstar.com]I can't speak to the specific cases at issue here, but we're hearing more and more about this dubious "excited delirium" diagnosis that's being offered when people die in police custody. Drug use is often a factor, thus we must consider the possibility that tasers, though not typically lethal, may pose heightened risk of fatality when used on people who are under the influence. After all, people who are super wasted are among the most likely recipients of a thorough tasing by police.I wouldn't want tasers to be erroneously identified as a cause of death, but as fatal outcomes involving these weapons are reported with increasing frequency, it's clear that more research is needed. In the meantime, scratching these weapons out of autopsy reports sounds to me like the opposite of what we should be doing to address growing concerns about their alleged safety.

Racial Profiling Continues to Shape Our Prison Population

2008-05-08T12:20:53Z

From yesterday's New York Times:
More than two decades after President Ronald Reagan escalated the war on drugs, arrests for drug sales or, more often, drug possession are still rising. And despite public debate and limited efforts to reduce them, large disparities persist in the rate at which blacks and whites are arrested and imprisoned for drug offenses, even though the two races use illegal drugs at roughly equal rates.
Two new reports, issued Monday by the Sentencing Project in Washington and by Human Rights Watch in New York, both say the racial disparities reflect, in large part, an overwhelming focus of law enforcement on drug use in low-income urban areas, with arrests and incarceration the main weapon.
It's essential that this type of research continues, although I think we know now what to expect when scholars take a look at the racial breakdown of our prison population. Our press and policy makers need to be aware of the impact this lock 'em all up mentality is having and if that means documenting these same depressing disparities every six months, then so be it.
I also think this shows the need for some new angles in the broader struggle for criminal justice reform. Hmmm, maybe some sort of innovative film project could be helpful?

Why Would You Cooperate With Someone Who's Trying to Arrest you?

2008-05-01T03:18:45Z

In a fascinating NYT article on overzealous marijuana policing in New York City, I found this rather revealing passage:"I came out of the building, and this unmarked car, no light, no indication it was police, was right on me,” said the man, a Latino who asked that his name not be used because he was concerned about his job. "Right on my tail. An officer got out, he said, 'I saw you walking from that building, I know you bought weed, give me the weed.' He made it an option: 'Give me the weed now and I will give you a summons, or we can search your vehicle and can take you in.'"He opened the console and handed them his marijuana — making it "open to public view.""I was duped," he said. But the deception was legal, and his pot wasn’t.The officers escorted him in handcuffs to the unmarked car.Amazingly, police must actually trick citizens into displaying their marijuana in order to make an arrest, since New York's marijuana decrim law requires plain view discovery. NYPD officers have become quite adept at initiating this through the typical threats and coercion that have long been the hallmark of petty drug war police practices.It's a terrific, yet disturbing, example of how police can intimidate citizens into incriminating themselves. As always, the best strategy is to ignore incriminating questions and ask if you're free to go. After all, cooperating with police who are trying to arrest you just might get you arrested.

Today's Supreme Court Ruling is Bad, But not as Bad as it Sounds

2008-04-24T03:50:01Z

Today's Supreme Court ruling in Virginia v. Moore upheld the use of evidence seized during arrests that are illegal under state law. It's a terrible ruling to be sure, but it's hardly the deathblow to our 4th Amendment rights that some may assume. As always, we hope concerned citizens will take a moment to learn what the ruling does and does not do and remember that asserting your constitutional rights during police encounters remains the best choice.David L. Moore was arrested for driving on a suspended license, subsequently searched and found with crack. It turned out that under VA law he should have been issued a citation and not arrested, thus the search that followed his arrest (and turned up the crack) shouldn't actually have happened. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the evidence anyway, finding that when officers have valid probable cause to believe a crime has been committed, they may arrest and search the suspect, even if state laws prohibit arrests for that particular offense.As absurd as it is to uphold evidence seized in violation of state law and allow that evidence to be used in state court, my main concern with this ruling is that it will be widely misunderstood to permit illegal arrests and searches on a massive scale. It doesn't do that. We're not talking about any illegal arrest, we're talking about arrests for actual crimes that police can prove, but for which suspects aren't typically cuffed and taken downtown. So yes, the ruling is disgraceful, but the circumstances under which it applies are relatively narrow. The worst-case scenario here is that police may, in some cases, perform arrests for misdemeanor offenses that normally result in a ticket simply to justify a search of the suspect or his/her vehicle. That's awful, but it's not a new problem. This same concern has been voiced for some time with regards to the Court's rulings in Whren v. U.S. and Atwater v. Lago Vista, which combined permit police to stop vehicles for any observed infraction and perform arrests for any misdemeanor offense. The real problem here is that police have long been permitted by the Court to search the suspect (U.S. v. Robinson) and the passenger compartment (New York v. Belton) of the vehicle when any arrest is made. The policy is intended to provide for officer safety and prevent the destruction of evidence, yet an arrested suspect is typically handcuffed and rendered immobile before the search even takes place. Moreover, there's no rational basis to assume that someone arrested for driving with a suspended license, for example, would attempt an escape or try to destroy evidence to begin with.In sum, today's ruling possesses fundamental logical flaws, but doesn't expand police power in any substantial new directions. The worst aspects of the Moore decision are derived from prior bad rulings that we've already been living under for a long time. This Supreme Court is no friend of the 4th Amendment, but the damage they've inflicted is compounded when civil libertarians respond by prematurely eulogizing our constitutional rights. Anyone who needs a reminder that the 4th Amendment ain't dead should check out these glorious success stories.

A Great 4th Amendment Ruling in Alaska

2008-04-22T02:19:06Z

This is one of the smartest 4th Amendment decisions I've seen in a while:The Alaska Court of Appeals on Friday put law enforcement agencies on notice that it would not tolerate "implicitly coercive" search requests during traffic stops. The warning came in the form of a ruling on the case of Susan S. Brown, a driver pulled over on November 24, 2004 allegedly because of the light illuminating her car's rear license plate was dirty.On that night, Alaska State Trooper Maurizio Salinas never explained to Brown the reason for the stop, nor that he had no intention of issuing a ticket. Instead, Salinas convinced Brown to allow him to search her car and her body -- even though Brown had no warrants and showed no signs of illegal conduct. Salinas testified that his policy was to conduct as many random searches as possible during traffic stops. In this case, Salinas discovered a crack pipe hidden in Brown's coat. Speaking for the unanimous court, Judge David Mannheimer found that such search requests not based upon any reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct abused the rights of motorists.…"Motorists who have been stopped for traffic infractions do not act from a position of psychological independence when they decide how to respond to a police officers request for a search," Mannheimer wrote. "Because of the psychological pressures inherent in the stop, and often because of the motorists' ignorance of their rights, large numbers of motorists guilty and innocent alike accede to these requests." [thenewspaper.com]We'll have to wait and see whether Alaska's Supreme Court picks up the case, but if allowed to stand, this decision should significantly undermine precisely the type of "fishing expedition" policing that Flex Your Rights so vehemently opposes. This ruling reaches the right conclusion for the right reasons, and provides a helpful example of the 4th Amendment's potency at the state level. When you are stopped by police in your neighborhood, it is not George Bush or the PATRIOT Act that determines whether or not your rights were violated. Each state has its own Bill of Rights and sets its own constitutional standards that must be respected by law-enforcement. Those who habitually lament the supposed "death" of the 4th Amendment would do well to familiarize themselves with this concept.A citizenry that understands and appreciates 4th Amendment rights is more likely to produce and appoint judges who will rule in this way. Thus, while we must recognize and expose the many threats to the 4th Amendment that have emerged in recent years, it is essential that such conversations do not indulge the same sense of defeatism that leads citizens to waive these rights in the first place, when they matter most.

Video: Baltimore Officer Physically and Verbally Abuses Skateboarder

2008-02-15T11:02:34Z

This one's been making the rounds over the past couple days:It's amazing how quickly the situation escalates. Sure, the young man would have done well to keep his mouth shut, but it obviously didn't take much to set Officer Rivieri off. Physical force was completely uncalled for here, and it will be interesting to see what comes of this. Rivieri is currently on paid suspension pending an investigation.Whenever footage like this goes viral, a few commenters predictably come along arguing that it's the citizen's fault for failing to be fully cooperative and deferential to the police officer. And along these lines, it is always our advice to refrain from "talking back" in any way. Regardless, being rude to cops may be stupid, but it isn't a crime. Using physical force to settle an argument is. So insisting that one should expect to get roughed up for "talking back" is to rationalize and tolerate widespread police brutality. Let's not.It shouldn't even be necessary to explain why police must have more control over their temper and emotions than the people they deal with on the street.

Are Racist Cops Better Organized Than We Thought?

2008-02-14T08:45:31Z

This is just chilling:INSIDE the locker of a narcotics cop, Philadelphia police officials recently made a shocking discovery: A cartoon of a man, half as an officer in uniform and half as a Klansman with the words: "Blue By Day - White By Night. White Power," according to police officials.…Schweizer, 33, joined the force in June 1997 and makes $54,794 a year, city payroll records show. He became part of the elite Narcotics Strike Force about six years ago. As an undercover, plainclothes cop who worked day and night shifts, Schweizer was part of a surveillance team that watched drug buys and locked up hundreds of suspected drug dealers. He frequently testified in court as a witness for prosecutors. [Philadelphia Daily News]Racial disparities abound in the war on drugs, but most analysis of the drug war's disparate impact focuses on institutional bias. Rarely are we confronted with such a disturbing window into the racist mindset of an individual officer. Such beliefs render one thoroughly unqualified to carry out law-enforcement duties in any capacity and raise serious questions about this officer's past actions.More troubling, however, is the possibility that Schweizer is just the tip of the iceberg. Is he a cartoonist? Did he draw the thing himself, or is there a larger organization that produces and markets police-themed racist merchandise to a clientele of closeted white supremacist police officers? I don't know the answer, but this poster sounds like a logo for something very creepy.Of course, this is just one anecdotal incident, but when such revelations occur within an institution with such a hideously rich tradition of racial bias, it certainly doesn't feel like a coincidence. It is an unflattering portrait of our criminal justice system that adherents to such ideology are able to assimilate within it. Indeed, had he merely possessed the wisdom to keep racist cartoons out if his locker, this officer would still be hard at work filling our prisons with young black and Hispanic drug offenders.

Police Have Been Tasering Lots of People Lately

2007-11-27T03:17:25Z

Horrifying videos of police tasering people are finding their way onto the internet with alarming frequency as of late. This one from Utah has caused quite a stir:It's just awful to see the taser take the place of physical force, which would have been perfectly sufficient in this case. It's a torture device and it should never be used unless the officer perceives a direct threat to his personal safety.While we don't condone the officer's handling of the incident, there are a few lessons to be learned from the suspect's poor handling of the situation:1. Arguing over a ticket at the scene of the traffic stop is not in your interest. Deal with it in traffic court. 2. Signing a "promise to appear" simply means you agree to appear in traffic court or pay the fine. It's not an admission of guilt and refusing to sign it can get you arrested. Always read police documents before signing them, but don't get angry over a speeding ticket even if it's undeserved.3. When told to place your hands behind your back do it immediately. Anything else you do could be considered resisting. The validity of the arrest can only be addressed in court, and you're more likely to get the outcome you want if remained quiet and calm.4. NEVER inform the officer of your intention to sue him for excessive force or other forms of misconduct. The officer will prepare a story and the video evidence might even disappear. The officer should not find out about your suit until the papers have been served.5. Don't demand to have your rights read to you. The officer will only read you your rights if you are going to be interrogated, which will not be the case for a traffic violation and most other arrests. You should already know your rights. Telling police how to do their job just pisses them off more, thereby strengthening their resolve to make sure the charges stick to you.Our advice to remain calm during police encounters has nothing to do with your guilt or innocence. The fact of the matter is that people who lose control of their emotions get worse outcomes. As police around the country go increasingly taser-crazy, it becomes that much more important to know your rights and make smart choices in tough situations.

Bad Cop Caught on Camera

2007-09-13T05:54:37Z

While most police officers are hard working professionals, far too many are total psychos. Knowing your rights is an important first line of defense against harassment by law-enforcement, but sometimes a personal dashboard camera is the only way to expose our country's ongoing problems with police misconduct.This video depicting Sgt. James Kuehnlein terrorizing a young motorist has erupted on the internet, shocking the nation, and providing a poignant reminder that police lunacy is alive and well in the USA.It all started when 20-year-old Brett Darrow left his cell phone at a friend's house. They made plans to meet at a public parking lot, but upon entering the lot after dark, Darrow was confronted by Sgt. Kuehnlein. When he asked the officer what was wrong, Sgt. Kuehnlein flew into a frenzied rage, hurling threats and obscenities. Sgt. Kuehnlein: Ever get smart mouth with a cop again, I show you what a cop does. You understand me?Brett Darrow: Yes SirSgt. Kuehnlein: Try to talk back, talk back to me again and I bet I could say you resisted arrest or something. You wanna come up with something? I come up with nine things.There's plenty more where that came from, and Sgt. Kuehnlein is now on unpaid leave. His superiors are in full damage control mode, distancing themselves from the officer's behavior and assuring the public that this sort of thing will not be tolerated.As an advocate for civil rights and police accountability it is upsetting to know that such gratuitous misconduct still comes easily to some officers. These events persist despite decades of social justice activism and systemic reforms aimed at increasing police professionalism. Moreover, the outrageous actions of the worst officers undermine our efforts to inform the public about basic constitutional rights that really do still protect most citizens most of the time.That said, it is certainly encouraging to see forums like YouTube and Google Video blossoming into powerful tools for exposing and combating police misconduct in the 21st century. Through these venues, unfiltered images can enter the public consciousness with remarkable efficiency. Once the video went online, it became successful on Digg.com, a site that ranks stories through a democratic voting system. In sum, internet users broke this story and forced the mainstream media to pay attention. That's exciting to see.

Supreme Court Victory: Passengers Have Rights Too

2007-06-20T10:39:31Z

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court stood up for the 4th Amendment with a forceful unanimous ruling in Brendlin v. California:WASHINGTON — Passengers in cars that are stopped by the police are "seized," the U.S. Supreme Court said Monday, and therefore have a right to contest the legality of the stop if they are searched and arrested. The 9-0 ruling clarifies the law on traffic stops, and it overturns the view of the California Supreme Court. [LA Times]The case involved a suspicionless "registration-check" traffic stop, which escalated into a search and arrest when the officer recognized Brendlin and determined that he was a parole violator.There's nothing particularly surprising about the Court's determination that passengers are effectively seized when a traffic stop is made. To hold otherwise would be to suggest that passengers must immediately exit the vehicle and walk away the second the car comes to a stop, or else risk forfeiting their 4th Amendment rights. As the Court notes, no reasonable person would assume that they may simply walk away during a traffic stop, particularly before officers have a chance to see what's going on in the vehicle.It's great to see the current Supreme Court reach a unanimous ruling in favor of 4th Amendment rights. Legal experts considered this case a bit of a no-brainer, but it's still required reading for those of you who won't stop shouting that the 4th Amendment is dead and buried.Asserting your 4th Amendment rights during police encounters and issuing 4th Amendment challenges in court when those rights are violated is essential if we wish to preserve these freedoms for future generations to enjoy.

If You Like CSI: Miami, You’ll Love the Westwood College of Criminal Justice!

2007-06-06T10:10:51Z

There’s something rather disturbing about TV ads for trade school criminal justice degrees. You may have seen them: “Call now to begin your exciting career in this growing industry! Help put the bad guys behind bars!” As the proud owner of a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, I find it more than a little unnerving to see this complicated subject reduced to a flashy 30-second TV commercial. Unlike most career opportunities, the field of criminal justice ideally shouldn’t be a “growing industry.” Everyone knows criminals are bad, and the brand of justice getting administered these days is often a crime in itself. America’s ongoing crime problems are more depressing than “exciting,” and the solution is not for more people to get up off the couch and start cracking skulls. This weekend I saw a new ad for Westwood College, which begins with a man in the shower reading Miranda rights to an imaginary suspect. An announcer then says something to the effect of "do you fantasize about a career in law-enforcement? Call Westwood today…" I’m left wondering if I really want this crazy idiot who plays cop in the shower running around my neighborhood with a badge and a gun. Westwood College’s criminal justice page does little to placate my pessimism:Why are there so many TV shows about the criminal justice system? Because it's exciting. All the dynamic elements that make for great TV also make for a great career.Are you taking notes, class? Lesson 1: being a police officer is just like being an action hero on TV. So if you’ve been watching enough CSI Miami, you’ll ace Forensics and probably Firearms too. You could take engineering if you want, but then you’d be wasting all that career experience you absorbed inadvertently by watching Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Did you know Vincent D’Onofrio and Chris Noth are team-teaching the section on homicide interrogation? Seriously though, comparing any activity to being on TV automatically appeals to the lowest common denominator. It should go without saying that anyone who’s apt to believe that a career in policing is as exciting as watching The Shield probably shouldn’t be enforcing laws in real life. It’s a particularly disturbing prospect in this context since police on TV are often trigger-happy and prone to habitual misconduct. Surely these aren’t the “dynamic elements” Westwood has in mind, but if they have a clue what kind of crap passes for crime drama these days, they ought not to invite the comparison.

Minorities Must be Criminals, Otherwise There Wouldn't Be So Many of 'Em in Prison

2007-05-08T04:00:37Z

New DOJ data confirming that minorities receive harsher treatment than whites during traffic stops came as no surprise to us. Last week I discussed the study, warning that DOJ's poor reporting could embolden racial profiling apologists, despite the obvious disparities revealed in the data. Unfortunately, I was right.Profiling skeptic Steve Chapman now exploits DOJ's report in a widely published editorial that's as sloppy as it is wrong:Why would black drivers be arrested more often? Maybe because African-Americans commit crimes at a far higher rate and are convicted of felonies at a far higher rate. In 2005, for instance, blacks were nearly seven times more likely to be in prison than whites.This is textbook circular reasoning of the sort that will earn you an F in Philosophy 101. By Chapman's logic, police could stop investigating white people entirely and we'd soon see that minorities commit 100% of all crimes. By relying on the argument that increased searches of minorities are justified by their criminality, Chapman exposes his own unfamiliarity with the data he's discussing. The previous DOJ report, released in 2005, addresses this issue directly:Likelihood of search finding criminal evidenceSearches of black drivers or their vehicles were less likely to find criminal evidence (3.3%) than searches of white drivers (14.5%), and somewhat less likely than searches of Hispanic drivers(13%).This data comes straight from a report referenced by Chapman, yet he insists that "a motorist of felonious habits is also more likely to have illegal guns or drugs on board," and "the average black driver is statistically more likely to be a criminal than the average white driver." The great irony here is that Chapman offers his made up statements about the heightened criminality of minorities while arguing that racial profiling doesn’t exist. His premise fundamentally endorses profiling and any officer who agrees with him is highly vulnerable to the exact behavior Chapman denies. It is really just priceless to find gratuitous racial stereotypes in an article about how the days of gratuitous racial stereotyping are behind us.

Racial Profiling: Another DOJ Cover-up?

2007-05-02T03:48:48Z

A new report from the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) shows that black and Hispanic drivers are significantly more likely to be searched, arrested and subjected to the use of force than whites.It was initially encouraging to see the DOJ release this year's report without any shenanigans considering what happened last time:The Justice Department intervened, insisting that BJS not publicize that nasty part about minority drivers being more likely to be searched, arrested, handcuffed, beaten, maced, or bitten by dogs.A conflict emerged in the course of which BJS Director Lawrence A. Greenfeld was removed from his post. His attempt to provide the media with an unbiased summary of his agency’s findings was apparently too much for his superiors at the DOJ. Ultimately, no press release was sent out, and the study was unceremoniously posted in the bowels of the BJS website.Perhaps it's a sign of progress and lessons learned that DOJ declined to bury this year's equally shocking findings. After all, covering up racial profiling is one way – however shameful and undignified – of admitting that it exists.Yet, upon closer inspection, we find that this year's BJS report omits the single most important piece of information contained in the previous report: hit-rate data showing whether minorities were more likely to be hiding contraband.Likelihood of search finding criminal evidence Searches of black drivers or their vehicles were less likely to find criminal evidence (3.3%) than searches of white drivers (14.5%), and somewhat less likely than searches of Hispanic drivers (13%). This revealing fact fundamentally undermines the sole premise from which police agencies and others have sought to defend ongoing racial disparities such as those revealed this week. Consider the following hypothetical (but really quite typical) debate with a racial profiling apologist:RPA: There's no such thing as racial profiling. Cops don't even know the race of the driver until after they've made the stop.Me: Who gets pulled over is only one part of the equation. The data show that minority drivers are more likely to be searched, arrested, and subjected to the use of force after being stopped…RPA: Well, if that's true it's because those people committed more crimes.Me: Actually, the data show that searches of white people are more likely to produce evidence of a crime.RPA: Wow, you must have gotten straight A's at the Al Sharpton Academy of Social Science. Me: This data comes from the Department of Justice.RPA: Hang on, I'm getting a call. Oh yeah, gotta take this. Good talk.DOJ was able to provide a racial breakdown of hit-rates in its previous report (the one it buried) thus the omission of such information from this week's report is highly conspicuous. And of course, DOJ's previous attempts to cover up racial profiling data attest to the agency's lack of candor and credibility on this issue. The larger question then is why the Department of Justice seeks to downplay racial profiling in the first place. BJS reports primarily reflect the behavior of local law-enforcement agencies, not the feds. The only real embarrassment here for DOJ is its ongoing failure to provide adequate monitoring of police practices at the state level. An activist such as myself may be keenly aware of DOJ's abdication of this responsibility, but I suspect that most people are not.In any case, we'd be hard pressed to generate any further controversy surrounding cover-ups at the Department of Justice this season. Instead, let's do our best to make sure everyone knows how to handle police encounters. No matter how thorough, a traffic stop report from the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics won't save your ass on the New Jersey turnpike anyway.