Article by Wesley MacNeil Oliver
The United States Department of Justice recently entered into a consent decree with the New Jersey State Police to bring an end to racial profiling. The decree requires the state police to develop a race-neutral protocol to determine how traffic offenders are to be selected from the universe of petty perpetrators and to warn motorists of their right to decline an officer's request to search their automobiles. This Article demonstrates that the terms of the consent decree are compelled by the Fourth Amendment and failure to comply with these terms should result in suppression of any evidence so seized. To provide a lesser remedy would be to relegate racial profiling to a less significant violation of one's security in his person, house, papers, or effects.
About the Author
Wesley MacNeil Oliver. Forrester Teaching Fellow, Tulane University School of Law. B.A., J.D., University of Virginia.
Citation
74 Tul. L. Rev. 1409 (2000)