February 23, 2016 testimony to the House Judiciary Committee

in SUPPORT of HB628, "An Act concerning Public Safety - Traffic

Stops - Officer Disclosures"
Thomas Nephew, Member, Montgomery County Civil Rights Coalition
[contact information withheld]
Speaking for the activist group "Montgomery County Civil Rights Coalition"
and for myself, I support this legislation, which would require officers making
a traffic stop to identify both themselves, their badge number, and the
reason for the stop to the car driver.
First and foremost, it is hard to imagine why this would not already be the
case -- and police departments like to assure the public that is their usual
procedure. For instance, the Baltimore County Police Department say an
officer who has stopped someone for a will "generally" ... "provide their
name upon request" and "inform a person about the reason for being
stopped or questioned."1
At that rate, why settle for "generally" or "on request"? Delegate Moon's bill
provides an exception for "exigent circumstances"; other than that, to
provide a name so the law enforcement officer can be identified later if need
be, and a reason so his or her purpose is known, is -- one would hope-- a
simple matter of professionalism and courtesy.
Second, of course, there is often a concern that traffic stops are conducted in
a way that penalizes "driving while black." To be sure, there is little
agreement or firm scientific conclusions on what the principal causes of the
biased results are: "bad apple" officers? a side effect of police patrolling high
crime areas? true differences in minor infraction rates, e.g., seat belt use? 2
And yet the effects are real, the distrust sown is real, the costs to victims of
racial bias -- and then often to taxpayers -- are real. For example, a North
Carolina study found that some districts showed higher than expected traffic
stops for African Americans.3 Maryland State Police entered into a consent
decree with the ACLU of Maryland and NAACP of Maryland for racial
profiling.4 In Greensboro, North Carolina, "officers pulled over AfricanAmerican drivers for traffic violations at a rate far out of proportion with their
share of the local driving population. They used their discretion to search
black drivers or their cars more than twice as often as white motorists
even though they found drugs and weapons significantly more often when
the driver was white. Officers were more likely to stop black drivers for no
discernible reason. And they were more likely to use force if the driver was
black, even when they did not encounter physical resistance."5
Whatever the fundamental causes of traffic stop bias, it is incumbent on the
Maryland legislature to do everything in its power to remove potential
sources of that bias.

Suggestively, a report resulting from the consent decree between the ACLU
and the City of Cincinnati notes that one difference between stops in African
American and white communities was simply the length of time -- shorter for
whites, longer for African Americans.6 Moreover, white officer-black driver
interactions were the most 'invasive.' As the report notes, "The quality, tenor,
and tone of [traffic] stops are largely under police control. The department
should thus pay special attention to training to ensure that these
interactions are conducted consistently, courteously, and professionally.
Without a concerted effort to ameliorate the disparate impact of these
policies, it seems likely that black Cincinnati residents will remain less
satisfied with policing services than will their white counterparts."
Measures such as this law that professionalize, formalize, and equalize traffic
stop interactions are thus not simply a matter of common courtesy -- they
also help guarantee more equal treatment before the law. And they may
really help. The expectation of a formal procedure, and of getting and giving
a clear reason for a given traffic stop, can potentially have the same kind of
effect that Miranda warnings are now widely acknowledged to have had in
professionalizing American police forces and curtailing the problem of
involuntary confessions.7
For all of these reasons, I hope this committee will report favorably on
HB668.

1 "What To Do If You are Stopped by a Police Officer," Baltimore County Government,

retrieved 2/23/16 at
https://www.baltimorecountymd.gov/Agencies/police/community/stop2.html
2 Racial Profiling and Traffic Stops, National Institute of Justice, retrieved 2/23/16 at
http://www.nij.gov/topics/law-enforcement/legitimacy/pages/traffic-stops.aspx
3 The North Carolina Highway Traffic Study: Final Report to the National Institute of Justice, U.S.
Department of Justice. 2004. Smith et al. Retrieved 2/23/16 at
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/204021.pdf

4 Driving While Black" in Maryland. ACLU. Updated February 2010. Retrieved 2/23/16 at
https://www.aclu.org/cases/driving-while-black-maryland.
5 "The Disproportionate Risks of Driving While Black." Sharon LaFraniere, Andrew Lehren.
10/24/15. Retrieved 2/23/16 at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/us/racial-disparity-trafficstops-driving-black.html

6 Police-Community Relations in Cincinnati: Year Three Evaluation Report. 2013. Schell et al. Rand
Corporation. Retrieved 2/23/16 at http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/TR535.html

7 Attitudes of Police Executives toward Miranda and Interrogation Policies. 2007. Zalman, Smith.
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. Vol 97, Issue 3 Spring. Retrieved 2/23/16 at
http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7271&context=jclc