Kansas Troopers ‘Waged War on Motorists,’ Federal Judge Finds
They called it the “Kansas two-step.”
When a mundane traffic stop was nearing its end, a state trooper would turn to leave. But after a couple of paces toward the squad car, the trooper would whirl around and go back to the window of the pulled-over driver, hoping to strike up a conversation and find enough reason to scour the car for drugs. Perhaps the driver would say something the trooper deemed suspicious, or perhaps the driver would just agree to a search.
But that two-step, which troopers used often against out-of-state drivers, was part of a “war on motorists” waged by the Kansas Highway Patrol in violation of the Fourth Amendment, a federal judge said in a blistering opinion on Friday.
“The war is basically a question of numbers: stop enough cars and you’re bound to discover drugs,” wrote Senior Judge Kathryn H. Vratil of the Federal District Court. “And what’s the harm if a few constitutional rights are trampled along the way?”
Judge Vratil, who was appointed by President George H.W. Bush, described in scathing terms what she said was the Highway Patrol’s practice of pulling over drivers with out-of-state license plates on Interstate 70, which transects hundreds of miles of Kansas prairie between Colorado and Missouri, both states where marijuana is legal, and of prolonging traffic stops in hopes of searching for contraband. Marijuana is illegal in Kansas.
Source: The New York Times
