NORFOLK, Va. — The crossroads of traffic stops and criminal justice reform is top of mind for more than a dozen criminal justice advocacy organizations in Virginia.
Thursday, Justice Forward Virginia held two Zoom meetings for members of the Virginia Municipal League over a recently published policy statement for 2024, which lays out goals across multiple topics from local government to policing matters.
The VML is a non-profit, non-partisan association with representation of city council members and town mayors across Virginia.
Justice Forward Virginia penned a letter to the VML, over the following language published in its most recent General Laws Policy Statement:
VML supports the General Assembly reviewing the ability of law enforcement to stop vehicles for expiration of registration stickers, illegal use of defective and unsafe equipment, taillights, brake lights and the suspension of objects or alteration of vehicle to obstruct a driver’s view to promote the safety and security of 4 all persons on the road.
In the Justice Forward Virginia's now public response, they wrote:
We write to ask that you rescind your support, as members of the Virginia Municipal League, for racial profiling practices by Virginia law enforcement—euphemistically known as “pretextual policing”—and to invite you to an informal presentation on this important criminal justice issue.
Pretextual policing is the practice of stopping motorists or pedestrians for minor offenses like vehicle equipment violations in hopes of learning that the person stopped has committed a more serious crime, despite having no evidence to suggest the person has committed that crime. The reason it has become synonymous with racial profiling is because the law has placed no restrictions on the subjective motivations of police. In fact, in Whren v. United States (1996), the Supreme Court declared that the subjective motivations of a police officer for conducting a stop are entirely irrelevant. This means a police officer can pull a Black driver over simply because he’s Black—and can even use racially charged language in the process—without violating the Fourth Amendment’s proscription against unreasonable searches and seizures.
In 2020, Virginia lawmakers passed bills that eliminated these conditions as reasons for a police initiated traffic stop. Brad Haywood, with Justice Forward Virginia, told 13News Now that the more under-the-radar police reform strategies can be harder to identify and rally support behind, which is why they penned the letter to the VML.
“We wanted to show well meaning, open minded people what racial profiling is and why this is a tool in pushing back against that. Why they shouldn’t look to repeal it but look to build off it," Haywood said.
There were more than a dozen advocacy organizations attached as co-signers of the letter, including the New Virginia Majority, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Legal Aid Justice Center and more.
This comes off the heels of a report from the Department of Criminal Justice Services that found black drivers are disproportionately more likely to be pulled over and searched following a stop compared to white drivers.
A response from the VML Executive Director reads:
We are still in our policy process; the annual business meeting is Monday and sometime after the meeting the approved policy statement will be posted.