Attorney Wood on behalf of MACDL joined the powerful amicus coalition in Commonwealth v. Daveiga, including CPCS, the New England Innocence Project, the ACLU of Massachusetts, and the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Racial Justice. The brief argues our consistent position that pretextual stops enable racist policing.

The amicus brief urges the SJC to extend the reasoning of Commonwealth v. Long and to adopt Chief Justice Budd's reasoning in her concurring opinion to ban all pretextual traffic stops. Traffic stops have become the modern equivalent of the general warrant, granting police officers arbitrary power to stop virtually any driver they want. The brief marshalls the overwhelming evidence that police use this arbitrary power disproportionately to stop and investigate people of color - most of whom are innocent of any crime.

This case has an undisputed fact pattern that exemplifies the problem. Gang unit cops were looking for a specific car but did not have probable cause to arrest anyone. The target car committed a minor traffic violation - being double parked. They saw Daveiga, who they considered as sort of "usual suspect", in the back seat. They ordered the car to move.

But later, they decided to stop the car explicitly on the "pretext" of the prior minor double parking infraction, which they had already decided to excuse! Really, they wanted to investigate the hunch that Mr. Daveiga, a Black Cape Verdean passenger, was up to no good. The arresting officer had stopped him thirty times in the past. They ordered him out, searched and found a gun in the car.