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Race And The Fourth Amendment, Tracey Maclin

Vanderbilt Law Review

In Whren v. United States, the Supreme Court held that pretextual traffic stops do not raise Fourth Amendment concerns. In this Article, Professor Maclin contends that by requiring only probable cause of a traffic offense to justify pretextual seizures, the Court mistakenly ignores racial impact when marking the protective boundaries of the Fourth Amendment. Professor Maclin argues that race matters when measuring the dynamics and legitimacy of certain police-citizen encounters. Pretextual traffic stops unreasonably use racial targeting, therefore, the Court should make racial impact a factor in determining the constitutionality of the pretextual seizure.

Professor Maclin begins by examining objective, …

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