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Comment by edw519 | Hacker News Reader

First:

...young lawyers are less concerned with right and wrong than with chasing dollars.

then:

But matching people who need help to lawyers who have the time and institutional resources to take on these projects pro bono isn't easy...

Sounds like an excellent opportunity for a startup that is more concerned with right and wrong than with chasing dollars.

Any takers?

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You can tell you're in some kind of Silicon Valley echo chamber when people start calling every new ongoing businesslike concern a "startup", even if it departs radically from the model of "build something, attract investors to pay for building more, grow and eventually make lots of money".

We have other vocabulary terms like "business" and "firm" (e.g. a law firm) and "nonprofit" and "charity"; I suspect that one of them would probably describe what you have in mind better.

There are plenty of non-profits who do this. I work with one on my pro bono case. They partner with my firm and they've been helpful at giving me advice to help my client.

My buddy at the ACLU work with firms in the same type of arrangement.

The real problem is that a traffic stop isn't worth litigating.

Judging by the article and the other comments, I don't think this case was about the traffic violation itself.

doubtful. it can't be delivered in under an hour by a contractor.

Isn't this what EFF does ?

Do they do it for traffic stops in rural Louisiana?

Right and wrong is great -- but so is paying the bills. "Startups" the don't care about money are a fools game.

Right and wrong is also a subject of opinion. Even the story in the OP is based on some real lawbreaking. We might all agree that these traffic stops go way to far, but they often do start with legitimate infractions (no insurance etc). Perhaps the better answer is to change these petty laws, or amalgamate them into something less difficult to obey. Frankly, the american approach of license+registration+insurance on three separate plans with three separate expiry dates is a minefield.

"We might all agree that these traffic stops go way to far, but they often do start with legitimate infractions (no insurance etc)."

Umm... Did you read the story? The original stop was illegal to begin with (that is, the cop was doing an illegal activity). Then the driver in question had all her papers in order (which she proved to the Mayor/Judge with documentation). But the fine was not just not dropped... they arrested her for not paying that unjust fine and threw her in prison for 25 days.

Lawyers can argue about the stop, but it happened. They happen all the time. The cop might not have had probable cause, he stopped the car for no better reason than he wanted to, but that isn't the cause of all the difficulties. It hit the fan when the cop starts running the paperwork.

"When Godwin ran Parker’s license, the computer said it was suspended. He also said the registration card was expired."

That's the root problem, not the stop. There was, from the cops perspective, a real infraction here. So rather than debate the constitutionality of the stop, we should address the overly-complex system that resulted in this perceived infraction. If the computer was wrong, fix the machine. If the paperwork was actually expired, why are they still using paper? If we don't want cops issuing onerous citations for these things, change the laws so they cannot. We should not patch over bad laws by simply not enforcing them.

In many jurisdictions (ie mine) the entire stop would have been perfectly legal. We display out registration/insurance details on a license plates. So cops are perfectly justified in pulling cars over with expired registration/insurance/plates. They need not speculate. They cannot claim suspicion or the need to check paperwork when the plate shows validity. And and driver stepping into a car can see on the plate whether everything is correct. Every cop should be able to lookup a plate and check all the paperwork prior to pulling anyone over.

> That's the root problem, not the stop.

No, the root problem is that a police officer decided to unconstitutionally stop a car with 3 African Americans, because they had committed the crime of being African American.

This discussion of the root problem is useful, but let's not let it become a red herring or distraction from the rest of the problem: I mean even if the stop happened and was legal, there is a real and valid problem in the way the trial occured, once she presented the proof of valid license and insurance, that should have been the end of it - including a reimbursement for expenses incurred.

I am curious about racial motivations and racial disparity though. It might be reasonable to think that the cop didn't pull over the people due to their race, as it was dark and I don't know if there was any way he could have seen that well. I wonder though if there is a way to find out a stops vs "run the license" ratio and if it indicates any racial biases. The run the license part should be gleanable from logs, but the number of stops part may be difficult - I don't know how those are recorded and how accurately they are recorded.

From the article (and the actual judgement the article links to)

> Absent a traffic violation, so far as can be gleaned from this record, the only visible attribute of Parker and her passengers that might have distinguished them from other motorists turning on Methodist Parkway was they are all African Americans. There simply is no other distinguishing thing that can be surmised.

What good would it do to change the law around the cop issuing the citation when you've already demonstrated that you don't care if the cop follows the law in the first place by allowing illegal stops?

"Lawyers can argue about the stop, but it happened"

Lawyers have argued about the stop and the verdict has been reached and upheld on appeal. The rest of your arguments are just as ignorant of the actual case.

"There was, from the cops perspective, a real infraction here"

No there wasn't. The cop himself said so.

"officer hit his lights and pulled her over. The officer, David Godwin, later testified that he stopped the pickup “just to check and see” and to “find out what was going on.”

Once again, please read the OP and for the love of god, stop spewing ignorant opinion.

The story in the OP did start with a legitimate infraction, but on the part of the police officer, not the driver. The law is pretty clear that you can't just pull someone over for no reason and require them to produce documents. Right and wrong is pretty clear in this particular case, and it's insane that it took so long to get justice.

There's a useful debate to be had over the usefulness of the many traffic regulations we're required to follow, but it's hard to have that debate here, when the entire event started with an illegal stop by an officer, and none of the rest would have happened without that.

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