Gale Encyclopedia Of American Law 3Rd Edition Volume 8 P25 docx

Colen, B. D. 1976. Karen Ann Quinlan: Dying in the Age of
Eternal Life. New York: Nash.
Risley, Robert L. 1994. “Ethical and Legal Issues in the
Individual’s Right to Die.” Ohio Northern University
Law Review 20 (winter).
Stevens, M.L. Tina. 1996. “The Quinlan Case Revisited: A
History of the Cultural Politics of Medicine and the
Law.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 21
(spring).
Weinberg, Joanna K. 1988. “Whose Right Is It Anyway?
Individualism, Community, and the Right to Die: A
Commentary on the New Jersey Experience.” Hastings
Law Journal 40 (November).
CROSS REFERENCES
Death and Dying; Patients’ Rights; Physicians and Surgeons.
QUIT
To vacate; remove from; surrender possession.
When a tenant leaves premises that he or
she has been renting, the tenant is said to quit
such premises.
A notice to quit is written notification given
by a landlord to a tenant that indicates that the
landlord wants to repossess the premise s and
that the tenant must vacate them at a certain
designated time.
QUITCLAIM DEED
An instrument of conveyance of real property that
passes any title, claim, or interest that the grantor
has in the premises but does not make any
representations as to the validity of such title.
A quitclaim deed is a release by the grantor,

or conveyor of the deed, of any interest the
grantor may have in the property described in
the deed. Generally a quitclaim deed relieves the
grantor of liability regarding the ownership of
the property. Thus, the grantor of a quitclaim
deed will not be liable to the grantee, or
recipient of the deed, if a competing claim to
the property is later discovered. A quitclaim
deed is not a guarantee that the grantor has
clear title to the property; rather it is a
relinquishment of the grantor’s rights, if any,
in the property. By contrast, in a warranty deed
the grantor promises that she owns the property
with no cloud on the title (that is, no competing
claims).
The holder of a quitclaim deed receives only
the interest owned by the person conveying the
deed. If the grantee of a quitclaim deed learns
after accepting the deed that the grantor did
not own the property, the grantee may lose the
property to the true owner. If it turns out that
the grantor had only a partial interest in the
property, the quitclaim deedholder holds only
that partial interest.
In some states a quitclaim deed does not
relieve the grantor of liability for all encum-
brances, or clouds, on the title. In these states a
grantor must warrant that neither the grantor
nor anyone associated with the grantor has a
claim to the title. The grantor must defend the

title for the grantee if a cloud on the title arose
under or through the grantor. For example, if a
contract made by the grantor resulted in a lie n
being placed on the property, the grantor would
have to defend against that claim for the
grantee, even under a quitclaim deed. If the
property has changed hands several times after
the cloud first appeared, however, the grantor
may not be liable to the grantee.
FURTHER READINGS
Anding, Gregory. 1994. “Does This Piece Fit In? A Look at
the Importation of the Common-Law Quitclaim Deed
and After-Acquired Title Doctrine into Louisiana’s Civil
Code.” Louisiana Law Review 55 (September).
QUO ANIMO
[
Latin, With what intention or motive.
]
A term
sometimes used instead of the word animus,
which means design or motive.
QUO WARRANTO
A legal proceeding during which an individual’s
right to hold an office or governmental privilege is
challenged.
In old English practice, the writ of quo
warranto—an order issued by authority of the
king—was one of the most ancient and
important writs. However, it has not been used
for centuries, because the procedure and effect

of the judgment were so impractical.
Currently, the former procedure has been
replaced by an information in the nature of a quo
warranto, an
EXTRAORDINARY REMEDY by which a
prosecuting attorney, who represents the public
at large, challenges someone who has usurped a
public office or someone who, through abuse or
neglect, has forfeited an office to which he or
she was entitled. In spite of the fact that the
remedy of quo warranto is pursued by a
prosecuting attorney in a majority of jurisdic-
tions, it is ordinarily regarded as a civil rather
than
CRIMINAL ACTION. Quo warranto is often the
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
228 QUIT
RECORDING REQUESTED BY
AND WHEN RECORDED MAIL DOCUMENT AND
TAX STATEMENT TO:
NAME
STREET
ADDRESS
CITY, STATE &
ZIP CODE
TITLE ORDER NO. ESCROW NO.
SPACE ABOVE THIS LINE FOR RECORDER’S USE ONLY
QUITCLAIM DEED
Quitclaim Deed
APN:

The undersigned grantor(s) declare(s)
DOCUMENTARY TRANSFER TAX $
computed on full value of property conveyed, or
computed on full value less liens and encumbrances remaining at time of sale.
Unincorporated Area City of
FOR VALUABLE CONSIDERATION, receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, I (We)
hereby remise, release and quitclaim to
, County of
the following described real property in the City of
State of California, with the following legal description:
Date
MAIL TAX STATEMENT AS DIRECTED ABOVE
* There are various types of deed forms depending on each person’s legal status. Before you use this form you many want to consult an
attorney if you have questions concerning which document form is appropriate for your transaction.
STATE OF
COUNTY OF
personally appeared , who proved to me on the basis of
(Name of person signing)
satisfactory evidence to be the person(s) whose name(s) is/are subscribed to the within instrument and acknowledged to me that he/she/
they executed the same in his/her/their authorized capacity(ies), and that by his/her/their signature(s) on the instrument the person(s), or
the entity upon behalf of which the person(s) acted, executed the instrument.
I certify under PENALTY OF PERJURY under the laws of the State of California that the foregoing paragraph is true and correct.
WITNESS my hand and official seal.
Signature of officer (Seal)
,
(Date)
On
(Name and title of the officer)
before me,
A sample quitclaim

deed.
ILLUSTRATION BY GGS
CREATIVE RESOURCES.
REPRODUCED BY
PERMISSION OF GALE,
A PART OF CENGAGE
LEARNING.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3
RD E DITION
QUITCLAIM DEED 229
only proper legal remedy; however, the legisla-
ture can enact legislation or provide other forms
of relief.
Statutes describing quo warranto usually
indicate where it is appropriate. For example,
New York law states that quo warranto is the
proper vehicle for changing the results if a
voting machine malfunction results in an
election being challenged. The power to com-
mence a quo warranto proceeding is vested in
the Attorney General of New York, and can only
be exercised after the wrongly elected candidate
has taken office.
In some quo warranto proceedings, the
issue is whether the
DEFENDANT is entitled to hold
the office he or she claims, or to exercise the
authority he or she presumes to have from the
government. In addition, proceedings have
challenged the right to the position of county

commissioner, treasurer, school board member,
district attorney, judge, or tax commissioner. In
certain jurisdictions, quo warranto is a proper
proceeding to challen ge individuals who are
acting as officers or directors of busine ss
corporations.
A prosecuting attorney ordinarily com-
mences quo warranto proceedings; however, a
statute may authorize a private person to do so
without the consent of the
PROSECUTOR.In
California, for example, the law specifically
provides that a private person can bring a quo
warranto proceeding against any person allegedly
holding or exercising public office unlawfully.
Quo warranto is not available merely
because the appropriate legal documents are
filed. Valid reason must be indicated to justify
governmental interference with the individual
holding the challenged office, privilege, or
license. For example, quo warranto is not a
proper remedy to test the legality of the acts of
an officer or his or her miscondu ct in office, nor
to compel, restrain, or obtain a review of such
acts.
QUORUM
A majority of an entire body; e.g., a quorum of a
legislative assembly.
A quorum is the minimum number of
people who must be present to pass a law, make

a judgment, or conduct business. Quorum re-
quirements typically are found in a court,
legislative assembly, or corporation (where those
attending might be directors or stockholders). In
some cases, the law requires more people than a
simple majority to form a quorum. If no such
defining number is determined, a quorum is a
simple majority.
A quorum also might mea n the numb er of
members of a body defined as competent to
transact business in the absence of the other
members. The purpose of a quorum rule is
to give decisions made by a quorum enough
authority to allow binding action to be
conducted.
In both houses of Congress, a quorum
consists of a simple majority of members.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
230 QUORUM
RACIAL AND ETHNIC
DISCRIMINATION
Acts of bias based on the race or ethnicity of the
victim.
Racial and ethnic discrimination have had a
long history in the United States, beginning
with the importation of African slaves in the
seventeenth century. The
U.S. CIVIL WAR and the
THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT may have ended SLAVERY,
but they did not end racial

DISCRIMINATION.In
fact, the U.S. legal system embraced for over
70 years a system of state-sponsored racial
SEGREGATION in schools, transportation, and
public accommodations. In addition, blacks
and other minorities were denied the vote.
Ethnic discrimination has also been common,
beginning with the first wave of Irish
IMMIGRA-
TION
in the 1830s. During the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, discrimination based on
race and ethnicity developed with the first
arrivals of each alien group. Thus, the Chinese,
Japanese, Italians, Jews, Hispanics, Vietnamese,
Somalis, and other groups have encountered
hostility and bias when they have tried to find
jobs or places to live. Since the 1960s, federal
CIVIL RIGHTS laws and U.S. SUPREME COURT
decisions have sought to combat illegal discrim-
ination based on race or ethnicity.
In the aftermath of the Civil War, Radical
Republicans in the Congress were determined
to protect the civil rights of blacks. They enacted
the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth
Amendments partially out of concern that
future Congresses could easily revoke statutory
solutions. The Thirteenth Amendment abol-
ished slavery and gave Congress the power to
eradicate all vestiges of

INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE.
The
FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT proved to be the
most profound and far-reaching of all federal
RECONSTRUCTION legislation. In its three main
clauses, the amendment guaranteed citizens
protection from the actions of state and local
officials, based on
EQUAL PROTECTION, due
process, and the concept of
PRIVILEGES AND
IMMUNITIES
. The FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT declared
that federal and state government could not
deny or abridge the right to vote because of
race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Radical Republicans used these constitu-
tional amendments as the basis for many pieces
of civil rights legislation. The
CIVIL RIGHTS ACTS of
1866, 1870, and 1871 are usually called the
Reconstruction Civil Rights Acts. The provi-
sions of these acts are both civil and criminal in
nature, and several of these statutes have
assumed great importance in modern civil
rights
LITIGATION. The most important of these
statutes, 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983, provides that any
person who under
COLOR OF LAW subjects

another individual to the deprivation of any
federal right shall be liable to the in jured party
in an action at law or in equity. A similar
provision in the federal criminal code imposed
penal sanctions against persons who willfully
engage in such conduct (18 U.S.C.A. § 242).
R
231
The federal government ceased to enforce
these and other Reconstruction statutes in the
Southern states after federal
MILITARY OCCUPATION
ended in 1876. African Americans lost their
right to vote and were excluded from juries as
the white power structure reasserted control of
the political and legal systems in the South. In
addition, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down
civil rights laws, including a broad statute that
barred racial discrimination in public transpor-
tation and accommodations, in large part
because the court perceived a dangerous tilt in
the federal-state power relationship. By the end
of the nineteenth century, the court had made
clear that it favored giving the states more
power than the federal government in regulat-
ing the actions of their citizens. The 1896
decision in
PLESSY V. FERGUSON, 163 U.S. 537, 16 S.
Ct. 1138, 41 L.Ed. 256 (1896), which endorsed
the concept of separate but equal, legitimized

state-mandated racial segregation.
At the beginning of the twentieth century,
the tidal wave of immigrants from Europe and
the presence of more Chinese on the West
Coast led to calls for immigration restriction.
Discrimination against immigrants was com-
monplace. The Chinese in California had
obtained a ruling a generation earlier from the
Supreme Court that established a powerful legal
weapon against racial or ethnic discrimination.
In Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 6 S.Ct.
1064, 30 L.Ed. 220 (1886), the Court stated for
the first time that a state or municipal law that
appears to be fair on its face will be declared
unconstitutional under the Equal Protection
Clause because of its discriminatory purpose.
The National Association for the Advance-
ment of Colored People (
NAACP) in 1909
signaled that the twentieth century battle for
civil rights had begun. The NAACP used the
federal courts to challenge various types of
voting discrimination in the 1920s and 1930s,
and by the 1940s it had initiated litigation
against segregated public education that led to
the landmark case of
BROWN V. BOARD OF
EDUCATION
, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed.
873 (1954). In this case, the court ruled that the

“separate but equal” doctrine violated the
Fourteenth Amendment. Though the court
mandated that the South’s racially segregated
schools be dismantled “with all deliberate
speed,” it took more than 20 years for some
school districts to comply.
The modern
CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT began
with the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott in
1955 and 1956, led by Rev. Dr.
MARTIN LUTHER
KING JR
. King’s approach, which centered on
nonviolent
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, was met by public
and private resistance in the South. In the 1960s,
Congress responded by enacting a series of laws
designed to end discrimination based on race
and ethnicity: the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42
U.S.C.A. § 2000e et seq.), the
VOTING RIGHTS ACT
OF
1965 (42 U.S.C.A. § 1973 et seq.), and the FAIR
HOUSING ACT OF
1968 (42 U.S.C.A. § 3601 et seq.).
The Supreme Court found these acts constitu-
tional, which signaled federal dominance over
matters previously thought to be within the
scope of state and local governments.
As of 2003, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is

the most comprehensive civil rights legislation
in U.S. history. Congress enacted it to end
discrimination based on race, color, religion,
national origin, and sex. Title I of the act
guarantees equal voting rights by removing
registration requirements and procedures
biased against minorities. Title II prohibits
segregation or discrimination in places of public
accommodation involved in interstate com-
merce. Title IV deals with the desegregation of
public schools, Title IV broadens the duties of
the Civil Rights Commiss ion, and Title VI
mandates nondiscrimination in the distribution
of funds under federally assisted programs. The
most important section is Title VII, which bans
discrimination by trade unions, schools, or
employers involved in interstate commerce or
doing business with the federal government.
Title VII also established the
EQUAL EMPLOYMENT
OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION
(EEOC) to enforce the
provisions of the act. Congress extensively
amended Title VII in 1972. It authorized the
EEOC to file judicial actions. Time limitations
were lengthened, coverage was extended to
public employees, and many clarifications were
made in the statute. Title VII was amended
again in 1991 to include the right to jury trials
and the allowance of

COMPENSATORY DAMAGES for
intentional discrimination.
Title VII has also been the source of
controversy over the policy of AFFIRMATIVE
ACTION
. Affirmative action is a concerted effort
by an employer to rectify past discrimination
against specific classes of individuals by giving
temporary preferential treatment to the hiring
and promoting of individuals from these classes
until true equal opportunity is achieved.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
232 RACIAL AND ETHNIC DISCRIMINATION
Though the Supreme Court has upheld the
constitutionality of affirmat ive action plans,
they have remained a source of litigation.
However, the Supreme Court in
GRATZ V.
BOLLINGER, 539 U.S. 244, 123 S.Ct. 2411, 156 L.
Ed.2d 257 (2003), reaffirmed the constitution-
ality of affirmative action in education. It held
that higher education institutions may use race
as one factor in evaluating applicants but
warned against the use of racial quotas or
policies that gave race too prominent a role in
the selection process.
The passage of the
VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965
was a significant moment in U.S. history. For
the first time, the federal government under-

took voting reforms that had traditionally been
left to the states. The act prohibits the states and
their poli tical subdivisions from imposing
voting qualifications or prerequisites to voting;
or standards, practices, or procedures that deny
or curtail the right of a U.S. citizen to vote
because of race, color, or membership in a
language minority group. Congress extended
the act in 1970 and again in 1982, when its
provisions were given an additional term of
25 years. The act has enabled the election of
blacks and individuals from other minority
populations in the South and other parts of the
United States that the
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE has
identified as problem areas.
The
FAIR HOUSING ACT OF 1968 prohibits
racial and ethnic discrimination in the rental
and sale of private residences when agents or
brokers handle such transactions. Transactions
by private individuals are not covered. The act
authorizes the
DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN
DEVELOPMENT
(HUD) to refer cases of racial
discrimination to the Department of Justice for
possible prosecution. The Fair Housing Act gave
rise in the 1970s to cases that focused on the
legality of zoning practices. Court decisions

have concluded that, absent a discriminatory
purpose or intent, cities do not violate the
federal Constitution through exclusionary zon-
ing practices as a general rule. The Supreme
Court’s ruling in Arlington Heights v. Metropoli-
tan Housing Development Corp., 429 U.S. 252,
97 S.Ct. 555, 50 L.Ed.2d 450 (1977), made it
difficult to desegregate suburban communities.
Members of racial and ethnic communities
are protected by a Supreme Court standard of
review that places a heavy burden on the
government to justify laws and regulations that
are allegedly discriminatory. The Supreme
Court has made race and ethnicity “suspect
classification” for
JUDICIAL REVIEW. This means
that it will subject the government’s action to
“strict scrutiny” review. Using this standard
reverses the ordinary presumption of constitu-
tionality, with the government carrying the
BURDEN OF PROOF that its challenged policy is
constitutional. To withstand
STRICT SCRUTINY, the
government must show that its policy is
necessary to achieve a compelling
STATE INTEREST.
If this is proved, the state must then demon-
strate that the legislation is narrowly tailored to
achieve the intended result. Although strict
scrutiny is not a precise test, it is far more

stringent than the traditiona l “rational basis”
test, which only requires the government to
offer a reasonable ground for the legislation.
Another form of discrimination that has
gained attention since the 1990s is “racial
profiling.” This refers to the practice by law
enforcement officials of targeting individuals for
suspicion of crime based on the individual’s
race, ethnicity, religion, or national origin. Two
common examples of
RACIAL PROFILING are the
use of race to determine which drivers to stop
for minor traffic violations, and the use of race
to determine which pedestrians to search for
illegal
CONTRABAND. Profiling can also affect
ethnic groups. Since the attacks of
SEPTEMBER
11TH, Ara bs, Muslims, and South Asians have
been held for detention on minor immigration
violations, and some have been screened more
aggressively at airports.
FURTHER READINGS
Del Carmen, Alejandro. 2007 Racial Profiling in America.
New York: Prentice Hall.
Coussey, Mary. 2002. Tackling Racial Equality: International
Comparisons. London: Home Office Research, Devel-
opment and Statistics Directorate.
Free, Marvin D. 2003. Racial Issues in Criminal Justice: The
Case of African Americans. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.

CROSS REFERENCES
Civil Rights Acts; Hate Crime; Section 1983.
RACIAL PROFILING
The consideration of race, ethnicity, or national
origin by an officer of the law in deciding when
and how to intervene in an enforcem ent capacity.
Police officers often profile certain types of
individuals who are more likely to perpetrate
crimes. Many of these suspects are profiled
because of activities observed by police officers.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
RACIAL PROFILING 233
For example, if someone who is obviously poor
is frequently seen in a more affluent neighbor-
hood, such a person may be profiled as
someone with possible criminal intent. Sim i-
larly, if an individual living in an obviously poor
neighborhood has in his or her possession
several expensive items, that person may be
profiled as someone involved in crime, such as
drugs or theft. Although this type of profiling is
not always considered fair, law enforce ment
officers consider it necessary to identify possible
criminal activity before it occurs and causes
injury to others.
One of the most heated issues in law
enforcement is the profiling of individuals
based solely upon the race, ethnicity, or national
origin of the individual. Statistics show that
African Americans are several times more likely

to be arrested and incarcerated than white
Americans. As of 2000, fewer African American
men were in college than w ere in prison.
Moreover, black children were nine times as
likely as white children to have at least one
parent in prison.
The most common form of racial profiling
occurs when police stop, question, and search
African American, Hispanic American, or
members of other racial minorities dispropor-
tionately based solely on the individuals’ race or
ethnicity. In 1996, the television network ABC
aired a report entitled “Driving While Black,” in
which it paid three younger black men to drive
ILLUSTRATION BY GGS
CREATIVE RESOURCES.
REPRODUCED BY
PERMISSION OF GALE,
A PART OF CENGAGE
LEARNING.
Racial Profiling in Traffic Stops, 2005
SOURCE: U.S. De
p
artment of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Contacts between Police and the Public, 2005.
NUMBER OF TRAFFIC STOPS
WHAT POLICE DID DURING TRAFFIC STOP
1 time
2 times
3 times or more
Ticketed driver

Searched driver or
vehicle
Gave a verbal
warning
Arrested driver
Percentage of drivers stopped
Percentage of drivers
White
Black
Hispanic
White
Black
Hispanic
71.7
70.1
70.7
17.3
17.7
18.4
11.0
12.2
10.9
56.2
55.8
65.0
3.6
9.5
8.8
18.6
13.7

14.5
2.1
4.5
3.1
0102030405060708090
0102030405060708090
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
234 RACIAL PROFILING
around the city of New Brunswick, New Jersey,
in a Mercedes-Benz. Three officers in the city
pulled over the car for a minor traffic infraction
and then proceeded to search the car and the
young men. The show demonstrated with little
doubt that the only reason the three men
were pulled over was their race. Nevertheless,
the officers brought a defamation suit against
ABC, claiming that ABC had defamed their
character and had violated New Jersey’s anti-
wiretapping law. In 2000 a New Jersey Superior
Court judge dismissed the lawsuit.
The incident in “Driving While Black”
demonstrated that racial profiling does occur,
but lawmakers and courts have had some
difficulty controlling its influence. Under federal
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, a police officer who stops a
car for a minor traffic violation may search the
car and its driver if the driver consents. Such
searches sometimes result in arrests if drugs or
weapons are discovered, but they have become a
controversial law-enforcement technique, even

when such searches do not involve incidents of
racial profiling. The frequency with which racial
profiling occurs against minorities has spurred
civil liberties and
CIVIL RIGHTS groups to demand
stricter limitations on when officers may request
a vehicle search.
New Jersey has remained in the national
spotlight with respect to incidents of racial
profiling. Former New Jersey Governor Chris-
tine Todd Whitman and the state attorney
general admitted that New Jersey state police
had engaged in racial profiling. In late 1999 the
New Jersey state police entered into a
CONSENT
DECREE
in a federal case by which the police
agreed to require reasonable suspicion of a
crime before asking for consent searches during
traffic stops. In a decision in 2002, the New
Jersey Supreme Court made the policy a
mandatory requirement under the Constitution
of New Jersey for all law enforcement officers in
the state.
Other states have made similar concessions.
In January 2003 the Maryland State Police
settled a
CLASS ACTION lawsuit brought by the
AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION (ACLU) regarding
the use of racial profiling in that state.

The settlement included an agreement by the
Maryland police to enact sweeping changes to
prevent profiling of racial minorities. The
ACLU has targeted other state law enforcement
offices as well. By 2009, 24 states had enacted
legislation that banned the practice of racially
profiling motorists and 19 of those states also
barred the profiling of pedestrians.
The United States has a history of racial
profiling. In some cases, the incidents were
particularly egregious. During
WORLD WAR II, the
U.S. government, fearful of potential spies from
Japan, sent hundreds of thousands of Japanese
Americans to detention camps in southern
California. Many of those incarcerated were
American citizens. In a decision that has largely
been considered one of the most iniquitous in
the history of the Supreme Court,
KOREMATSU V.
UNITED STATES, 323 U.S. 214, 65 S. Ct. 193, 89 L.
Ed. 2d 194 (1944), the court found that during
times of war, the military should have discretion
to make decisions regarding the
INCARCERATION
of certain groups and that the government’s
actions in incarcerating Japanese Americans
were justified.
During the
SEPTEMBER 11TH ATTACKS,19

Middle Eastern terrorists carried out a terrorist
plot that resulted in the destruction of the
World Trade Center in New York, severe
damage to the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.,
and a major loss of life. After the attacks, the
United States announced it would wage a
WAR
ON TERRORISM
, which included enhancements in
the ability of law enforcement personnel to
track, question, and even arrest individuals
suspected of terrorist activities.
In the first two weeks after the attacks,
federal officials arrested or detained more than
500 people. Thousands of resident
ALIENS were
also questioned. The vast majority of those
questioned or arrested were Arab Americans or
of Middle Eastern nationalities. Some commen-
tators have suggested that the questioning of
members of these nationalities and ethnic
backgrounds is justified because a dispropor-
tionate number of terrorists are Arabic or
Middle Eastern. However, civil rights groups
have decried the practice of subjecting these
individuals to questioning based solely on their
race or ethnicity.
In 2008 the FBI revised its surveillance
guidelines, called Domestic Investigative Oper-
ational Guidelines (DIOGs). These guidelines

provide FBI agents with rules on how they can
cultivate informants, initiate investigations, and
track and spy on Americans. The bureau briefed
civil liberties and U.S. Muslim groups on the
draft guidelines, which established rules for
profiling Muslims, but refused to release the
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
RACIAL PROFILING 235
final draft. Muslim groups expressed concern
that the final guidelines greatly expanded the
profiling of U.S. Muslims.
One of the most significant differences
between racial profiling of African and Hispanic
Americans and the profiling of potential
terrorist threats is the level of support expressed
by citizens for such profiling. According to
statistics in 1999, 81 percent of respondents in a
national poll disapproved of the practice of
racial profiling, defined narrowly as the practice
of police officers stopping motorists based solely
on the race or ethnicity of those motorists.
However, a 2006 poll revealed that 60 percent of
respondents favored the practice of subjecting
people looking “Middle Eastern” to more
intensive scrutiny when they boarded planes.
Racial profiling has been raised in other
contexts. For example, commentators have
suggested that the war on
DRUGS AND NARCOTICS
has clear overtones of racism. According to a

study in 1986, an African American was six
times as likely as a white American to go to jail
for a drug related offense. By 1996, an African
American was 22 times as likely to be
incarcerated for such an offense. Because the
war on dru gs has been an ongoing battle, several
commentators have suggested that profiling in
this war has become perpetual.
U.S. law is very clear that racially profiling
potential members of a jury is illegal. The
Supreme Court, in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S.
79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L. Ed. 2d 69 (1986), held
that prosecutors are forbidden from excluding
Should Police Practice Racial
Profiling?
T
he 1998 shooting death of three
young minority men by state troo-
pers during a traffic stop on the New
Jersey Turnpike helped spark a national
debate on the issue of so-called “racial
profiling” by law enforcement officials.
Critics of profiling charge that the
practice is inherently racist, because law
enforcement officials tend to stop and
search African Americans and other
minorities more often than whites.
Critics also charge that aggressive stop-
and-search tactics erode public confi-
dence in law enforcement and violate the

civil rights of all citizens. In 1999 they
led the charge for federal legislation to
determine the extent to which racial
profiling is practiced. Defenders of pro-
filing concede that some law enforce-
ment officials may stop and search blacks
and other minorities at a disproportion-
ately high rate. However, they ascribe
this to overzealous police work and
believe it can be addressed through
training. Furthermore, they credit profil-
ing, in part, with a significant decrease in
America’s crime rate and oppose efforts
to collect data on stop-and-search tactics.
Critics of profiling acknowledge that
law enforcement officials have broad
discretion when it comes to stopping
and searching citizens. On the highway,
evidence of a traffic infraction alone is
justification for stopping a motorist. Off
the highway, a police officer must have a
“reasonable suspicion” that a person is
armed and presents a danger, and must be
able to articulate why he or she felt that
way. This “reasonable suspicion” standard
evolved from a landmark 1968 Supreme
Court decision, Terry v. Ohio,392,U.S.1,
88 S. Ct. 1868, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889 (1968),
and it is significantly lower than the
“probable cause” standard that police

must meet to make an arrest or to obtain
a search warrant. Just how much lower
hasbeenthesubjectofmuchdebateand
considerable litigation. The courts have
consistently held that simply being of a
certain race or fitting a certain type or
loitering in a high-crime area does not
constitute sufficient grounds for frisking.
Making a furtive gesture or having a bulge
in your pocket, on the other hand, does.
The extent to which racial stereotyp-
ing is used in identifying “suspicious”
individuals is a key point of contention
in the debate over profiling. Critics of
profiling point to statistics that indicate
that African American and other minor-
ity drivers are stopped and searched at a
disproportionately high rate in compari-
son with white motorists. In Maryland,
for example, a study revealed that
70 percent of those stopped and searched
on a stretch of I–95 were African
American—despite the fact that they
represented only 17 percent of drivers
on the road. A demographic expert who
examined the data described the odds of
this disparity’s occurring by chance as
“less than one in one quintillion.” A
similar study conducted in New Jersey in
1994–95 showed that on the southern

section of the New Jersey Turnpike cars
with black occupants represented only
15 percent of those violating the speed
limit, yet they accounted for 46 percent
of the drivers pulled over.
Profiling’s detractors renounce efforts
to defend profiling on the grounds that
tendency toward criminality, not race or
ethnicity, is being profiled as reflecting
a pattern of stereotyping by police.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
236 RACIAL PROFILING
prospective jurors on the basis of race through
the use of peremptory challenges. A
PEREMPTORY
CHALLENGE
permits a party to remove a prospec-
tive juror without giving a reason for his or her
removal. This type of challenge has been viewed
as a way to insure an impartial jury. Under the
Batson test, a
DEFENDANT may object to a
prosecutor’s peremptory challenge based on an
ALLEGATION of racial bias. The PROSECUTOR must
provide the judge with a neutral explanation for
challenging the prospective juror. If the prose-
cutor cannot offer a neutral explanation, the
court will not excuse the juror.
Complaints of racial profiling are not
limited to law enforcement personnel. Some

department and other retail stores have been
accused of denying service or giving inferior
service to members of minority groups. Several
establishments, including national restaurant
and retail chains, have been sued in highly
publicized cases in which plaintiffs have alleged
that the establishments discriminated on the
basis of race. Complaints of
DISCRIMINATION
against Arabic and Middle Eastern individuals
have also been raised against private companies.
Since the September 11th attacks, Muslims have
sued U.S. airlines for removing them from
flights or preventing them from boarding.
FURTHER READINGS
Carmen, Alejandro del, 2007. Racial Profiling in America.
New York: Prentice Hall.
Ellmann, Stephen J. 2003. “Racial Profiling and Terrorism.”
New York Law School Journal of International and
Comparative Law 22.
When police look for minorities, these
critics say, it is minorities they will
arrest. While acknowledging the role of
aggressive policing in the recent drop in
crime, they decry the deleterious effect
of pr ofiling on p ublic confidence in l aw
enforcement, particularly in minority
communities. How many innocent citi-
zens have to be inconvenienced, these
critics ask, in order to keep the streets

free of criminals?
The lack of national data on profiling
has led critics of the practice to call for
national legislation to study the problem.
In 1999, both the House and the Senate
introduced bills entitled the Traffic Stops
Statistics Act of 1999 (H.R. 1443, S. 821,
106th Cong., 1st Sess.), which would
have required the attorney general to
conduct a study of stops for routine
traffic violations by law enforcement
officers. However, the bills died after
committee deliberations.
Defenders of profiling are quick to
deny or deemphasize its racial compo-
nent. They condemn profiling solely on
the basis of race, but defend profiling by
looking for signs that a person might be a
lawbreaker as good police work. If blacks
are being stopped and search at a
disproportionately high rate as compared
to whites, they charge, it is because
they commit a disproportionately high
number of crimes. Defenders of profiling
point to statistics that show, for example,
that whereas blacks comprise only about
13 percent of the population, they make
up 35 percent of all drug arrests and
55 percent of all drug convictions.
Where there is unreasonable racial

stereotyping, these defenders assert, the
problem is easily solved by training and
discipline. Police Academy graduates in
New York City, for example, are drilled
insistently on what does and does not
constitute reasonable grounds for a frisk.
Members of the city’s elite Street Crimes
Unit receive a copy of the department’s
training manual, “Street Encounters,”
which expressly stipulates that if an
officer’s reason for approaching someone
“is a personal prejudice or bias, such as
the person’s race or hair length, the
encounter is unlawful.”
Furthermore, defenders of profiling
argue that it has proven to be an effective
tactic in the fight against crime. Profiling,
they say, allows law enforcement officials
to focus their attention on those thought
most likely to commit crimes. If this
sometimes results in law-abiding citizens
being inconvenienced when police ag-
gressively enforce the laws and investi-
gate crimes, this should not cause those
stopped and searched to believe that their
rights were violated. As the nation’s
violent crime rate continues to plummet,
profiling advocates ask, is it an acceptable
time to change police practices that have
contributed to this drop in crime?

Law enforcement groups have been
almost universal in their opposition to
legislation requiring a study of traffic
stops, such as the the Traffic Stops
Statistics Study Act. They claim that it
would be costly and could lead to
lawsuits against police. The bill, they
say, would place an unfair burden on the
police and lengthen traffic stops. In
addition, collecting information on per-
sonal characteristics would likely be
considered highly offensive by many
individuals. If an officer is uncertain of
someone’s ethnic background, for exam-
ple, the officer would often have to ask
for this information and an uncomfort-
able situation could result.
In June 1999 the Massachusetts
Supreme Judicial Court ruled in a 5–2
decision that police in Massachusetts
cannot order people out of their cars
unless they pose a threat, which is a
stricter standard than the U.S. Supreme
Court handed down in its decision that
police may order people out of their cars
on routine traffic stops. The majority
opinion cited concerns of racial discrim-
ination by police in its ruling, taking note
of allegations that police stop African
Americans disproportionately.

GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
RACIAL PROFILING 237