KS: Trial court’s finding of probable racial bias in stop was supported by record

The district court’s finding that the Kansas statute on racial bias in stops was violated is supported by the record. State v. Gill, 2019 Kan. App. LEXIS 40 (June 21, 2019):

The district court judge found that K.S.A. 2018 Supp. 22-4609 was “triggered because the Defendant and his passenger were black males.” Thus, the district court judge found that Gill’s and Hines’ race fed into why Officer Sanders decided to walk over to Gill’s SUV and stopped them. Here, the State has failed to meet its burden to show that race was not unreasonably used by Officer Sanders to intrude and to interfere with Gill’s mobility when he decided to detain Gill and Hines or to make an investigatory stop of their car or both. For this reason, we determine that the district court judge correctly concluded that “approaching two black males because they are ‘staring hard at you’ is unreasonably using race in deciding to initiate the enforcement action.”