CA10: KS’s enforcement policy on MJ stops was sufficient to create standing for some injunctive relief

Plaintiffs, motorists driving between Oklahoma, where marijuana is legal, and Kansas, where it’s not, showed standing with a sufficient likelihood of being stopped again by the state’s own enforcement policy to ‘STOP A LOT OF CARS!’ Shaw v. Smith, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 2652 (10th Cir. Jan. 29, 2026):

Rather than being mere speculation, there is a substantial risk that Plaintiffs — no matter how carefully they try to follow traffic laws — will be pulled over by KHP at some point again. This is particularly true when KHP policy requires its troopers to “STOP A LOT OF CARS!” Shaw, 683 F. Supp. 3d at 1248.

Traffic stops, in fact, are routine and beyond the control of drivers. The likelihood of Plaintiffs being stopped again in Kansas is inordinately high because they are out-of-state drivers. The district court found that out-of-state drivers are stopped at “disproportionately high rates compared to drivers who are Kansas residents.” Shaw, 683 F. Supp. 3d at 1221. Despite being a minority of the drivers on Kansas highways, out-of-state drivers made up a large majority of all traffic stops and 90 percent of all cars that underwent canine searches. Plaintiffs offered evidence to show they plan to continue traveling through Kansas and must drive on Kansas highways to do so. Given the frequency of traffic stops and the data showing the disproportionate targeting of out-of-state drivers, there is a substantial risk that Plaintiffs will be stopped by KHP again in the future.

Second, under Lyons we next look to whether Plaintiffs established a pattern and practice of unlawful conduct by KHP during traffic stops. The district court found that KHP authorizes troopers to use a driver’s state of origin to determine reasonable suspicion and to conduct the Two-Step in a coercive manner. Every trooper who testified at trial admitted to facts that violated drivers’ Fourth Amendment rights under Vasquez. One explicitly stated that he had been trained to do so. As for the Two-Step, the district court ruled that troopers had a pattern and practice of acting in a way that would make a reasonable driver unsure if they were free to leave. Contrast that with Lyons, where the district court found that “police officers were instructed to use chokeholds only when lesser degrees of force do not suffice” and there was not “any evidence showing a pattern of police behavior” that might indicate a policy of using chokeholds more frequently. 461 U.S. at 110, 110 n.9.

The district court here found not merely that some troopers violate the Fourth Amendment, but that KHP “train[s] its troopers” to consistently violate the Constitution. Shaw, 683 F. Supp. 3d at 1241. Our fellow circuit courts have held that discrete groups targeted by law enforcement have standing to challenge an unconstitutional “pattern of officially sanctioned . . . behavior, violative of the plaintiffs’ rights.” Melendres v. Arpaio, 695 F.3d 990, 998 (9th Cir. 2012) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted) (holding that Hispanic plaintiffs had standing to challenge a practice of making traffic stops based on racial profiling); see also Deshawn E. by Charlotte E. v. Safir, 156 F.3d 340, 344-45 (2d Cir. 1998) (holding that juvenile plaintiffs had standing to seek an injunction against a policy of stopping and interrogating juveniles at family court). Although KHP does not have a formal, written policy that officers should violate Vasquez and use the Two-Step to coerce consent, the district court nonetheless found that it inadequately trains its troopers and that the troopers violate Vasquez in the field consistent with their training. These findings meet the conditions described in Lyons where officers were “ordered or authorized … to act in such manner.” 461 U.S. at 106.

Lyons did not disrupt the Supreme Court’s consistent understanding that “[w]here as here, there is a persistent pattern of police misconduct, injunctive relief is appropriate.” Allee v. Medrano, 416 U.S. 802, 815, 94 S. Ct. 2191, 40 L. Ed. 2d 566 (1974). The Court’s problem in Lyons was that it did not believe that “the odds, that Lyons would not only again be stopped for a traffic violation but would also be subjected to a chokehold without any provocation whatsoever [were] sufficient to make out a federal case for equitable relief.” 461 U.S. at 108. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). The odds in this case are far greater. The occurrence of a future event is never certain, but Plaintiffs have met their burden to establish imminence. See Clapper, 568 U.S. at 414 n.5 (“Our cases do not uniformly require plaintiffs to demonstrate that it is literally certain that the harms they identify will come about.”).10Link to the text of the note

Finally, it would make little sense to deny standing to these plaintiffs. The purpose of standing doctrine is to ensure that our court is judging “the legal rights of litigants in actual controversies” instead of giving advisory opinions beyond our constitutional power. Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 204, 82 S. Ct. 691, 7 L. Ed. 2d 663 (1962) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). By the extensive record established throughout this litigation, Plaintiffs have proven that they have a genuine and particularized interest and fear in how they will be treated by KHP in the future on Kansas highways. We hold that Plaintiffs have established standing to pursue injunctive relief. Having determined that they have standing, we must separately ask whether plaintiffs were actually entitled to the injunction issued by the district court. Davis v. United States, 564 U.S. 229, 249 n.10, 131 S. Ct. 2419, 180 L. Ed. 2d 285 (2011) (noting that standing does not depend on the merits of a claim).