Farm Labor Organizing Committee v. Ohio State Highway Patrol
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
308 F.3d 523 (2002)
Legal permanent residents Jose Aguilar and Irma Esparza (plaintiffs) were pulled over by Trooper Kiefer (defendant) for a faulty headlight; Kiefer took their green cards and asked if they had paid for them, which the plaintiffs, who spoke little English, misunderstood as a question about fees and answered yes to, leading Kiefer to hold onto the cards for four days despite the plaintiffs retaining a lawyer. The plaintiffs and the Farm Labor Organizing Committee sued Kiefer and the Ohio State Highway Patrol (OSHP), alleging a broader pattern of OSHP questioning drivers about immigration status based on their Hispanic appearance, violating equal protection; the record showed OSHP officers testified they would not call Border Patrol unless the motorist was Hispanic, and over 90 percent of OSHP's immigration inquiries involved Hispanic motorists. The district court denied Kiefer's motion for summary judgment on qualified immunity.
Whether an officer's stated race-neutral reason for questioning a motorist about immigration status, such as an inability to speak English, defeats an equal protection claim as a matter of law when statistical evidence suggests the questioning is actually based on the motorist's ethnicity.