That could be a purely tactical decision-- I've got a strong argument on the prolonged detention based on the cop's own statements and I don't need to discredit him in any way to establish what I need for that. So I'm not going to distract from my strong argument with a weaker argument. Especially one for which  I can only introduce supporting evidence by putting my client  and/or his friend on the stand to claim the cop is lying. That is the he said/he said aspect, and one where the "he" with the badge often is believed.

In this case, as in many cases (racial profiling, for instance) this cop, as all cops in history, doesn't say, "Yes, I went the extra yard to try and nail the guy for a more serious crime because he was a minority." Even cops who have retired, and now admit they racially profiled, and stopped, and issued citations, to minorities far, far in excess to the actual ratio of minority to white person, know it was wrong, and, illegal. That they do it continuously, that's just a given.

Now, we're talking about this specific case. Everyone agrees the cop had every right to stop this driver for crossing the line. And, everyone (I believe, everyone) believes the cop probably didn't know the ethnicity of the driver at this point. So, the question is, did this driver receive the same follow up once the cop saw, and met this driver as would a white man or woman? In other words, crossing over a line, and immediately lurching back into lane, is a very common occurrence for, virtually, every driver who drives, or drove, on our roads. People who deal with these situations routinely will tell you that 99 times out of a 100 the cop will "run the driver's license" to make sure there's no outstanding warrants, maybe give a mild warning/reprimand, and let the driver go.

But, what the cop did in this case was so far out of the bounds of what almost all other cops do in similar situations that questioning the cops motives in this particular case was absolutely called for.

As someone before said, if, after the car was stopped, and the cop walked over and saw it was a 60 year old white grandmother, would he have put that woman through the same rig-a-ma-role as he did the Hispanic? If the answer is "no," you have a prima facie case of selective enforcement, based on race.

Now, you can, as many commenters on blogs often do, try to squeeze every, "but, but, but, you can out of the situation, like, "but, you don't know that this cop treated this man different than others." Or, "you can't prove this cop acted out of racism."

Correct & correct, and, that's why we have "judges," to, you know, "judge." With all their experience they don't need empirical "proof." Yes, judges can use that famous, old,sacred legal principal, "if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, etc." And, that's what happened here. He took such extraordinary measures with this one Hispanic driver, measures that he would never take with any white driver, that the deduction is clear, and, obvious.

Officer Morgan Struble testified that he was in the median on Highway 275. The defendant passed him going westbound in the opposite direction. Officer Struble turned his vehicle onto Highway 275 and headed in the same direction as the defendant.