Motion for Evidentiary Hearing to Suppress Fruits of a Pretextual Traffic Stop

This motion argues that Pennsylvania courts should recognize a state constitutional remedy for pretextual and racially discriminatory traffic stops under Article I, § 8 and Pennsylvania’s equal protection provisions. Drawing on empirical research, including a study linking Whren’s permissive pretext doctrine to increased racial profiling, and data showing Black drivers are stopped and searched at disproportionate rates, the motion explains how pretextual stops operate as systemic privacy and equality violations. It urges adoption of the burden-shifting frameworks used in Massachusetts and New Mexico, where litigants who make an initial showing of pretext receive an evidentiary hearing and the prosecution must prove a nondiscriminatory basis for the stop. Defenders can adapt this motion using their state constitutions to create a remedy for pretextual traffic stops that Whren foreclosed.