10
Impact on Commuters and Tourists
It is important for the District government to recognize the impact that tint stops and
citations can have on commuters and visitors to the nation’s capital. A tint law that applies to
motorists from other states imposes an unfair burden on these individuals who dutifully comply
with the laws and regulations of their respective home states. According to the U.S. Census
Bureau, over 550,000 of those working in the District commute from outside the city.
41
That
equates to 72 percent of the District’s workforce.
42
These commuters choose to live in Virginia
or Maryland for any number of economic, social, or political reasons. While many commuters
use public transportation, others choose to drive to work. It seems unfair for those motorists who
drive cars with tinted windows to be faced with altering their vehicles in order to avoid a fine
when they are only driving on District roads 10 to 20 minutes each work day. The same can be
said for the millions of visitors who travel to Washington, D.C., each year to visit the museums,
government buildings, and other attractions the city offers. It is unreasonable to expect those
tourists who drive vehicles with tinted windows to research the city’s tint law and make material
alterations to their vehicles for a trip that will likely last no more than a few days.
Police Accountability
Although it is legal for police officers to conduct traffic stops based on the reasonable
suspicion that a vehicle’s tint is in violation of District law — even if that reason is a pretext to
investigate another suspected crime
43
— doing so can undermine the public’s confidence in law
enforcement and can even run afoul of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment.
44
Unconstitutional racial profiling can take many forms, the most obvious of which
is an express classification based on race that does not survive strict scrutiny.
45
However,
facially neutral laws or policies that are administered with a discriminatory purpose also violate
the Equal Protection Clause.
46
Similar to other minor traffic violations — such as operating with
a defective brake light, changing lanes without signaling, or exceeding the speed limit by a
negligible amount — police officers have a high level of discretion when enforcing the city’s tint
law. Discretionary traffic stops based on these minor violations can lead to vehicle searches,
arrests, the use of force, and occasionally police misconduct.
47
Therefore, it remains incumbent
41
BRIAN MCKENZIE, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU, OUT OF STATE AND LONG COMMUTES: 2011, at 10 tbl. 6 (2013).
42
Id.
43
See Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806 (1996).
44
See id. at 813 (“We of course agree with petitioners that the Constitution prohibits selective enforcement of the
law based on considerations such as race. But the constitutional basis for objecting to intentionally discriminatory
application of laws is the Equal Protection Clause, not the Fourth Amendment.”) Although the Fourteenth
Amendment applies only to the states, its equal protection guarantees have been read into the Fifth Amendment and
apply to the District of Columbia. See Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497, 499–500 (1954).
45
See Parents Involved in Cmty. Sch. v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1, 551 U.S. 701, 720 (2007) (“It is well established
that when the government distributes burdens or benefits on the basis of individual racial classifications, that action
is reviewed under strict scrutiny.”)
46
See Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229, 241 (1976) (“A statute, otherwise neutral on its face, must not be
applied so as invidiously to discriminate on the basis of race.” (citing Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886))).
47
See David A. Harris, “Driving While Black” and All Other Traffic Offenses: The Supreme Court and Pretextual
Traffic Stops, 87 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 544, 546 (1997) (“[O]nce police stop a car, they often search it, either
by obtaining consent, using a drug sniffing dog, or by some other means. In fact, searching cars for narcotics is
perhaps the major motivation for making these stops.”)