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Constitutional Law Keyed to Levinson
Brown v. City of Oneonta
Facts
A 77 year-old woman reported having been assaulted by a man with a knife in her home. She identified the assailant as a young, black man based upon what she saw of his hand and forearm and how quickly he moved through her home. She also believed the assailant had been cut on his hand during the struggle. A canine police unit was able to follow a scent from her home toward the State University of New York College at Oneonta (SUCO) campus before the dogs lost the trail. Only two percent of the students at the school were black. The police asked SUCO for a list of black male students and attempted to question each of them. They did not find a suspect in this effort. The police then stopped and questioned over 200 nonwhite men on the streets over the next several days, examining their hands for cuts. Still no suspect was identified. The individuals at the college and in the town of Oneonta who had been questioned sued the city, alleging that the police had racially profiled them in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. The trial court granted summary judgment and the appellate court took up the case.
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