21 July 2023
Editor’s note: The video above comes from WDAF’s February 2023 reporting on this lawsuit.
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — A federal judge has ruled against the Kansas Highway Patrol, telling the agency to stop detaining drivers without reasonable suspicion.
It’s a tactic referred to as the “Kansas Two Step.” Troopers target motorists with out-of-state license plates or those traveling to or from states where recreational marijuana is legal.
After the initial purpose of the stop is resolved, the “Kansas Two Step” involves troopers asking questions about travel plans without reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, according to the ACLU of Kansas.
Then drivers see Kansas troopers or K9s search their vehicles for potential drugs.
The Kansas ACLU filed a lawsuit in 2020 against the Kansas Highway Patrol, saying this tactic is illegal and a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
On Friday, a federal judge agreed, ordering the Kansas Highway Patrol to stop the “Kansas Two Step” and the practice of detaining drivers without reasonable suspicion.
The judge wrote the highway patrol has “waged war on motorists.”
“As wars go, this one is relatively easy; it’s simple and cheap, and for motorists, it’s not a fair fight. The war is basically a question of numbers: stop enough cars and you’re bound to discover drugs,” the court wrote.
Sharon Brett, legal director for the ACLU of Kansas, called the court’s decision a huge win for both the organization’s clients and all Kansas drivers.
“Today’s decision validates that motorists’ constitutional rights cannot be cast aside under the guise of a ‘war on drugs.’ It also demonstrates that courts will not tolerate the cowboy mentality of policing that subjects our citizens to conditions of humiliation, degradation, and, in some tragic cases, violence,” Brett said.
The Kansas Highway Patrol was reached for comment on the court’s decision.
‘Violated,’ ‘harassed’
Shawna Maloney was one of several plaintiffs in the case. At trial, she recalled the sound of her personal belongings being thrown about as Kansas Highway Patrol troopers searched her family’s RV during a cross-country vacation in March 2018.
The trooper who initiated the traffic stop on Interstate 70 found nothing illegal.
“I felt violated because this was our home while we were on the road,” Maloney said.
Curtis Martinez, a Colorado resident, said he was commuting to Kansas City for work when a KHP trooper stopped him for an expired license plate.
He received a ticket and assumed that would be the end of it.
Instead, as Martinez started to pull away, he said the officer pivoted back and asked if he could question him further.
For the next hour, Martinez and his passenger were kept on the side of the road while the trooper waited for a local police department’s K9 officer to arrive and then searched the vehicle.
Finding nothing, the trooper and officer eventually allowed Martinez to continue his journey.
“I felt harassed,” Martinez said in February. “I felt, you know, demoralized. I felt like he just invaded all of my rights, all of my personal rights at that point.”
Outdated training
The ACLU argued KHP continues to rely on out-of-state license plates or travel plans to justify detaining a driver for a K-9 search of their vehicle — despite the 2016 court ruling Vasquez v. Lewis, which found that a driver’s state of origin or destination cannot be used as part of reasonable suspicion.
A KHP trooper testified there were no agency-wide policy changes implemented in KHP after the Vasquez ruling.
KHP Trooper Justin Rohr, who initiated the stop and search on Maloney’s RV, also testified that the highway patrol trains its officers to use the “Kansas Two Step” strategy as a means of gaining consent to question drivers further when reasonable suspicion is not apparent.
He said he believes drivers know that they don’t have to respond when being questioned further. But Maloney said that’s far from accurate.
She testified troopers’ position of authority causes citizens to fear the consequences of refusing to answer those questions.
“When we give police the power to conduct these pretextual stops, assume people to be drug traffickers, and use flimsy justifications to get inside their vehicles to prolong traffic stops, we turn what should be a simple ticket-release scenario into something longer, fraught, and complicated,” Brett said.