Bill to ban racial profiling of police officers goes to governor • New Hampshire Bulletin

Rep. Charlotte DiLorenzo knows it as “the talk”: the conversation black parents have with their children about how to respond when police stop them or pull them over.

“Keep your hands visible, don’t make any sudden movements, keep your mouth shut, be polite and don’t argue with the officer,” the Newmarket Democrat reminded lawmakers last year.

And DiLorenzo had to use those techniques. About three years ago, DiLorenzo, who is black, was stopped on her way to a grocery store, she testified. The officer was looking for a woman driving a red PT Cruiser; DiLorenzo was driving a red Prius and was obeying the speed limit. She received no apology for the confusion, she said.

“I was upset, angry and humiliated,” she said. “I was just minding my own business, and during those long moments my whole view of the world had darkened.”

New Hampshire may soon have a law addressing the practice. A bill on Governor Chris Sununu’s desk would formally ban police officers from profiling — and prohibit judges from considering race or ethnicity when making sentencing decisions.

But the bill, House Bill 596does not provide for direct legal penalties for police officers or departments that violate it. Instead, supporters of the law say the Police Standards and Training Council – which is responsible for disciplinary proceedings against police officers – can use the law as a guide for any enforcement action.

The bill would be the first to define racial profiling in New Hampshire state law, describing it as “the practice of relying solely on race, ethnicity, color, national origin, citizenship, language, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, political affiliation, religion, socioeconomic status, or disability” for law enforcement to question, detain, search, or stop a person.

According to the draft law, profiling would also include relying on these identifiers to determine “the scope, content or duration of investigations or prosecutions” against a person.

Rep. David Meuse, a Portsmouth Democrat and the bill’s sponsor, said the bill does not include penalties in 2023 to make it easier to pass the House and Senate. He did, however, say the state’s Police Standards and Training Council has the authority to discipline police officers in the state in cases of racial profiling.

The legislation comes three years after a state commission To improve policing in the wake of demonstrations surrounding the murder of George Floyd, the Commission on Law Enforcement Accountability, Community and Transparency (LEACT) recommended that New Hampshire ban racial profiling by law.

Currently, Section 242 of federal law makes it a crime for someone to “intentionally deprive any person of any right or privilege protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States.” This law is often interpreted as prohibiting racial profiling. But Meuse said the requirement that officers’ conduct must have been “intentional” is difficult to prove in practice.

HB 596 does not include a requirement that police departments collect data on the racial makeup of police stops, as the LEACT Commission also recommended. Meuse said it may be difficult for police departments to conform to the same standard of data collection and said that is something lawmakers may seek in the future.

The bill would require that sentences be “proportionate to the nature of the crime committed” and prohibit judges from considering race or ethnicity as a factor. It would also require the Department of Corrections to collect data on the race and ethnicity of all people serving a prison sentence of one year or more.

According to an NAACP analysis this year, 30 states had laws banning racial profiling by police in 2014.

The New Hampshire Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers has supported the bill. At a hearing in April 2023, Jeffrey Odland, the association’s president, argued that the bill should also include data collection during police stops, since without this data it would be difficult to prove profile patterns.

“New Hampshire has always valued government transparency,” he said. “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

Black Rep. Linda Harriott-Gathright, a Democrat from Nashua, says many black residents have stories to tell — in New Hampshire and elsewhere.

Harriott-Gathright’s grandchildren often call her to tell her about another police stop they believe was unjustified. “It really affects them, as it does me,” she said during a hearing in Parliament.

“Some people think we don’t have a problem in New Hampshire, but we really do,” she said.