The Washington State Supreme Court has issued a ruling that has the potential to redefine warrantless interrogations and seizures, a protocol police refer to as “Terry stops.”

Thursday’s ruling concludes that “we [the Court] formally recognize what has always been true: in interactions with law enforcement, race and ethnicity matter. Therefore, courts must consider the race and ethnicity of the allegedly seized person as part of the totality of the circumstances,” the court opinion reads.

The ruling stems from an incident wherein a Pierce County Sheriff’s deputy approached an Asian man, Pallo Sum, sleeping in a vehicle at a location that had previously been the site of an arrest connected to a stolen car.

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The deputy asked for the man’s identification, and upon returning to his police car, Sum fled the scene, ultimately crashing. Sum was later charged with multiple felony counts stemming from that flight, as well as his possession of an unregistered firearm.

Sum would appeal, claiming that he was unlawfully seized without reasonable suspicion, noting “there is no justification—aside from unacceptably ignoring the issue of race altogether—for courts considering the totality of the circumstances to disregard the effect of race as one of the circumstances affecting evaluation of police contact.”

“For purposes of this analysis, an objective observer is aware that implicit, institutional, and unconscious biases, in addition to purposeful discrimination, have resulted in disproportionate police contacts, investigative seizures, and uses of force against Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC) in Washington,” the court opinion continues.

“Finally, in accordance with our precedent, if the person shows there was a seizure, then the burden shifts to the State to prove that the seizure was lawfully justified by a warrant or an applicable exception to the warrant requirement.”

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