# United States v. Johnson

> District Court, M.D. North Carolina · August 7, 2015 · 122 F. Supp. 3d 272

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/7232883

## Case

- **Full name:** United States v. Terry S. JOHNSON, in his official capacity as Alamance County Sheriff
- **Court:** District Court, M.D. North Carolina
- **Decided:** August 7, 2015
- **Citations:** 122 F. Supp. 3d 272; 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103564; 2015 WL 4715312
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Opinion of the court by Schroeder
- **Judges:** Schroeder
- **Cited by:** 5 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

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## Opinion text

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
THOMAS D. SCHROEDER, District Judge.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I.FINDINGS OF FACT..............................................■......282
A. Alamance County...................................................282
1. Population and Demographics of Alamance County ................282
2. Law Enforcement Challenges in Alamance County.................283
B. ACSO and Sheriff Johnson...........................................285
1. The Introduction and Implementation of ICE’s 287(g) Program
in Alamance County ...............................;..........285
a. 287(g) Program’s TFO..................... 286
b. Termination of TFO Position.................................289
c. Gun Permit Investigations ....................................290
d. ACSO’s Processing and Booking Procédures...................291
e. Fairness Alamance...........................................294
2. ACSO Arrest Policy and Practice .................................295
3. Orders to Target Hispanics.......................................297
4. ACSO Checkpoint Policy and Implementation......................298
5. ACSO’s Stops and Searches.......................................302
a. Particular Stops............. 302
b. Statistical Evidence.......... 304
i. Dr. John Lamberth....................... 304
ii. Dr. John MacDonald...................................307
(a) Post-Stop Outcome Study..........................309
(b) “Hit-Rate” Study............... 310
iii. Officer Mark Dockery and ACSO Data on Searches
Not Incident to Arrest...............................311
iv. Dr, David Banks ........................ 312
(a) .ACSO’s Checkpoint Siting..........................313
(b) ACSO’s Checkpoint Stops..........................314
(c) ACSO’s Checkpoint Arrests.........................315
(d) ACSO’s Traffic Stops..............................316
*281 (e) ACSO’s Citations................................. .316
C. Evidence of Racial and Ethnic Bias Within ACSO......................317
1.Racial and Ethnic Epithets and Jokés .........:.....318
2. Derogatory Emails.....:;.........................................319
D. ACSO’s Supervision and Discipline of Its Officers .;........i...........322
1. Supervision .........................................,............ .322
a. ACSO’s Complaint Policy.......................... 322
b. ACSO’s Review of Stops, Arrest, and Searches...............i... 323
c. ACSO’s Traffic Stop Data Reporting.................;.........324
d. ACSO’s Training of Its Officers........................ 325
e. ACSO’s Harassment Prevention Policy ........... 325
f. Implementation of Email and Video Filtering Software.........326
2. Discipline.................................i.....................326
3. Margo Frasier..................................C .........:.....327
II. CONCLUSIONS OF LAW ...................... ........................ 329
A. Motion to Exclude Dr. Lamberth’s Testimony................... 329
1. Admissibility.............................’......................330
a. Testability —........................................... 330
b. Peer Review ............................ —...........332
c. Error Rates ....... ..332
d. General Acceptance ......................................,... .334
2. Credibility................................ 337
B. Motion to Exclude Dr. Banks’ Testimony........ 338
1. Dr. Banks’ Qualifications ................................ 338
2. The Admissibility of Dr. Banks’ Testimony........ 339
a. Dr. Banks’ Study of ACSO Traffic Stops........................339
b. Dr. Banks’ Analysis of ACSO Checkpoint Stops.................340
c. Dr. Banks’Study of ACSO Checkpoint Arrests ............. — 341
d. Dr. Banks’ Permutation Test ...........:.....................341
C. Motion for Adverse Inference.........................................342
D. Motion to Exclude Kenneth Evans’ Testimony.........................345
E. 42 U.S.C. § 14141 Claims...............:.............................347
1. Fourteenth Amendment Claim.......... ......;...........349
a. Express Classification..........— ......;......................350
b. Facially Neutral Classification................................354
i. Traffic Stops..........................................357
ii. Checkpoint Placement and Stops ...................— 358
iii. Post-Stop Outcomes................ 360
iv. Searches After Stops..........I.........................365
v. 287(g) Practices........................■...............369
vi. ACSO’s Culture, Supervision, and Discipline.............371
2. Fourth Amendment Claim............................ 372
F. Statute of Limitations..................,............................379
III. CONCLUSION........:....'......................1..................’... .380
The United States of America (the “Gov-emment”) alleges that, from at least January 2007 to the present, Defendant Terry S. Johnson, in his official capacity as Sheriff of Alamance County, North Carolina, engaged in’ a pattern or practice of discriminatory, law enforcement activities directed against Hispanics, 1 in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The Government brings this action via Section 210401 of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, ' 42 U.S.C. § 14141 . (Doc. 1.) Principally, the Govern *282 ment charges that Alamance County Sheriffs Office (“ACSO”) disproportionately subjects Hispanics to unreasonable searches, arrests them for minor infractions (in lieu of issuing warnings or citations), targets them at vehicle checkpoints located in predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods, uses ethnically-offensive epithets to refer to Hispanics and otherwise tolerates activities of deputies that evidence anti-Hispanic bias, automatically and selectively refers Hispanic arrestees to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) investigators for deportation, and otherwise engages in deficient policies, training, and oversight that facilitates discriminatory enforcement. (Id.) Sheriff Johnson denies any wrongdoing and maintains that ACSO’s law enforcement is legitimate and lawful.
The parties previously filed cross-motions for summary judgment, which the court considered and, following oral argument, granted in part and denied in part. (Doc. 118.)
A bench trial on the merits was conducted from August 12 through 22, 2014. The Government presented twenty-nine fact witnesses and three expert witnesses, and Sheriff Johnson presented sixteen fact witnesses and one expert witness. At the close of the Government’s evidence, Sheriff Johnson moved for judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52(c), which the court took under advisement. Following trial, the parties sought to file proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law and requested additional time to do so. They have now submitted them. (Docs. 157, 158.) The case is therefore ready for decision.
Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52(a), the court enters the following findings of fact — based upon an evaluation of the evidence, including the credibility of witnesses, and the inferences that the court has found reasonable to draw therefrom — and conclusions of law. To the extent any factual statement is contained in the conclusions of law, it is deemed a finding of fact as well.
As explained by the following analysis, and after careful consideration, the court concludes that the Government has failed to demonstrate that ACSO has engaged in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional law enforcement against Hispanics in violation of § 14141.
I. FINDINGS OF FACT
A. Alamance County 1. Population and Demographics of Alamance County
Alamance County (the “County”) lies within central North Carolina and is currently home to over 150,000 residents. See State & County QuickFacts: Ala-mance County, North Carolina, U.S. Census Bureau, http://quickfacts.census.gov/ qfd/states/37/37001.html (last visited June 29, 2015). 2 The Government has consistently contended, and Sheriff Johnson does not dispute, that Alamance County’s population, and particularly its Hispanic population, has risen sharply since 1990. (See Doc. 1 ¶ 12; Doc. 158 at 9.) As of the 1990 U.S. Census, Alamance County was home to about 108,000 residents, with the County’s Hispanic population totaling fewer than 800 — or less than 1% of the total *283 population. See 1990 Census of Population and Housing Public Law 9^-171 Data (Official) Age by Race and Hispanic Origin, U.S. Census Bureau, http:// censtats.census.gov/pl94/pl94.shtml (displaying population totals for North Carolina by county) (last visited June 29, 2015). Today, just over twenty years later, the County has over 150,000 residents, with the Hispanic population expanding to approximately 17,700 — comprising 11.8% of the total population. See State & County QuickFacts: Alamance County, North Carolina, U.S. Census Bureau, http:// quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/37/37001. html (presenting figures on the demographic layout of Alámanee County) (last visited June 29,2015).
2. Law Enforcement Challenges in Alamance County 3
The Sheriff contends that the County’s recent growth has brought with it increasing crime, including a serious drug trafficking problem with associated drug-related violence. In particular, the Sheriff presented uncontested evidence that major Mexican drug trafficking organizations (“DTOs”), including the Sinaloa drug cartel, have relocated operations to Alamance County, making it a hub for drugs and crime. (Doc. 152 at 109, 112, 114.) According to a 2010 Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”) report, Mexican DTOs “mov[ed] their operations beyond metropolitan Atlanta into rural areas of Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina ... to avoid law enforcement pressure in the Atlanta ... region.” (Id. at 114; see also Def. Trial Ex. 30 at 7.) The DOJ’s criminal enforcement division, a sister division of the one bringing the present action, has specifically identified Alamance County as a national concern. (Def. Trial Ex. 30 at 8.) Throughout the time period at issue in this case, as detailed below, the DEA has actively enlisted ACSO’s assistance in enforcing the nation’s drug laws against drug traffickers in Alamance County.
Mexican DTOs send illegal drugs, such as cocaine, “directly from Mexico” to distribution hubs like Alamance County. (Doc. 152 at 100.) According to one ICE agent, drugs in North Carolina come “predominately from Mexico” and are received “mainly” by Mexican nationals in'North Carolina. (Doc. 153 at 24.) If not seized in Alamance County, the drugs then move farther along the DTO distribution chain to' cities like Chicago, Illinois, and states like Virginia and South Carolina. (Doc. 152 at 101.) Proceeds from the DTOs’ drug transactions are returned to drug trafficking operators in Mexico. (Id.)
Inside Alamance County, DTO “cell heads” run logistics for the distribution chains. (Id. at 116.) DTOs mostly employ family and friends in the United States as drug recipients, and family and friends in Mexico receive drug proceeds sent from the United States. (Id. at 112.) As a result, many American-based DTO cell heads are Mexican citizens with direct ties to Mexico. (Id. at 112, 116.) When DTO cell heads in places like Alamance County are arrested, they are replaced with DTO members from Mexico or the U.S. border. (Id. at 115-16.) Thus, according to DEA Agent Waltér Serniak, Jr., while drug users are “not of any particular ethnicity,” (id. at 129), greater than 90% of those arrested in Alamance County in connection with drug trafficking are Hispanic. (Id. at 115-16.)
The increased presence of Mexican DTO cell heads in Alamance County has brought an increase in drugs, drug money, *284 guns, and violence. DTO members often keep stash houses to store drugs, money, and guns. (Id. at 101.), According to Agent Serniak, the DTOs keep a “great number” of stash houses in Alamance County and often operate within the County’s mobile home parks. (Id. at 101, 104; see also Doc, 154 at 106-07.) For example, a recent DEA raid of a mobile home park in Alamance County yielded a seizure of hundreds of thousands of dollars in drug money. (Doc, 152 at 104; see also Def. Trial Ex. 4 (showing money seized from a stash house).) DTOs have become so sophisticated and entrenched that they launder money through local businesses within the County. (Doc. 152 at 105.)
The DEA has conducted a number of raids in Alamance County, which have resulted in seizures of drugs and weapons connected to Mexican DTOs, 4 For example, the DEA discovered approximately 12 kilograms of cocaine destined for the D.C./Baltimore area in 2005, 39 kilograms of cocaine in 2009, and one kilogram of heroin from the Green Level community. 5 (Id. at 101-03, 109-10.) Drug-related weapons seizures are common, and their prevalence has increased in recent years. (Id. at 104-05.) The DEA has seized high-caliber handguns, rifles, and assault rifles. (Id.; Def. Trial Ex. 4.) And, with the confluence of money laundering, drugs, and weapons, the DEA has investigated drug-related homicides in the County. (Doc. 152 at 111; Def. Trial Ex. 4.) Overall, the DEA’s operations have netted seizures of over 100 firearms, millions of dollars, and hundreds of kilograms of cocaine. (Def. Trial Ex. 4.)
United States Interstates 40 and 85 join as a common highway in Alamance County, dissecting the County horizontally at its midsection. The town of Green Level lies just north of the highways and offers an example of the collateral damage resulting from the growing drug trafficking in the County. The Green Level community faced, and continues to face, “a drug problem” from DTOs that has left many residents living in fear. (Doc. 152 at 62-63, 65.) Sandra McCollum, Green Level’s town clerk, testified that when “you would go down the streets, you could not get through to get to your home because drug activities was [sic] in the street,” (Id. at 63.)
Green Level’s mobile home communities, especially the Seamsters and Otter Creek mobile home parks, have been frequent sites of significant illegal drug and criminal activity. (Id, at 65, 67, 71, 75.) The Otter Creek mobile home park has suffered murders, drug activity, and kidnappings. (Id. at 75.) The owner of Seamsters has sought law enforcement help in combatting drug and gang activity in his park. (Id. at 72.)
Starting in 2002, Green Level’s council members — all African American — contracted with ACSO for placement of a “substation,” which included the assignment of an ACSO sergeant, at Green Level’s town hall. (Id. at 63.) Council members also requested increased ACSO policing, which required more frequent patrols and checkpoints (id. at 69), and more frequent inspections of- the town’s mobile homes by both ACSO and the Ala-mance County Inspection Department to enforce town ordinances against abandoned trailers being used for criminal activity. (Id. at 68-70.)
By 2010, Alamance County’s rising drug trade led the DOJ and the DEA to desig *285 nate the County a “High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area,” a classification reserved for counties representing “a high threat of drug trafficking, of violence.” (Id, at 106, 113, 115.) The County was one of only seven in the State to be so designated (id. at 115), and it retained the designation at the time of trial. (Id.) According to Agent Serniak, who participated in many of the DEA’s activities in the County, Mexican DTOs remain a “danger” to Alamance County residents. (Id. at 113.)
B. ACSO and Sheriff Johnson
This is the environment in which Terry Johnson was elected ACSO Sheriff in December 2002 (following a 30-year career with the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (“SBI”)), a position to which he has since been continuously re-elected. (Doc. 154 at 55-56.) In North Carolina, the position of sheriff is constitutionally-provided for, and a sheriffs office is a separate legal entity from each county. See N.C. Const. Art. VII, § 2; N.C. Gen.Stat. § 162-1; Cranford v. Frick, No. 1:05CV00062, 2007 WL 676687 , at *3 (M.D.N.C. Feb. 28, 2007) (“[T]he Office of the Sheriff is separate and distinct from the Board of County Commissioners because a sheriff is elected by the people, not employed by the county.” (quoting Little v. Smith, 114 F.Supp.2d 437, 446 (W.D.N.C. 2000)) (internal quotation marks, omitted)); Goodwin v. Furr, 25 F.Supp.2d 713, 715-16 (M.D.N.C.1998) (noting that a sheriff is an “independently elected official”, and “a county is not liable for the acts of the sheriff and deputies”); Clark v. Burke Cnty., 117 N.C.App. 85 , 450 S.E.2d 747, 749 (1994) (“A deputy is an employee of the sheriff, not the county.”). ACSO is the largest law enforcement agency in the County, employing approximately 123 full-time deputies and 147 civil employees.
As the head of ACSO, Sheriff Johnson is vested with the- authority to set its policies and procedures, which he implements both individually and through his' officers. (Doc. 154 at 89; N.C. GemStat. § 162-24.) The Government contends that, since he has taken control, Sheriff Johnson and ACSO have engaged in a pattern and practice of discriminatorily enforcing the law against Hispanics. The Government’s evidence as to the various ways in' which this was allegedly done "is addressed below.
1. The Introduction and Implementation of ICE’s 287(g) Program in Alamance County
A principal feature of the Government’s case rests on its claim that ACSO sbught out and used federally-granted immigration authority in a discriminatory manner against Hispanics. (See Doc. 1 ¶¶ 47-51; Doc. 158 at 61-63.) The thrust of the Government’s claim is that Sheriff Johnson abused authority . granted . under Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1357 (g), to direct ACSO officers to target and arrest Hispanics so that they could be detained at the Aa-mance County Detention, Center (the “ACDC”) and ultimately processed by federal authorities for deportation.
Section 287(g) authorizes the Attorney General to delegate federal immigration enforcement authority to certain State employees. Known, as “287(g) programs,” these arrangements permit state and local law enforcement officers to investigate, apprehend, and detain aliens in the U.S. See 8 U.S.C. 1357(g)(1). To investigate the possibility of employing a 287(g) program, Sheriff Johnson contacted • the Sheriff of Mecklenburg County ■: (Charlotte), North Carolina, who had.the first such program in the State, to learn about his experience with it. (Doc. 154 at. 157.) . That sheriff found it to be the “best crime fighting tool that he had ever been involved ■ with.” (Id.) Sheriff Johnson eventually flew to Aabama- to observe how the program was implemented there, and, in about 2006, he *286 spoke with ICE officers. (Id.) Satisfied with what he had learned, and at the urging of an Alamance County Commissioner, the Sheriff applied for participation in the program through ICE in Washington, D.C.; by January 2007, ACSO entered into a 287(g) agreement — known as the Memorandum of Agreement (“MOA”) — with ICE and Alamance County. (Id.)
According to Sheriff Johnson, the 287(g) program offered a tool to increase safety within the ACDC. (Id. at 81.) Prior to the 287(g) program, ACSO found itself often unknowingly placing rival Hispanic gang members within the same prison cell, causing fights, increasing medical costs, and giving rise to'lawsuits. (Id.) Via the MOA, ACSO officers could better identify detainees and coordinate with federal agents who enforced immigration violations. (Doc. 149 at 127-28.) Also, the 287(g) program offered a financial incentive, as ACSO would be paid by ICE for the cost of housing all ICE detainees at the ACDC, irrespective of whether the detainees were originally arrested by ACSO, ICE, or another of the many law enforcement agencies using the ACDC as a jail. (Doc. 147 at 151-52.)
One aspect of the MOA was a “jail enforcement program,” by which ACSO officers trained through ICE would receive immigration enforcement certification and, once certified, would return to' ACSO to enforce federal immigration laws within the ACDC. (Doc. 149 at 127-28.) ICE also stationed its own agents within the ACDC to' supervise those 287(g)-certified ACSO officers. (Id. at 138-39; Doc. 152 at 157-58; Doc. 154 at 33-34.) While anyone arrested by ACSO and jailed could be turned over to ICE within the ACDC, who could determine whether they were in the country illegally, the ACDC also served as a detention center for persons ICE and eleven other law enforcement agencies arrested (independently of ACSO) in the surrounding counties. (Doc. 152 at 164; Doc. 154 at 23-24.) In practice, about only one detainee a week was processed through the ACDC’s 287(g) program, and the “bulk” of those were persons brought in from ICE’s other offices — not from ACSO. (Doc. 152 at 164 (“[T]he actual 287(g) processing[s] were not large numbers.... [T]he bulk of the alien population housed at Alamance County jail actually came in from ICE arrests made by ICE officers or other 287(g) officers in other counties.”).) The vast majority of ICE’s detainees were from Mexico. (Id. at 166.) Thus, while the Government at trial emphasized the financial incentive to ACSO for arresting and detaining persons who were not in the country legally, the reality was that the vast majority of the ICE detainees held at the ACDC were arrested by someone other than ACSO and were simply housed at the ACDC. As a result, ACSO had no involvement in their identification or apprehension.
Throughout its operation in Alamance County, ACSO’s 287(g) program received annual reviews from ICE. (Id. at 148-50.) ICE found it to be “an exemplary unit.” (Id. at 149.) In fact, after one review, ICE used ACSO’s information as an exemplar to provide to ICE’s other 287(g) units. (Id. at 149-50.) A 2011 review from ICE concluded, “The 287(g) program in Ala-mance County is adhering to the priorities and obligations set forth in the MOA.” (Def. Trial Ex. 56 at 6.) The review also acknowledged that, in 2011, “no complaints of any kind have been received by the ACSO or ICE concerning the 287(g) program.” (Id. at 5.)
ICE eventually withdrew ACSO’s 287(g) MOA in 2012, however, following the complaints that led to the filing of the current lawsuit. (Doc. 149 at 126,128.)
a. 287(g) Program’s TFO
Early in Alamance County’s 287(g) program in 2007, Gloria Fichou, Special *287 Agent-in-charge of Homeland Security (now retired) in ICE’s regional office over Alamance County, contacted Sheriff Johnson because the federal government hoped to designate an ACSO officer as a Task Force Officer (“TFO”) for ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations. (Doc. 153 at 17-18; Doc. .154 at 80.) A TFO is cloaked with 287(g) authority to perform investigations in the field, as opposed to simply in the jail. (Doc. 149 at 129.) Sheriff Johnson selected Deputy Jeff Randleman to serve as the .TFO, based on Deputy Ran-dleman’s experience with investigations. (Doc. 154 at 80.) At the time of Deputy Randleman’s selection in 2007, Fichou told Sheriff Johnson that Deputy Randleman could serve as a 287(g) detention officer in the ACDC and as a TFO under her supervision. (Id. at 80-81; Doc. 153 at 18-22.)
Stationed in both Alamance County and ICE’s Winston-Salem office, Deputy Ran-dleman worked as an ICE TFO for approximately one year. (Doc. 149 at 171-73; Doe. 153 at 20.) In addition to his certification as a 287(g) detention officer, he received training as a TFO. (Doc. 149 at 171; Doc. 153 at 20 (8 weeks of ICE training).) Fichou supervised Deputy Randleman, and an ICE special agent would sometimes work with Deputy Ran-dleman as well. (Doc. 153 at 20.) Deputy Randleman’s investigations as a TFO required Fichou’s authorization. (Id. at 27.) Fichou, however, would occasionally turn over ICE investigations to ACSO as well. (Id. at 25.)
During this time, Deputy Randleman also remained employed, by ACSO. (Doc. 149 at 171.) Thus, while a TFO, Deputy Randleman-would receive work from both Fichou and Sheriff Johnson, and he would self-initiate investigations, as he had before. (Id. at 172-73, 177.) Any cases assigned to him by Sheriff Johnson were reported to his training officer, with Fi-chou receiving monthly reports about his ACSO work, but Deputy Randleman spent “more time” helping ICE during his time as a TFO. 6 (Id. at 177-78.) Fichou ac-. knowledged that she was aware of all 287(g) matters on which he worked. (Doc. 153 at 20-21.) 7
While serving as a TFO, Deputy Ran-dleman performed a number of tasks. For one, he would assist in gang roundups. (Doc. 149 at 174.) Organized and coordinated by ICE and the DEA, these are operations in which law enforcement agents execute a number of arrest warrants on certified gang members. (Doc. 147 at 75; Doc. 149 at 174; see also Doc. 152 at 102-OS (stating that the DEA would also run gang roundups in Alamance County).) At ICE’s request and prior to executing warrants, ACSO’s gang unit would provide ICE’s 287(g) officers with a list of certified gang members. (Doc. 147 at 75; Doc. 151 at 124, 139-41.) Both before and after his time as a TFO, Deputy Randleman — -who had access - to several databases that included North Carolina Department of.Motor Vehicle records — would conduct background checks on gang members prior to *288 the roundup operations. (Doc. 149 at 173-75.) The majority of the gang members involved in these ICE operations were Hispanic, but Asian, South African, and South American gang members were- also involved. 8 (Id, at 136,174.)
Deputy Randleman also worked on numerous identity fraud arid' theft' cases while serving as a TFO. The Government cites one of the cases as evidence of ACSO targeting — an identity fraud case he investigated involving an individual named Marxavi Angel-Martinez. (Id. at 179.) The case arose when an Alamance County employee reported to ACSO that a Hispanic employee at the Alamance' County library, was receiving maternity benefits and food stamps illegally through another person’s Social -Security number. (Id, at 179-80, 201-02; Doc. 154 at 86.) ACSO checked the names of the library employees, and only one name stood out as being possibly Hispanic. (Doc. 154 at 87, 102.) Sheriff Johnson asked Deputy Randleman to investigate, and, working with an ICE agent, Angel-Martinez was identified as a suspect. (Doc. 149 at 179-80; Doc. 154 at 87.) The case was referred to federal prosecutors, -who later charged Angel-Martinez with Social Security fraud. (Doc. 149 at 201.)
The Government also points to an instance when Deputy Randleman assisted in an identity fraud' investigation requested by Alamance County Manager David Smith. (Id. at 181-83; Doc. 154 at 26-28.) Smith asked ACSO Chief Deputy Timothy Britt to verify the Social Security numbers of several newly-hired employees.' (Doc. 154 at 27.) Of the approximately fifteen names provided to Chief Deputy Britt, ohly one was not Hispanic. (Doc. 149 at 182.) Working with Deputy Randleman, an ICE Agent contacted the Social Security Administration with the list of names and learned that one of the names was fraudulent.- (Id. at 182-83.)
The Government also cites Deputy Ran-dlemaris TFO investigation of a complaint of identity theft raised by Alamance County resident Kay Oliver. (Id. at 183.) Oliver reported to Sheriff Johnson that he was the victim of identity theft, and the Sheriff instructed Deputy Randleman to “look into it.” (Id. at 184.) Deputy Ran-dleman ascertained that Juan Ariano Vazquez in Weaverville, North Carolina, was illegally using Oliver’s Social Security number. (Id. at 183-85.) Deputy Randle-man secured a warrant, arrested Vazquez in Buncombe County (approximately 200 miles away), and brought him to Alamance County to be charged, (Id. at 185-86.) The Government characterizes Deputy Randlemaris efforts as an extraordinary measure that reflects an intent to enforce the law more ■ stringently against Hispanics, noting that Oliver had a reputation in the community of being anti-immigrant. (Id. at 189-90.) Deputy Randleman testified, however, that Sheriff Johnson never directed him to make the trip, it was the only occasion as a TFO where he went outside the County-to make an arrest, and executing a warrant outside of Alamance County is nevertheless a “part of regular law enforcement.” (Id. at 185-86, 203-04.) Ultimately, the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute the case (for reasons never explained at trial), although the Government never offered any indication that Vazquez’s arrest lacked probable cause. *289 (Id. at 190-91; 204.) The case was prosecuted by the Alamance County district attorney. (Doc. 149 at 205.)
Finally, the Government cites a traffic accident investigation' Deputy Randleman conducted while a TFO in 2007 or'2008. (Id. at 191; Doc. 154 at 167-68.) The matter began when Alamance County Commissioner Ann Vaughan came to Sheriff Johnson’s office, “raising Cain” following an accident. (Doc. 154 at 76.) She complained that the' other driver was a Hispanic man who cut her off in traffic, caused her to hit his' car, then left the scene of the accident to refuel. (Id. at 168.) Apparently before he left'to put gas in his car, the driver told Vaughn not to call the police when she reached for her phone. (Id. at 168, 172.) This struck a nerve with Vaughan, who told the man, “[I]n this country, we report all accidents,” and then called the Burlington Police Department. (Id. at 168.) The officers responded but ultimately declined to cite the other driver for the accident or for apparently having three adults and three children unbelted in the front seat. (Id.)
Vaughan was upset, She showed Sheriff Johnson her accident report and demanded that he do something. (Id. at 168-69.) Sheriff Johnson asked if the driver was in the country illegally, and she responded that a red flag went up because of his urging her.not to call the police. (Id.) Sheriff Johnson said, “We are not supposed to do this, but let me see if my man is busy.” (Id. at 169.) He summoned Deputy Randleman, showed him a photo of the driver (apparently from a driver’s license), -and said that the person, who appeared to the deputy to be Hispanic, lived in a mobile home park off North Church Street, an area known to be predominantly Hispanic. (Doc. 149 at 191-92.) Sheriff Johnson gave Deputy Randleman no reason to suspect the driver was an illegal immigrant and simply directed him to “follow up on it.” (Id. at 192.)
The Sheriff explains that he was reluctant to get involved because traffic citations within the City of Burlington lay within the jurisdiction of the Burlington Police Department. Nevertheless, Deputy Randleman ran the individual’s name through the immigration database, and the search yielded no results. (Id. at 193.) The Sheriff reported to Commissioner Vaughn that the driver had a valid North Carolina driver’s license and was not an illegal -immigrant. (Doc. 154 at 169-70.) With this,- the investigation ended.
The Government characterizes Deputy Randleman’s inquiry as an abuse of his TFO authority and' evidence of an intent to target Hispanics. While the date of the inquiry was not made clear at trial, if the matter occurred during Deputy Randle-man’s role as TFO, he had at least apparent authority to investigate the driver’s immigration status. It bears noting that Vaughn presented at trial-as an outspoken and assertive witness; she is also a political adversary of the Sheriff. The court is persuaded that, but for Vaughn’s persistence and will, the Sheriff never would have gotten involved in the inquiry,
b. Termination of TFO Position
In about 2008, an ICE audit revealed an issue with the MOA as to Deputy Randle-man’s TFO authority. (Doc. 149 at 172; Doc. 152 at 160; Gov’t Trial Ex. 58; Def. Trial Ex. 54.) Jill Arndt, ICE supervisor (now retired), had reported a concern about it but had been “getting conflicting information from ICE[’s] Office of Investigations” about ICE’s ability to use Deputy Randleman as a TFO. (Doc. 152 at 160.) According to Fichou, “there was no clear-cut policy in regards to the 287(g) program” at the time she approached Sheriff Johnson to request a TFO. (Doc. 153 at 22.) And Fichou -had never questioned Deputy Randleman’s authority to operate *290 as a TFO. (Id. at 21-22.) ICE eventually interpreted the MOA not to authorize Deputy Randleman to be a TFO within ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (id. at 21-22), so ICE withdrew Deputy Randle-man’s TFO authority, and he promptly discontinued any further work as a TFO, returning to his position as a 287(g) detention officer in the ACDC. (Doc. 149 at 172, 175.)
Up to and during trial, the Government portrayed Sheriff Johnson’s designation of Deputy Randleman as TFO, the deputy’s activities as a TFO, and ICE’s withdrawal of TFO authority as evidence that ACSO abused its authority under the 287(g) program by engaging in investigations outside the permission granted by the MOA. However, federal ICE agents — called by the Sheriff — made clear that this was not the case. Fichou,. Special Agent-in-charge of ICE’s regional office over Alamance County at .the time, testified credibly at trial that it-was she who had approached the Sheriff about the possibility of such an arrangement (Doc. 153 at 18) and that any mistake with regard to the TFO’s authority was ICE’s,. not ACSO’s (id. at 21-22). Arndt confirmed this assessment: “I believe it was purely an ICE issue as far as ICE, and don’t get me wrong. Nobody did this on purpose. ICE was giving conflicting information; and once it was discovered in the management audit, as it was supposed to, it was fixed.” (Doc. 152 at 166.)
c. Gun Permit Investigations
Under North Carolina law, county sheriffs’ offices bear responsibility for issuing gun permits. See N.C. Gen.Stat. § 14-404. The law specifically requires that county sheriffs verify that “it is not a violation of State or federal law for the applicant to purchase, transfer, receive, or possess a handgun.” Id 9 In accordance with the law, a clerk at ACSO handles background checks for gun permits with subsequent review by ACSO captains and a major. (Doc. 154 at 38-39.) Former Chief Deputy Morris McPherson oversaw this process at ACSO until he retired in 2009. 10 (Id at 41.)
Through the duration of the 287(g) program, ACSO used its access to immigration databases to investigate individuals applying for gun permits. (Doc. 149 at 132-33.) While working as a certified ICE agent in the ACDC, ACSO Lieutenant Randy Denham ran searches through these databases following requests from ACSO Majors Shelton Brown and Monte Holland. (Id. at 133, 142-43.) These searches checked criminal history and, because it is a violation of federal law for aliens illegally or unlawfully in the United States to possess a firearm, see 18 U.S.C. § 922 (g)(5), immigration violations. (Doc. 149 at 152.) At times, Lieutenant Denham conducted such checks weekly. (Id. at 134.)
The Government correctly contends that the use of any ICE database by ACSO officers (other than by a TFO before such authority was rescinded) for gun application checks exceeded ACSO’s authority under the MOA because the applicants were not in ICE custody. Lieutenant Denham did not appear to be aware of that, however, and he maintained that his ICE supervisor was aware of his investigatory background checks and approved them. (Id. at 143.) Fichou and Arndt — both female— denied awareness of the background checks (Doc. 152 at 169; Doc. 153 at 29- *291 30), yet Lieutenant Denham’s statement is still credible because he testified that he stopped the checks in 2011, once his ICE supervisor — a male — raised a concern. (Doc. 149 at 133 (“[T]he supervisor over deportation and detention for ICE, come to me, and he was concerned that this may be a problem, and he decided that we need to stop.” (emphasis added)), 147, 151.) Sheriff Johnson was never aware .that ACSO used the 287(g) program to carry out ACSO’s statutory obligation to investigate gun permits. (Doc. 154 at 88.)
The Government does not suggest that the checking of ICE databases in and of itself violated any law, and presumably ACSO officers could lawfully ask ICE to do so in order to discharge their obligation to avoid issuing gun permits to ineligible aliens. The Government’s main contention seems to be that all names submitted for background checks sounded Hispanic (Doc. 149 at 134), yet not all applicants were Hispanic, thus evidencing a potentially discriminatory investigative practice. However, the Government elicited no evidence as to the makeup of gun permit applicants or ACSO’s procedures for checking such applications. Thus, it is unknown whether ACSO checked all applicants’ names for legal status and through some different means determined that the others were U.S. citizens. Although the majors were the officers referring the names to Lieutenant Denham, the Government did not call Major Holland and, when it called Major Brown as a witness, failed to ask a single question about the gun permit background checks.
d. ACSO’s Processing and Booking Procedures
The Government contends that ACSO changed its arrestee booking procedures to target Hispanics “for heightened immigration enforcement” after entering into the 287(g) MOA. (Doc. 1 ¶¶ 47-51; Doc. 158 at 65-66, 132.) According to the Government, after the start of the 287(g) program, ACSO required that all persons arrested be “fully booked” into the ACDC, subjecting more individuals — namely Hispanics — to questioning about their immigration status. (Doc. 158 at 65,132.)
The Government relies mainly on the testimony of North Carolina Magistrate Susan Wortinger. {Id.- at 61-62, 65-66, 132.) Magistrate Wortinger has served' 12 years in her position, having previously been employed by ACSO from 1996 to 2002. (Doc. 149 at 155-56:) Her office is in the ACDC. (Id. at 157.)
According to Magistrate Wortinger, before ACSO participated in the 287(g) program, it only booked felony arrestees into its jail. (Id. at 159-60.) She stated that ACSO’s policy changed after implementation of the 287(g) program to require persons arrested for misdemeanors to be booked as well, even if they could pay their fine or the bond. (Id.; see also Doc. 147 at 43^44 (Evans stating that the policy “probably” changed around 2007).) Magistrate Wortinger observed more Hispanics come through the ACDC after the 287(g) program and the change in booking procedure. (Doc. 149 at 162.) She, however, inaccurately believed that the 287(g) program lasted “[mjaybe two years,” when it in fact lasted closer to five years. (Doc. 149 at 158; id. at 126, 128 ; Doc. 154 at 157.) Citing this testimony, the Government contends that ACSO changed its booking procedures following the 287(g) program to' check the citizenship' of misdemeanor arrestees to facilitate their deportation. (Doc. 158 at 132.) The persuasive evidence at trial, however, conflicts with this account of ACSO’s use of the 287(g) program.
Sheriff Johnson changed ACSO’s procedures well before implementation of the 287(g) program. North Carolina law permits law enforcement to photograph and fingerprint arrestees, whether or not they *292 are later committed to a jail, unless they are only charged with certain. lower level motor vehicle misdemeanors. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-502(a). 11 In accordance with the. law and several years before implementation of the 287(g) program, Sheriff Johnson instituted a policy requiring officers to fingerprint and photograph felony as well as misdemeanor arrestees, including, those who have no driver’s license and cannot be identified, irrespective of ethnicity or race. (Doc. 154 at 58-59; see also Doc. 147 at 33 (Perry — called by the Government-testifying that Sheriff Johnson changed the policy a few years before the 287(g) program was implemented).) 12 The Sheriff explained that he did this to remedy a developing problem:
[T]he reason for that was that we were having, people arrested under different names; and when I come in the office, we had an overcrowding in the old jail because our new jail had not been finished.- And when I went down to look at the records, I was seeing people’s same picture but under different names, and also people were not showing up for court when they were arrested or given a citation..
(Doc. 154 at 58.) The new procedure, permitted by North Carolina law, enabled ACSO to properly identify all persons arrested.
The evidence at trial was unclear as to how Sheriff Johnson’s photographing and fingerprinting policy affected, if at all, the number of individuals “booked” into the ACDC and subject to 287(g) questioning. After an arrested individual was brought to the ACDC, the arresting officer completed arrest and property sheets. (Doc. 152 'at 135-38; see also Doc. 154 21-23.) In doing so, the arresting officer inquired whether the arrestee was a U.S. citizen. (Doc. 152 at 138.) This process was completed “in the prebooking area” where the arrestee went before the magistrate. (Id.)
Then, after a judicial officer (usually the magistrate, but sometimes a judge if not at the ACDC) found probable cause for the arrest, he or she set the arrestee’s bond and determined whether the individual could pay the bond so as to be released. (Doc. 152 at 138-39; Doc. 154 at 23-24.) If an arrestee could not meet bond, he or she would -proceed to the booking area and there be subject to possible 287(g) questioning depending on the response to the citizenship question provided on the" arrest and property sheets. (Doc. 152 at 138-40; see also Def. Trial Ex. 52.) If an arrestee could meet bond, however, there was persuasive evidence that he or she might be able to leave without being subject to 287(g) questioning. 13 '
*293 The Government’s complaint further alleged that- arrestees are referred for 287(g) questioning based on ACSO officers’ assumptions about nationality or ethnicity and thus that ACSO targets Hispanics for immigration questioning. (Doc. 1 ¶¶48, 50-51.) To support this allegation, the Government relies on its leading question to Major Alan Miles, who agreed that, during the 287(g) program, “it was impor-. tant to [him] to make sure that people who appeared to be of foreign descent were booked into the jail.” (Doc. 149 at 214.) This was the sole statement regarding the misuse of the 287(g) program within the ACDC, and there is no other evidence on record to support it. Even taking Major Miles’ response at face value, there is no evidence that he or other detention officers, who were stationed in the ACDC, could control whether an arrestee was booked into the jail.
Moreover, there is no evidence as to how many (or few) Hispanics arrested by ACSO were booked into the ACDC and subjected to 287(g) questioning. Certainly, the Government never presented any booking reports or other similar evidéncé from ICE or ACSO to support such a claim. Eather, ICE witnesses called by ACSO, explained that ACSO’s 287(g) officers processed only about one detainee per week at the ACDC through the 287(g) program, and “the bulk” of those detainees actually came from other ICE .offices. (Doc. 152 at 163-64.) Thus, in actuality, ACSO officers contributed only infrequently to the number of ICE detainees housed in the ACDC. \
To the extent that Magistrate Wortinger observed more Hispanics “come- through the jail” after the. implementation of 287(g), this observation aligns with the testimony of former ICE Special Agent Jill Arndt. (Dpc. 149 at 162.) At trial, she explained,
[T]he bulk of the alien population housed at Alamance County jail, actually came in from ICE arrests made by ICE officers qr other 287(g) officers in other counties, and Alamance County jail was actually housing ICE detainees, and the bulk of the numbers at Alamance County jail were , not 287(g) arrests from Alamance County. They were, in fact, , people who had been arrested from ICE officers at other 287(g) 'locations, and we housed those individuals at the Alamance County jail.
(Doc. 152 at 164.) Chief. Deputy Britt added that eleven “contributing” State law enforcement agencies also used ACSO’s facilities for booking. (Doc. 154 at 24; see also Doc. 152 at 138-40 (Sergeant Dan Cubino testifying th'atj no matter the jurisdiction, an arrestee was taken before the magistrate).) Thus, Magistrate Wortinger’s observations of increased Hispanics at the ACDC are consistent with Arndt’s account of the 287(g) program’s operations but reflect an apparent misunderstanding of the reasons for the' increased traffic. The increase 'in traffic was predominantly caused by some combination of ICE’s arrests and those of the eleven law enforcement agencies, other than ACSO, using the ACDC.
Lastly, Magistrate Wortinger testified that, during , the operation of the 287(g) *294 program, she saw Officer Troy Anthony on one occasion with a “stack” of alien registration cards and U.S. passports. (Doc. 149 at 163-64.) Officer Anthony referred to them as his “collection.” (Id. at 164.) Magistrate Wortinger saw one of the documents, which appeared to belong to a Hispanic. (Id.) She did not know whether the documents were forged and reported her observation to Officer Anthony’s supervisor, Brandon Wilkerson, yet she never followed up to determine what, if anything, became of it. (Id. at 164-65,166-67.) She concedes that she is unaware of ACSO’s policy for taking custody of forged instruments or what the deputies actually did with forgeries they came across during their investigations. (Id. at 166.) Although Officer Anthony “regularly” came before her for some period of time, she never found that any of his arrests lacked probable cause. (Id. at 167.)
Officer Anthony denies that he ever referred to a personal collection to Magistrate Wortinger or that he kept any seized items permanently in his possession. (Doc. 152 at 85-86.) The court credits Magistrate Wortinger’s testimony. Officer Anthony’s conduct on this occasion was a violation of ACSO’s evidence collection policy, which required that all documents seized from detainees be preserved in the evidence locker. 14 (Id.; Doc. 154 at 77-78.)
e. Fairness Alamance
In 2008, as a result of publicity about the 287(g) program, a grass-roots collection of individuals in Alamance County formed Fairness Alamance to air concerns about what the group believed was ACSO’s unfair treatment of Hispanics. (Doc. 151 at 143-44.) Members attended Alamance County Commissioners’ meetings, held them own meetings, and organized a candlelight vigil in support of their views. (Id. at 148-50.)
In response to the group’s expressed concerns, Sheriff Johnson invited its members to the ACDC in 2008, provided a tour of the facility, outlined the 287(g) program, and addressed members’ questions. (Id. at 151.) In February 2009, the Sheriff also gave a presentation on ACSO’s traffic stops at an Alamance County Commissioners’ public meeting. (Id. at 151-52.) The presentation provided information based on the traffic stop data ACSO sent to North Carolina’s SBI. (Id.) In his presentation, Sheriff Johnson invited citizens to personally examine the traffic stop data on the SBI’s website. (Id. at 152-53.)
A leader of Fairness Alamance, Laura Roselle, who served as Professor of Political Science and Policy Studies at Elon University, took the Sheriff up on his invitation. (Id. at 142, 153.) On February 16, 2009, following her review, Professor Ro-selle emailed Sheriff Johnson, hoping to discuss the SBI’s data. (Id. at 154-55.) Sheriff Johnson did not respond to her email, and so she asked him about the data and ACSO’s traffic stop forms at the next County Commissioners’ meeting. (Id. at 155.) The Sheriff incorrectly responded that he did not have the forms and that they were in Raleigh. (Id. at 154-55.) Ultimately, Professor Roselle learned that the SBI’s data contained four times as many citations as traffic stops; although, she did not realize that ACSO’s citations also include non-traffic related offenses. (Id. at 158, 182.) Upon finding this discrepancy, and rather than following up with the Sheriff to notify him of a potential problem, Professor Roselle instead met with a County Commissioner and went to a local newspaper to report what she consid *295 ered to be inconsistencies in the numbers. (Id. at 159.)
After the news story went to print, ACSO acknowledged that it had independently found a “glitch” in its computer software, causing the underreporting. of traffic stops. (Id.) ACSO had been in the process of changing its software for the third time in a year. (Doc. 154 at 20.) ACSO informed the SBI of its underre-porting, found a new software provider to correct the problem, and instituted administrative review over its traffic-stop data. (Id.) After these changes, Professor Ro-selle’s requests for corrected data went unanswered. (Doc. 151 at 161.)
In addition to traffic stop data, Professor Roselle made a request to ACSO for information on the implementation of 287(g) — specifically for ICE’s detainee records. 15 (Id. at 161-62.) ACSO referred her to ICE for access to those records. (Id. at 162.) Undeterred, during a March 2009 County Commissioners’ meeting, Professor Roselle again requested the records — this time publicly — from the Sheriff, who was in attendance. (Id. at 163-64.) And after ■ the meeting, she approached him to follow up. (Id. at 164.) He explained that, under the MOA with ICE, he lacked the authority to release the records, so she needed to request them from the federal government — specifically ICE. 16 (Doc. 154 at 64.) At some time during his discussion with her, Sheriff Johnson placed his hand on Professor Roselle’s shoulder; this caused her to bristle, and she became quite upset. (Id.) Sheriff Johnson reacted by saying he was “done” with her, raising his hands in the air. (Doc. 151 at 165; Doc. 154 at 64-65.)
The Government offers this encounter as evidence of anti-immigrant animus by the Sheriff. This is an over-read of the situation. Professor Roselle presented at trial as a deeply-motivated advocate who was personally opposed to what she perceived as anti-immigrant efforts by ACSO, distrusted Sheriff Johnson, and was zealous in her persistence. 17
2. ACSO Arrest Policy and Practice
The Government contends that Sheriff Johnson orders officers to arrest Hispanics, rather than to cite or warn them. (See Doc. 1 ¶¶ 5, 29; Doc. 158 at 2-3, 9-14.) The Government’s proof on this point relies on several witnesses and on statistical evidence (largely through Dr. MacDonald, its expert criminologist and statistician, discussed below).
The Government presented three witnesses who testified that, during one ACSO staff meeting, and perhaps two, Sheriff Johnson directed officers to arrest Hispanics stopped for traffic violations. Kenneth Evans, former ACSO chief deputy, testified that, at a monthly staff meeting (normally held the second Wednesday of every month) around 2007, Sheriff Johnson told officers that if they “went to an Hispanic’s house or [they] stopped one for a traffic violation or if it was a violation, that [they] were to bring them to jail and not write a citation.” (Doc. 147 at 45.) Evans said he did not pass the instruction on to officers under his command, however, “[b]ecause I knew it was wrong,” and there is absolutely no evidence he ever carried it out. (Id. at 45-46.) Similarly, Officer Roger Lloyd testified that at a *296 monthly staff meeting Sheriff Johnson told them that Hispanics without a driver’s license should be arrested and brought to jail, where they would be run through the 287(g) program. (Id. at 151-54.) Officer Lloyd said that the Sheriff had a similar conversation with him, separately and explained that doing so would allow Hispanic detainees to be run through the 287(g) program to be deported, allowing the County to receive money for the federal detention. (Id. at 151-52.) Officer Lloyd was unable to say when such discussion occurred but insisted that he never discriminated against any Hispanic and knew of no ACSO officer who ever had. (Id. at 152-54, 168.) He also conceded on cross-examination that he understood (and his personal practice was) that if he could not identify any suspect, he would arrest him or her so they could be processed and their identity determined. (Id. at 170.) Finally, Brenda Cole — a former ACSO officer — testified that she heard- Sheriff Johnson give the same instruction (to arrest Hispanics) at a monthly staff meeting in 2007 or 2008, but could offer no other context for the statement. (Doc. 151 at 5, 7.) Like the others, Cole insisted that she never carried out the instruction. (Id. at 6.) 18
No party examined any of these three witnesses as to the context of the statements, but Sheriff Johnson did provide some context and presented evidence challenging the credibility of all three. The Sheriff had fired Officer Lloyd in 2009 for lying to an Alamance County Assistant District Attorney. (Doc. 147 at 162, 171— 75; Doc. 154 at 43-44; Def. Trial Ex. 67.) He had also fired Evans’ wife and nephew from ACSO and demoted Evans upon taking office. (Doc. Í54 at 73-74.) And, Cole had supported Sheriff Johnson’s opponent, Ron Parrish, in the most recent election. (Doc. 151 at 6.)
Nine ACSO employees — some of whom were offered by the Government — testified that they had never heard Sheriff Johnson give an instruction to single out Hispanics for arrest or to do so irrespective of whether they could show identification. (See Doc. 150 at 30,134,157,184; Doc. 151 at 136; Doc. 152 at 175-76, 215; Doc. 154 at 4, 37.) Sheriff Johnson similarly denied ever doing so. (Doc. 154 at 56-57.) Rather,- the Sheriff stated that his command left all arrests to the officer’s proper discretion, so that “if’ an officer arrested an individual stopped without any identification, the individual should be brought in for processing. ■ (Id. at 57-58.) Lieutenant Allen, who attended many of the monthly meetings between 2007 and 2013 and recorded his notes in a binder, never heard any statement singling out Hispanics for arrest, and his contemporaneous notes, albeit not exhaustive, reflect no instruction to support the claimed statement. (Doc. 152 at 215-18; Doc. 153 at 7-9.) ACSO Detective Carlos Rossi, who is Hispanic and has been with ACSO for five and a half years, never heard the Sheriff or anyone else discriminate against or target Hispanics. (Doc. 153 at 212; Doc, 154 at 4.)
There was no evidence of a written ACSO policy. ACSO’s own evidence, while not entirely consistent, did offer some context for ' such claims, however. ACSO Chief Deputy Britt testified that he understood ACSO’s policy to be that an officer was to arrest any stopped individual whom the officer cannot identify and who does not have a driver’s license or other method of identification. 19 (Doc. 154 at 37-38.) *297 Lieutenant Brian Allen similarly described ACSO’s arrest policy as follows: “[I]f it was anybody that we couldn’t positively identify, ... they needed to be arrested, and that’s anybody.” (Doc. 152 at 215-16.) As noted, this is what Officer Lloyd explained as well.
However, the more accurate articulation of what was actually implemented by ACSO officers is the following: if an officer stopped an individual without valid personal identification who eannot be reasonably identified, the officer may arrest the individual at the officer’s discretion, assuming the arrest is for an otherwise arrestable offeiise. Captain Kimberly Wilson, head of ACSO’s patrol division, stated that “[a]n officer is to use his discretion” when facing an individual stopped without any identification. (Doc. 150 at 136, 157.) When asked about Sheriff Johnson’s arrest policy, Captain Wilson reaffirmed, “I expect [officers] to use their discretion,.their sound discretion.” (Id. at 157-58.) Major Shelton Brown — head of operations, which includes the patrol division — echoed Captain Wilson’s reiteration of the arrest policy. (Id. at 165-66.) Major Brown testified that officers making a traffic stop had sole discretion to warn verbally, warn in writing, cite, or arrest.' (Id. at 173-74.) He further maintained that complete officer discretion remained following a traffic stop, “even if the driver doesn’t have a valid driver’s license.” (Id. at 173-74.) In sum, the officer “máke[s] the choice” to arrest. (Id. at 173.) All of this is consistent with'Sheriff Johnson’s articulation of ACSO’s policy, which appears to comport with N.C. Gen.Stat. § 15A-502..
As to the statements attributed to Sheriff Johnson, it is difficult to accept that the Sheriff made them as portrayed, given the lack of context offered for them and the number of ACSO officers who stated credibly that they never heard them. Had the Sheriff made these statements as characterized, it is implausible that an officer or employee (some of whom are Hispanic) would not have questioned his statements and complained. This is especially true in light of the Government’s evidence that all orders of the Sheriff were expected to be obeyed and that all three individuals who claimed to hear such a directive universally testified that they never followed it.
3. Orders to Targét Hispanics
The Government’s complaint alleges that during a staff meeting after January 2007, Sheriff Johnson yelled “bring’ me some Mexicans” while banging on the table, and on another occasion instructed his staff to “go out there and catch me some Mexicans.” (Doc. 1 ¶ 27(a)-(b).)
At trial, .the first claim was supported by Officer Lloyd, who testified that he never heard the Sheriff use the word “Mexicans” but heard him say at one unidentified staff meeting: “bring me Hispanics.” (Doc. 147 at 153-54.) In eliciting this-statement, the Government made no effort to provide any context, and none was given. There was no testimony about banging on the table, and no other witness supported Officer Lloyd’s claim. Sheriff Johnson denied ever making this- statement. (Doc. 154 at 57-58.) The court is doubtful that the claimed statement was made, especially in the unsupported context the Government contends.
As to the second claim, the Government presented testimony from two former ACSO officers. In one instance, according to Corporal Adam Nicholson, Sheriff Johnson once said, “Go get the Mexicans.” *298 (Doc. 147 at 81.) While he could not recall the context, it was most likely when the owner of the Rocky Top mobile home park, which has a significant Hispanic population, came to Sheriff Johnson’s office to complain about crime. Sheriff Johnson summoned Corporal Nicholson, who reported that the “Bandidos,” a Mexican gang operating in that area, had been breaking and entering into trailers in the mobile home park. (Id. at 78, 88-89.) Corporal Nicholson testified that he interpreted the Sheriffs comment as a command to arrest every Hispanic in the park. (Id. at 86-87.) But as Corporal Nicholson conceded, because the park was predominantly Hispanic, such an interpretation would have resulted in the arrest of many, if not most, of the owner’s paying customers. (Id.) Insofar as the owner, who was present, never objected to whatever the Sheriff said or directed, Corporal Nicholson’s interpretation appears overstated and conflicts with his own testimony. In fact, Corporal Nicholson admitted he never arrested anyone, but instead set up a license check point near the park on his own accord “to appease” the Sheriff. (Id. at 78, 87-89.) When pressed further, he conceded that he never intended to arrest non-violent or non-criminal Hispanics, but was after the “Bandidos,” who were the “people who broke the law that day”; and he inferred that is what the Sheriff meant, too. (Id. at 88-89.) Corporal Nicholson also denied that he ever targeted any Hispanics or knew anyone at ACSO who did. (Id. at 92.) 20
This understanding is consistent with the testimony of Sergeant Christopher Crain, the Government’s other witness, who worked with Corporal Nicholson and recalled an incident when Johnson said, “go get those Mexicans.” (Doc. 151 at 132.) 21 Sergeant Crain recalled the Sheriff making the statement upon learning that a Mexican gang had spray-painted an ACSO patrol car. (Id. at 132-33, 136-37; Doc. 154 at 69-70.) Notably, Crain’s testimony differs from the Government’s claim that Sergeant Crain heard an order to “[g]o get some Mexicans.” (Doc. 158 at 11,122 (emphasis added).)
The persuasive evidence is that Sheriff Johnson stated “[g]o get those Mexicans” or “the Mexicans” in reference to a specific Mexican gang then under ACSO investigation for criminal activity. It does not indicate that the Sheriff ever directed his deputies to arrest individuals simply because they were from Mexico or were Hispanic.
4. ACSO Checkpoint Policy and Implementation
The Government contends that ACSO targets Hispanics through its enforcement of vehicle checkpoints. (Doc. 1 ¶¶ 41-46; Doc. 158 at 139-46.) ACSO has a written checkpoint policy in its internal policy manual which outlines the purposes and procedures for its checkpoint operations. *299 (Gov’t Trial Ex. 113.) The general purpose of the policy “is to- establish guidelines and procedures for members- of [ACSO] to conduct suspicion less [sic] seizures of vehicles at vehicle checking stations (checkpoints).” (Id. at 1.)
The policy provides for three permissible purposes or types of checkpoints: “standard”; “informational”; and “special operations.” (Id. at 2-4; Doc. 154 at 104-05.) Standard checkpoints were the most commonly used and aim to “determine compliance with motor vehicle laws,” such as “verification of drivers’ licenses, vehicle registration checks, insurance checks, seat belt compliance checks[,] and driving while impaired checks.” (Gov’t Trial Ex. 113 at 2; Doc. 150 at 82.) To set up a standard checkpoint, the policy states that the checkpoint “shall be approved, in writing, by a Sheriffs Office supervisor or their designee.” (Gov’t Trial Ex. 113 at 2.) For standard checkpoints, supervisors must complete ACSO’s “Checking Station Authorization Form.” (Id.) Informational checkpoints generally seek “motorists’ assistance in solving a crime” and require supervisor approval — -written or unwritten — prior to setup. (Id. at 3 (stating that approval must be made “in advance”).) Once in place, standard and informational checkpoints must “provide for the stopping of every vehicle.” (Id. at 1.) Special operations checkpoints focus on “the apprehension of a suspect who poses a danger to life and property or the rescue of a hostage or abducted person” and, under the policy, do not require the stopping of every passing vehicle. (Id. at 1, 3-4.)
ACSO’s checkpoint policy does not require officers to complete a stop form — a North Carolina SBI form filled out by ACSO officers following a traffic stop — for every vehicle passing through a checkpoint, presumably for practical logistical reasons. (See Gov’t Trial Ex. 59.) Instead, the policy explicitly ensures that only those vehicles physically detained at a checkpoint will require the completion of a stop form. For standard-checkpoints, the policy does not require retention of any driver information, and, only after reasonable suspicion is found can an officer detain-a driver for a reasonable time. (Id. at 2-3.) : For informational checkpoints, the policy prohibits ACSO officers from asking for drivers’ licenses or any other documentation. (Id. at 3.) Finally, for special operations checkpoints, the policy does not oblige the checking of driver information, nor does it even require that every vehicle passing through the checkpoint be stopped. (Id. at 1,- 3-4.) Therefore, at checkpoints, ACSO officers fill out stop forms when an officer detains an individual beyond the initial physical stop.
ACSO Captain Kimberly Wilson reviews checkpoint paperwork filled out by ACSO officers. (Doc. 150 at 151; see also Gov’t Trial Ex. 113 at 2 (requiring completion of “Checking Station Authorization Form” for standard checkpoints).) She believes she would “notice” if officers conducted “checkpoints in the same or similar locations repeatedly.” (Doc. 150 at 151-52.) Major Shelton Brown confirmed that she performed this review. (Id. at 181-82.)
ACSO conducted at least four hundred and thirty-five checkpoints in the County from 2009 through 2012. 22 (Doc. 153 at 93.) Some of those occurred near mobile home parks with predominately Hispanic residents. (Doc. 147 at 156-57, Í88-90, *300 213; Doc. 148 at 18; Doc. 150 at 85.) ACSO also patrolled at or near these mobile home parks on occasion. (Doc¡ 149 at 216-17; Doc. 153-at 9; Doc. 154 at 106-07; Def. Trial Ex. 61.)
There is some indication that ACSO’s checkpoint policy was not uniformly followed insofar as obtaining supervisor approval. Lieutenant Allen stated that individual officers under his supervision would select the time and location of checkpoints. (Doc. 153 at 4.) Another officer, Officer Anthony, stated that his traffic unit— which consisted of supervisors Corporal Ray and Sergeant Wilkerson — would select checkpoints over dinner. (Doc. 147 at 209-10. But see Doc. 148 at 20-22 (Officer Anthony noting that he would receive written checkpoint approval after the checkpoint operation); Doc. 150. at 181 (Major Brown observing that approval for, a checkpoint can be verbal and with written approval coming afterwards).)
However, the vast majority of check-’ points were, conducted within the guidelines of ACSO’s checkpoint policy. (Gov’t Trial Ex. 113; Doc. 154 at 104-05.) Most officers testified as to their performance of standard checkpoints. For example, Lieutenant Mark Hoover — a patrol supervisor — explained that ACSO’s checkpoints are- “generally ... for your ... driver’s licenses or registration or insurance.” (Doc. 150 at 9; see also Doc. 148 at 22-24 (Officer Anthony similarly described the general purpose of standard checkpoints.).) He further testified, “The purpose of a checkpoint, [is] to check validity of driver’s license, registration, insurance.” (Doc. 150 at 27-28; see also id, at 10.) Officer Bobby Culler — a North Carolina highway patrolman — similarly recalled performing only a number of “traffic cheek, drivers check” checkpoints in conjunction with ACSO. (Doc. 152 at 171-72.) Deputy James Conklin echoed that the “purpose of setting up” standard checkpoints is “motor vehicle violations.” (Doc. 150 at 82; see also id. at 90 (“We check driver’s license and' registrations____We don’t set them up specifically for drugs. If we stop a vehicle and either smell or see something, that would indicate to us we move forward,”).) Similarly, Sergeant Crain testified that the checkpoints he conducted “ensured] compliance with North Carolina motor vehicle law primarily.” (Doc. 151 at 112-13.) Similarly, Sheriff Johnson described informational checkpoints as attempts “to get information on the crime” or individuals committing crime. (Doc. 154 at 149-50.)
The Government characterizes ACSO’s use of and selection of location for some checkpoints as evidence of improper purpose. For' example, ■ the Government points to testimony of Deputy Conklin and Lieutenant Hoover that they considered checkpoints to be a form of “general law enforcement.” (Doc. 158 at 142-44.) Such testimony was' generally elicited by the Government through leading questions and was generally clarified on cross-examination as merely the deputies’ shorthand for a “standard” checkpoint. (See, e.g., Doc'. 148 at 22-24 (Officer Anthony clarifying that he participated in standard checkpoints — not checkpoints for drugs — but, if he saw drugs, would take further action); Doc. 150 at 33-34 (Officer Hoover clarifying that ACSO runs checkpoints for the purpose of observing “driving violations”); id. at 89-90 (Deputy Conklin stating that ACSO does not “set [checkpoints] up specifically for drugs” but rather for motor vehicle violations).) The Government also argues that evidence that ACSO located checkpoints in high crime areas indicates they were improperly used for generalized law enforcement. (See Doc. 151 at 113-14 (pointing to Sergeant Crain’s deposition testimony that “[y]ou fish where the fish are”); Doc. 154 at 106 (Sheriff Johnson’s testimony that he approves of placing *301 checkpoints in high crime areas).) Apart from what is discussed -immediately below, however, there was no evidence that ACSO conducted any standard checkpoint with a purpose to target Hispanics.
Of the over 400 checkpoints conducted, the Government presented evidence relating to foul'. 23 The first involved Paula Crotts — a county employee at Alamance County Central Communications. (Doc. 149 at 116-17.) On a Sunday in 2010, ACSO Deputy Sara Keller stopped Crotts and her husband (both of whom are Caucasian) at a checkpoint on Monroe Holt Road near Rocky Top mobile home park, which is predominantly Hispanic. (Id. at 116-19.) Crotts’ husband was driving the car and, upon approaching. the deputies, retrieved his wallet and began to pull out his driver’s license. (Id. at 119.) Deputy Keller leaned in, observed the two of them (Deputy Keller knew Crotts because Crotts was a substitute teacher at the high school Deputy Keller attended (id. at 119— 24)), said hello to Crotts, and said that she did not need to see Mr. Crotts’ license because “they were there to get .them some,” gesturing toward the mobile home park. (Id. at 119.) Crotts testified (without objection) that she assumed that Deputy Keller meant “she was there to get as many Hispanics — or get an Hispanic person stopped,” but she conceded she did not know. (Id. at 120, 125.) Deputy Keller had no recollection of seeing Crotts at a checkpoint and denied making the statement or waving them through. (Id. at 114-15.) She did admit that she had conducted a checkpoint on Monroe Holt Road as well as another checkpoint on Kernodle Lane — the road entering the mobile home park. (Id. at 110-13.) There was also evidence that ACSO conducted a small number of checkpoints on weekends, although the policy manual discourages them from taking place' near a religious institution during worship ■ hours. ■ (Doc. 150 at 31-32 (noting that the policy manual did not prohibit checkpoints on the weekend); Doc. 153 at 10; Doc: 153 at 4; Gov’t Trial Ex. 113 at 5.) The court'concludes that the checkpoint occurred ás Crotts testified. ;
Second was the previously-mentioned 2007 meeting at ACSO between Corporal Nicholson, Sergeant Crain, Sheriff Johnson, and the owner, of the Rocky Top Mobile Home Park. This was the meeting when the Sheriff told Corporal Nicholson to “get me those Mexicans,” referring to the Bandidos gang committing crimes in the park. (Doc. 147 at 77; Doc. 154 at 69-70.) As a result of the meeting, Corporal Nicholson took it upon himself to conduct a standard license checkpoint, but he performed no arrests, wrote no citations, and filled out no traffic stop forms. (Doc. 147 at 89, 92.)
Third, three former ACSO officers offered testimony concerning a checkpoint on Highway 49 one-half mile-, from, the Seamsters mobile home park, which is predominantly Hispanic. (Doc. 147 at 29-30, 47, 155.) Sheriff Johnson asked Officer Lloyd to set it up, and it was the only checkpoint the Sheriff asked of him. (Id. at 155.) Two other ACSO officers — Kenneth Evans and Steven Perry — were among those working the checkpoint, but as van drivers to transport arrestees to the ACDC and not as interdiction officers: (Id. at 28-29; 46.) According to Officer Lloyd, the Sheriff told him that “if we had Hispanics coming through the checkpoints that was [sic] ÑOL [No Operators License] or driving revoked, we was [sic] to arrest them.” (Id. at 155.) Officer Lloyd, *302 however, added, “We discussed it, and we decided we was [sic] going to also arrest any whites or blacks at these same checkpoints also.” (Id.) Evans and Perry similarly testified that Sheriff Johnson told them to arrest Mexicans or Hispanics. (Id. at 30 (Perry: “If any Mexicans violate the law, lock their ass up.”), 52 (Evans: “[I]f there is [sic] any Hispanics that come through here or whatever, ... you don’t write them a citation, you take [them] to jail.”).) It is not clear why the Sheriff would have directed such a statement to them because neither was tasked with any responsibility to actually arrest anyone at the checkpoint. 24 In any event, at the conclusion of the checkpoint ACSO had arrested equal numbers of whites, blacks, and Hispanics. (Id. at 155-56.) Officer Lloyd was also adamant that he never discriminated against Hispanics nor knew any ACSO officer who had. (Id. at 168.)
Several ACSO officers deny this account of the checkpoint. Principally, Sheriff Johnson denied he was present and testified that he never gave such an order to arrest Hispanics. (Doc. 154 at 56.) Chief Deputy Britt, who lives in the general vicinity of the checkpoint, testified that he recalled only a checkpoint that took place after a series of break-ins in the area and that it was actually informational only. (Doc. 154 at 24-25.) According to him, its purpose was simply to inform the community and ask if they knew anything about the break-ins. (Id.) And because it was only informational, he stated, ACSO officers performed no arrests or citations. Indeed, while ACSO maintained citation and arrest forms, there was no record that either occurred at the checkpoint. (Id. at 25.) He also denied that Sheriff Johnson was present at that checkpoint. (Id. at 26.) Finally, Officer Culler, who was a North Carolina Highway Patrol officer from 1983 to 2011, credibly acknowledged conducting checkpoints with ACSO as a “multi-agency” effort, including at Highway 49, and never knew Sheriff Johnson to use racial slurs or discriminate against anyone. (Doc. 152 at 171-74.)
Fourth, Officer Lloyd testified during the Government’s direct examination that, while preparing to assist at a checkpoint at the predominantly Hispanic Rocky Top mobile home park, then-Chief Deputy McPherson initially told him that Sheriff Johnson had said that any Hispanics driving without a driver’s license or driving with a revoked license should be arrested. (Doc. 147 at 156-58.) However, after Officer Lloyd and a few others .sought clarification, Chief Deputy McPherson later arrived at the checkpoint, having consulted with Sheriff Johnson, and reported back that the Sheriff meant the instruction for everyone and “didn’t mean just Hispanics.” (Id. at 158-59.)
5. ACSO’s Stops and Searches
a. Particular Stops
The Government’s complaint contains broad allegations that ACSO discriminato-rily stops Hispanics without reasonable suspicion, alleging several “[ejxamples of such incidents.” (Doc. 1 ¶37.) By the time of trial, however, the vast majority of these instances never materialized, with the Government citing evidence as to only one of those alleged instances — a stop that resulted in no arrest or citation. Cf. Floyd v. New York City, 959 F.Supp.2d 540, 624-58 (S.D.N.Y.2013) (finding multiple detailed instances of suspicionless stops or frisks of African-Americans in Fourteenth Amendment selective law enforcement case). Evidence of two other stops was offered at trial, but the Government makes no reference to either of these in its post- *303 trial proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law. All three will be addressed below.
First, at trial, the Government questioned ACSO Deputy James Conklin, a law enforcement veteran of forty-one years, about his stop of a van at night on Interstate 40 “a few years ago.” (Doc. 150 at 86.) The -deputy stopped the van for impeding traffic because it was driving 20 miles per hour below the posted 65 mile per hour speed limit. 25 (Id, at 86, 91-93.) When making the stop, Deputy Conklin approached the vehicle from behind and did not know the ethnicity of the van’s driver or passengers. (Id. at 92-93.) The van was driven by a Hispanic man and had several Hispanic passengers. (Id.) When asked for his license and registration, the driver handed Deputy Conklin a sheet of paper with a list of twelve to fifteen names, phone numbers, and dollar amounts. (Id. at 93-94.) Deputy Conklin also observed “multiple fast-food bags with trash in them” and bottles filled with what appeared to be urine. (Id. at 94.) This evidence led him to contact ICE because he suspected possible human trafficking. (Id.) The Government cites the fact, that Deputy Conklin detained the van and its occupants for approximately fifty minutes or an hour, but on cross-examination it was apparent that he did so at the direction of ICE so its agents could arrive at the scene. (Id. at 95.) The deputy could not recall whether he issued a citation or a warning. (Id. at 86-87.) He was later advised that the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute the case because it had “concerns” about the validity of the stop. (Id. at 87.) There was no testimony as to what those “concerns” were or what became of the matter, yet Deputy Conklin believed some occupants were released and some were transported to ACSO’s .office. 26
Second, the Government offered testimony from a former Assistant U.S. Attorney, Arnold Husser, who primarily handled immigration-related cases and worked on hundreds of them over his career. (Doc. 148 at 190-91,198.) Husser handled approximately two dozen immigration cases from Alamance County. (Id. at 198.) Of those, he declined to prosecute two cases and described only one, which he characterized as a “bad stop” because the ACSO officer stopped a car after it switched lanes several times. (Id. at 191— 93.) Husser remembered that the driver was an alien but could not recall whether he was Hispanic. (Id. at 193, 197-98.) Husser’s concern at the time was that the stop was improper “no matter who the driver was.” (Id. at 194.) He noted, however, that during his involvement with ACSO as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, he never observed evidence that its deputies racially or ethnically profiled Hispanics. (Id. at 196.)
Finally, the Government elicited testimony from Jose Luis Arzola, Jr., a Hispanic man living in Burlington, North Carolina, which lies within Alamance County. Arzola has been stopped by an ACSO deputy approximately three times in the ten years he has lived in the County. (Doc. 147 at 184.)' He has received traffic citations, but he “usually” did not get an explanation for the stop reason until he examined the ticket. (Id. at 191.) He did not maintain that any citation was unwarranted. In 2009 or-2010, an unspecified ACSO deputy stopped Arzola while driving on a highway near Green Level. (Id. at 185.) Arzola was not aware that he had *304 violated any- traffic law but could not say whether he was speeding. (Id.) Once Ar-zola .pulled his car to the side of the road, the deputy asked him for his driver’s license. (Id. at 185-86.) After that was produced, the deputy asked for his “par pers.” (Id.) The deputy never clarified the question, but Arzola, who is legally present in the United States on a .Green Card, assumed the question referred to immigration documents. 27 (Id. at 191-92.) Arzola responded that he did not have his immigration documents with him, but that they were at his house. (Id. at 187, 191.) Apparently satisfied, the officer let Arzola leave. (Id. at 191.) Arzola “didn’t really see it as a big deal” and never filed a complaint with ACSO about the stop. (Id. at 192-93.) In fact, he testified that ACSO and its officers responded twice to his calls of two b'reak-ins at his home and described his treatment as “excellent.” (Id. at 194.) He explained that he called ACSO on both occasions because he believed that having them respond would reassure his wife and make her feel safe. (id. at 194-95.)
b. Statistical Evidence
i. Dr. John Lamberth
The Government’s trial evidence of discriminatory targeting of Hispanic drivers was presented through an observational benchmark study involving statistical analysis performed by Dr. John Lamberth. Dr. Lamberth is the head of the Lam-berth Consulting firm in West Chester, Pennsylvania. (Doc. 148 at 28.) Lam-berth Consulting focuses on assisting police departments to identify potentially discriminatory targeting. (Id. at 31.) The firm’s clients span several states and include twenty to twenty-five law enforcement agencies. . (Id. at 32.). As part of the firm’s work, Dr. Lamberth also serves as an expert witness in litigation. (Id. at 31.)
Prior to starting Lamberth Consulting in 2002, Dr; Lamberth was a tenured professor and chair of the department of psychology at Temple University. (Id. at 29-30.) He holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. in social psychology. (Id. at 28.) During his time as a professor, 'Dr. Lam-berth taught a number of psychology courses and published empirical analyses relating to the criminal justice system, specifically concentrating on traffic enforcement and racial or ethnic disparities. (Id. at 30-31.) The Government thus offered Dr. Lamberth as an expert in studying patterns of traffic enforcement. (Id. at 37.) Sheriff Johnson does not dispute Dr. Lamberth’s expert qualifications but challenges admission of his opinions under Federal Rule of Evidence 702. (See Doc. 127.) Those challenges will be addressed in the court’s conclusions of law.
The Government retained Dr. Lam-berth to perform an analysis of ACSO’s citation practices to measure for potential patterns of traffic law enforcement. 28 (Id. *305 at 38.) Dr. Lamberth began by. creating a “benchmark survey.” ■ (Id.) To do so, he attempted to create a profile of drivers— a “benchmark” — by observing all drivers on selected roads in-' Alamance County, their ethnicity, and whether they were violating a North Carolina traffic law.' (Id. at 38, 40.) Here, the benchmark sought to determine how many Hispanic drivers violate a traffic law on specific roads 'in Alamance County. (Id. at 40.) Dr. Lam-berth then compared that benchmark to the actual citations issued by ACSO on those same roads. (Id), at 38-39; see also Gov’t Trial Ex. 71 (example' citation form).)
Dr. Lamberth selected three Alamance County roads for his study: Highways 49, 70, and 87. (Id. at 45.) Highways 49 and 87 are two-lane roads, and Highway 70 is a mix of two-lane and four-lane roadways. (Id.) The speed on those highways varies from 25 to 50 miles per hour. - (Id.) The highways also cut through both urban and rural areas. (Id. at 45-46.) In 2012, Dr. Lamberth set up a total of 22 sites at some unspecified distance off of those thrée highways to observe traffic. 29 (Id. at 54-55.) Each observation site was at least a quarter of a mile from'an intersection, to allow for the identification of vehicles exceeding the speed limit. (Id. at 66.) He also located sites on both sides of the highways. (Id. at 67.)
Dr. Lamberth employed two persons— Richard Rivera and Sabino Valdez — to conduct the traffic survey. The two sat in a vehicle facing oncoming traffic for approximately three hours at a time. (Id. at 64, 67.) The three-hour sessions occurred fifteen times on each of the three highways and occurred between 7:00 a.m. and 1:00 a.m. during the spring and fall of 2012. (Id. at 67-68, 84, 87.) In total, the surveyors spent 135 hours making observations of some fifteen thousand drivers. (Id. at 67,175.)
' Rivera is' a former New Jersey state police officer. (Id. at 70, 188.) No information on Valdez’s background was provided, and neither surveyor testified at trial. Both are Hispanic and have worked with Dr. Lamberth in prior studies. (Id. at 70-71, 77.) Rivera made the “vast majority” of observations, with Valdez assisting him at some, unknown frequency if there was “enough traffic to merit” two observers. (Id. at 61,175-76.) Otherwise, Valdez’s role was limited to recording Rivera’s observations,, (Id. at 61, 70-71, 175-76.) The surveyors identified drivers who “appeared to be” or “looked” Hispanic. (Id. at 181.), Dr. Lamberth provided no description, criteria, or .standard used by the surveyors to identify someone they believed to be “Hispanic” other than “if they thought someone looked Hispanic.” 30 (Id.)
In an effort to verify the accuracy of Rivera and' Valdez’s ethnic observations, Dr. Lamberth claims to- have calibrated the surveyors’ “inter-rater reliability.” (Id. at 56.) Inter-rater reliability testing was presented as a method used in published, peer-reviewed journals to assess the reliability of visual observation. (Id. at 58-59.) The purpose of an inter-rater reliability test is to determine both how the surveyors identify individuals’ ethnicities and the reliability of those identifications. (Id. at 56-57.)- The test compares the observations of multiple observers to ascertain how often their perceptions agree. *306 (Id. at 56, 61.) Dr. Lamberth prefers that the observers agree on driver ethnicity in at least 80% of the observations. (Id. at 56.) Here, Dr: Lamberth testified, Rivera’s and Valdez’s “inter-rater reliability” testing produced agreement as to the ethnicity of drivers in 100% of their observations. (Id. at 56-57, 60.) However, the surveyors only made ten test observations, and none included a Hispanic driver. (Id. at 128,131.)
In addition to observing ethnicity, the surveyors also endeavored to identify those drivers who violated a North Carolina traffic law in any regard. The surveyors attempted to observe every traffic law violation (id. at 72, 179-80), so no distinction appeared to have been made as to the degree of the violation (e.g., more serious speeders were not distinguished from those slightly exceeding the speed limit). Nor was any testing done to confirm the accuracy of the surveyors’ abilities to identify traffic law violations, but both surveyors were apparently “familiar with” North Carolina traffic laws, according to Dr. Lamberth. (Id. at 72.) Rivera also used a radar device to identify speed-: ing violations. (Id,)
Using Rivera and Valdez’s observations of ethnicity and traffic law violations, Dr. Lamberth purported to create a benchmark for each of the three highways. (Id. at 78.) After initially identifying Hispanic violators, Dr.' Lamberth weighted the benchmark based on the incidence of citations at a given location. (Id. at 63-64, 79.) Put differently, Dr. Lamberth weighted the observed proportion of Hispanic violators at a given location by the number of ACSO citations at that location. (Id. at 79-80.) In doing so, he provided no testimony as to how he determined which citations occurred at which survey location. This weighting aimed to account for different rates of violations across the three surveyed highways. (Id. at 79-80.)
Following the observational study and weighting based on survey location, Dr. Lamberth calculated the benchmarks identifying the percentage of Hispanic violators on the surveyed highways. For Highway 49, he concluded, the weighted percentage of Hispanic violators was 4.17%, meaning that, of the total drivers observed on this road, 4.17% were both Hispanic and violated a traffic law. (Id. at 103-04.) On Highway 70, the weighted percentage was 4.34%. (Id. at 107.) Highway 87’s weighted percentage was 2.71%. (Id. at 106.)
Dr. Lamberth used these weighted percentages of Hispanic violators as benchmarks to compare against ACSO’s actual citation practices. To do this, he gathered all of the.actual citations issued as a result of traffic stops on Highways 49, 70, and 87. 31 (Id. at 38-39, 47.) The citations included the location where the citation was issued, permitting Dr. Lamberth to identify those citations issued on the three highways. (Id. at 89.) Dr. Lamberth identified citations issued on those highways from 2008 through October 2013, which totaled approximately 2,000. (Id. at 48-49, 90.) From that group he then removed those citations issued between the hours of 1:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. because *307 his surveyors did not conduct observations during that time. (Id. at 69.)
ACSO’s citation database lacks information identifying the ethnicity of the individual cited. (Id. at 90.) To attempt to address this problem, Dr. Lamberth conducted a “surname analysis.” (Id. at 90-91.) The basic assumption of surname analysis for this case is that individuals with particular surnames “tend heavily to be Hispanic.” (Id. at 90.) Operating on this premise, Dr. Lamberth took the names provided on ACSO citation forms and estimated the probability that those individuals would self-identify as Hispanics. (Id. at 91.) To do this, he used probabilities developed by the U.S. Census Bureau that estimated whether a person with a given surname would self-identify as Hispanic. (Id. at 91-92.) Then, he took each group of names provided in ACSO’s citation database that had an associated U.S. Census Bureau probability and multiplied each group of names by its associated probability. 32 (Id. at 92.)
Using this information, Dr. Lamberth calculated estimates of the percentage of citations issued to Hispanics for each highway. (Id. at 94-95.) According to Dr. Lamberth, the surname analysis estimated that 20.77% of ACSO’s citations .on Highway 49 were issued to Hispanics. (Id. at 104.) For Highway 70, 24.45% of ACSO citations were given to Hispanics. (Id. at 107.) And, for Highway 87, 15.89% of ACSO citations were issued to Hispanics. (Id. at 106.) Dr. Lamberth calculated an error rate for these estimates between 3% and 5%, noting it was “bidirectional,” meaning that the estimates may slightly undercount or overcount the number of Hispanics receiving citations. (Id. at 97-98.)
With the benchmarks from the observational study and the estimates from the surname analysis, Dr. Lamberth calculated “odds ratios” for each highway. (Id. at 33.) Dr. Lamberth’s odds ratios sought to measure the likelihood that a Hispanic would receive a citation compared to a non-Hispanic. (Id. at 33, 39-40.) The odds ratios reflect Dr. Lamberth’s comparison of his benchmarks to his surname analysis estimates of the citations received by Hispanics on the three Alamance County highways. For example, an odds ratio of 2.0 means that the subgroup analyzed is twice as likely to be cited as compared to an individual outside the sub-group. (Id. at 34.)
Here, the odds ratios were 6.0 for Highway 49, 7.13 for Highway 70, and 6.5 for Highway 87. (Id. at 104, 106-07.) Dr. Lamberth testified that each of those odds ratios was statistically significant. (Id. at 104-08.) He also conducted this same analysis for the intersection of Graham-Hopedale Road and Apple Street Extension in Alamance County. (Id. at 50-51, 108.) The resulting odds ratio for that intersection, which he said was statistically significant, was 12.73. (Id. at 108-09.) From these numbers, Dr. Lamberth ultimately opined that ACSO cited Hispanics at a much higher rate than the rate at which they violated traffic laws. (Id. at 39.)
ii. Dr. John MacDonald
The Government also presented expert testimony by Dr. John MacDonald as. to ACSO’s law enforcement practices after *308 traffic stops. Dr. MacDonald is an'associate professor of criminology and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. (Doc. 149 at 4.) Criminology.is “a social science that’s focused on studying' the causes of crime, the response of crime, and some aspects of [lawmaking] — ” (Id. at 6.) Dr. MacDonald holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and both a master’s degree and Ph.D. in criminology. (Id. at 5.) Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. MacDonald was a professor at both the University of South Carolina and the University of Florida and spent time as a behavioral scientist at the Rand Corporation. (Id.) Since 2006, he has held various positions at the University of Pennsylvania. (Id. at 6.) His work at both the Rand Corporation and 'the University of Pennsylvania involved statistical analysis and the criminal justice system. (Id. at 5-6.) Much of his scholarly research and peer-reviewed publications also contain statistical analyses on the topics of crime control and responses to crime. (Id. at 7-8.)
Beyond his academic work, Dr. MacDonald has served as a consultant for several law enforcement agencies to analyze their policing activities. (Id. at 8.) His consulting work included research on identifying patterns of racial and ethnic disparities in stops and arrests, police, use of force, and the effectiveness of certain law enforcement policies. (Id. at 9.) This research' also involved statistical analysis. (Id.) The Government offered Dr. MacDonald as an expert in criminology and statistical analysis. (Id. at 10.) Sheriff Johnson does not dispute Dr. MacDonald’s expert qualifications.
In this case, Dr. MacDonald conducted two studies seeking to identify racial and ethnic disparities in the outcomes of ACSO' traffic stops. (Id. at 11-12.) First, Dr. MacDonald examined the following outcomes occurring after ACSO traffic stops: (1) citation; (2) arrest; (3) written warning; (4) verbal’ warning; and (5) no enforcement action (hereafter “post-stop outcomes”). (Id.) Second, he performed an analysis of ACSO’s searches, following a traffic stop and the rate at which those searches yielded illegal contraband (hereinafter “hit rates”). (Id. at 40.)
For both studies, Dr. MacDonald relied exclusively on ACSO’s traffic stop data from approximately June 2008 to October 2013. 33 (Id. at 11-15.) For that time period, ACSO’s traffic stop database contained information from 20,059 traffic stop forms based on the information provided by the deputies completing them. (Id. at 13-14.) Those stop forms include information on the following: the initial reason for the' traffic stop; vehicle driver information (including the driver’s race and ethnicity but not name); the enforcement action taken as a result of the stop (specifically, whether an officer issued a citation* made an arrest, issued a verbal or written warning, or made no enforcement action); whether the officer performed a search during the stop; ■ the type of search (i.e., whether the search was based on probable cause, consented to, based on a search warrant, incident to arrest, or a protective frisk); whether a passenger was searched; and whether the officer found “contraband” (e.g., illegal drugs or weapons); (Id. at 14-16; Gov’t Trial Ex. 59 (example of ACSO traffic stop form).)
Sheriff Johnson does not dispute the admissibility of Dr. MacDonald’s testimony on either study, but he challenges the inferences the Government seeks to draw from it. The court finds Dr. MacDonald’s *309 testimony generally credible .but, for the reasons noted herein, finds many of the conclusions the Government seeks to draw from it unsupported.
(a) Post-Stop Outcome Study
In his first study examining post-stop outcomes, Dr. MacDonald performed two comparisons. First, he calculated a “raw” percentage for .each of the five post-stop outcomes and separated his results between Hispanics and non-Hispanies. (Doc. 149 at 19-20.) He then performed a “controlled comparison” for each of the five post-stop outcomes, comparing, Hispanics and non-Hispanics, while controlling for the initial reason for the traffic stop. 34 (Id.).Hr. MacDonald used a logistic regression model, which held differences in stop reason constant between Hispanic and non-Hispanic stops. (Id at 28, 37-38.) He controlled for stop reason because he believed that differences in stop reasons may explain differences in the post-stop outcomes faced by Hispanics and non-Hispanics. (Id. at 23.)
Dr. MacDonald did not, however, control for the reason,officers issued citations or made arrests following a stop. That is, his analysis did not attempt to determine whether any observed differences in the arrest and citation records for Hispanics and others could be explained by the reason a person was arrested or cited. (Doc. 155 at 41 (stating that, under his study, “you wouldn’t know the type of arrest, charge, or the type of citation”).) Dr. MacDonald acknowledged that, by not controlling for the reason for citation and arrest, his post-stop outcome study lacks “a layer of context[ ].” (Id. at 42.),
Dr. MacDonald’s comparisons demonstrated statistically significant differences between Hispanics and non-Hispanics for each post-stop outcome. (Doc; 149 at 21-40.) First, comparing the post-stop outcome of citations, Dr. MacDonald found that 55.8%, of stopped Hispanics received a citation versus. 32% of stopped non-Hispanics. (Id. at 21-22.) After controlling for stop reason, Dr. MacDonald’s study showed that a stppped Hispanic is 146% more likely to receive a citation relative to a stopped non-Hispanic. (Id. at 25-26.) Second, as to arrests, the post-stop outcome study revealed that 11,9% of stopped Hispanics were arrested as compared to 6.2% of stopped non-Hispanics. (Id. at 29.) Dr. MacDonald’s controlled comparison of arrests indicated that a stopped Hispanic is 52% more likely, to be arrested than a stopped non-Hispanic. (Id. at 30.) Third, for the post-stop outcome of written warnings, Dr. MacDonald found that 5% of stopped Hispanics received written warnings relative to 9.5% of stopped non-Hispanics. (Id. at 34-35.) Controlling for stop reason, Dr. MacDonald’s comparison indicated that stopped Hispanics were 44% less likely than stopped non-Hispanics to receive a written warning. (Id. at 35-36.) Fourth, for verbal warnings, the post-stop outcome study demonstrated that 22.3% of stopped Hispanics received a verbal warning versus 43,5% of stopped non-Hispanics. (Id. at 32-33.) In his controlled comparison of verbal warnings, Dr. MacDonald’s study showed that stopped Hispanics were 55% less likely to receive a verbal warning than stopped non-Hispanics. (Id. at 33.) Fifth, as to the post-stop outcome of no action taken, the post-stop outcome study revealed that 4.8% -of stopped Hispanics received no action as compared to 8.6% of stopped non-Hispanies. (Id. at 36-37.) The controlled comparison indicated that stopped Hispanics were 63% less likely *310 than stopped non-Hispanics to receive no law enforcement action. (Id. at 37.)
(b) “Hit-Rate” Study
Dr. MacDonald’s second study was of “hit rates,” which analyzed the rate at which searches performed subsequent to a traffic stop yielded contraband. ■ (Id. at 40.) This analysis had two major components. First, Dr. MacDonald determined the rate at which stopped Hispanics and stopped non-Hispanics were searched. He concluded that 16% of stopped Hispanics were searched as compared to 12.9% of stopped non-Hispanics. (Id. at 41.) These figures are statistically significant. (Id.)
Second, Dr. MacDonald examined the “hit-rates” for searches performed during those traffic stops. First he limited his inquiry to the discovery of drugs, because drugs were “the most common contraband found.” (Id. at 43-44.) 35 Controlling for stop reason but not search reason, Dr. MacDonald found that approximately 6% of searches of stopped Hispanics uncovered drugs as compared to 30% of searches of stopped non-Hispanics. (Id. at 44-45.) In other words, searches of stopped Hispanics were 85% (or he said about five times) less likely to uncover drugs relative to stopped non-Hispanics. (Id. at 45.)
Because these figures included searches conducted incident to arrest (which are generally non-discretionary searches conducted as a matter of course), Dr. MacDonald testified that he controlled for that as well as for whether a passenger was searched. (Id. at 46-47.) He found that searches of stopped Hispanics were 80% less iikely to uncover drugs relative to stopped non-Hispanics. (Id.) He reported that these figures are statistically significant. (Id. at 46-48.)
In summing up his conclusions, Dr. MacDonald opined that his “hit rate” analyses “suggest that there is a different standard, a lower threshold of suspicion or probable cause [being applied] in searching Latinos compared to non-Latinos.” (Id. at 48.)
Finally, ' Dr. MacDonald measured search hit rates specifically at ACSO checkpoints. In this study, Dr. MacDonald identified the rate's at which ACSO checkpoint searches yielded drugs, alcohol, or any contraband. (Id. at 49.) He did not, however, control for whether the checkpoint search was incident to arrest. The drug hit rate for checkpoint searches of stopped Hispanics was 9.89%; the drug hit rate for stopped non-Hispanics was 48.22%. (Id.) Dr. MacDonald also observed “a significant difference between alcohol found for those who were searched who were Latino versus non-Latiño who were searched.” 36 (Id.) Dr. MacDonald’s study indicated that the overall contraband hit rate for checkpoint searches of stopped Hispanics was 10.99%, while the overall contraband hit rate for stopped non-Hispanics was 56.8%. (Id. at 49-50.) Each of these figures is statistically significant. (Id.) In summing up his opinion as to searches ACSO conducted at vehicle checkpoints, Dr. MacDonald testified that his results “suggested at checkpoints the searches being conducted on Latinos have a lower threshold for reasonable suspicion or probable cause.” (Id. at 50.)
As to all results, Dr. MacDonald concluded that they showed “a consistent pattern” across all post-stop outcomes and “on an order of magnitude that’s pretty *311 large” compared to what he has seen in other research as well as in his own work. (Id. at 51.)
iii. Officer Mark Dockery and ACSO Data on Searches Not Incident to Arrest
Sheriff Johnson argues that because everyone arrested is automatically searched, the best measure of whether ACSO officers discriminate in searches lies in the evidence related to searches where there is officer discretion — i.e., persons whose searches are not incident to arrest. In this regard and in response to Dr. MacDonald’s testimony about discretionary searches, Sheriff Johnson introduced the testimony of ACSO Officer Mark Dock-ery. 37 (Doc. 153 at 31.)
Officer Dockery is responsible for ACSO’s information technology and is the “system administrator” for ACSO’s record management system. (Id. at 32.) His official duties include retrieving data from ACSO’s computer database. (Id. at 35-36.) He holds an associate’s degree from Rockingham Community College, has taken a course in crime analysis, and has received training from the manufacturer of ACSO’s records system. (Id. at 32-33.) That training included work on Crystal Report computer software, which functions to pull data from databases. (Id.)
Using ACSO’s traffic stop database, Officer Dockery retrieved data for all searches not incident to arrest 38 from December 20, 2008, to October 4, 2013. (Id. at 51-52.) He placed all of ACSO’s traffic stop data into a spreadsheet, examined all traffic stops involving searches, and removed those marked as incident to arrest. (Id. at 51-53.) This left only traffic stop searches not incident to arrest, which Officer Dockery organized by the stop reasons provided on ACSO’s stop form. (Id. at 53; see also supra note 34.) He then compared the results for Hispanics and non-Hispanics (based on ethnic information in the database) by search reason, conducting a simple mathematic calculation to determine the percentage the results represent based on the overall number of stops. (Doc. 153 at 54, 73.) 39 Officer Dockery’s calculations, which were not disputed as to their accuracy, were as follows:
STOP REASON HISPANIC NON- PERCENTAGE OF PERCENTAGE OF INCIDENT TO HISPANICS NON-HISPANICS ARREST SEARCHED SEARCHED 40 SEARCHES
Checkpoint 35 5.18% 22.27%
*312 Driving While 6 20.00% 19.07% Impaired
Investigatory 61 11.42% 16.46%
Regulatory 41 149 ' 10.29% 7.97%
Other 20 9.62% 11.28%
Safe Movement 38 13.24% 10.33%
Speeding 30 1053% 5.53%
Seatbelt Violation 5 .14.71% 14.04%
Stop Sign. Violation 12 ! 10.17% 7.13%
Vehicle Equipment 21 7.42% 8.08%
■ Vehicle Registration 23 9.87% ' 7.68%
Total 251
(Id. at 53-58.)
These percentages demonstrate that in many cases ACSO searched Hispanics at levels comparable to or less than that of non-Hispanics (e.g., at checkpoints, driving while impaired, investigatory, vehicle equipment, seatbelt violations, and “other”). The largest gap was at checkpoint searches, where Hispanics were searched less than non-Hispanics by a factor of more than 4 to 1. The principal areas where ACSO searched more Hispanics were stops involving moving violations such as speeding and safe movement, as well as stop sign and vehicle registration violations. •
iv. Dr. David Banks
Sheriff Johnson offered David Banks, Ph.D., as an expert in statistics and who conducted a number of statistical analyses relating to ACSO’s law enforcement practices. (Doc. 153 at 90.) The Government challenges Dr. Banks’ qualifications and the substance of his testimony. (Doc. 115 (Motion to Exclude Expert Report and Testimony of Dr. Banks); Doc. 153 at 90-91; Doc. 158 at 110 n. 29.) As with the challenge to Dr. Lamberth, those objee-tions will be addressed in the conclusions of law to follow.
Dr. Banks is a Professor of the Practice of Statistics at Duke University in the Department of Statistical Science. (Doc. 153 at 76.) He received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics and anthropology from the University of Virginia, master’s degrees in applied mathematics and statistics from Virginia Tech, and a Ph.D. in statistics also from Virginia Tech. (Id.) Dr. Banks accepted a post-doctoral research fellowship with the National Science Foundation. (Id.) He then taught a number of statistical courses at the University of Cambridge and Carnegie Mellon University. (Id. at 76-77.) For a number of years he was employed by the federal government, working as a mathematical statistician at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, serving as the director of the Office of Advanced Studies and the acting chief statistician at the Department of Transportation, and performing risk analyses for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (Id. at 78-80.) While at the Department of Transportation, Dr. Banks reviewed a written report on racial profiling on the New Jersey Turnpike at the *313 request of the Bureau of Justice Statistics. {Id, at 81.) He also worked with the Fa-, tality Analysis. Reporting'-System, which-is a dataset collected by law enforcement agencies. {Id. at 81-82.). After his government work, Dr. Banks joined the faculty at Duke University, where he teaches courses on data mining: and statistical inference. 42 {Id. at 80-81.) He is not ten-, ured at-Duke but has. received offers for tenured positions at Yale University and Penn State University., {Id. at 90.)
Dr. Banks has written several monographs relating to statistics, edited a number of books connected to statistical sciences, and authored approximately seventy papers on topics including data mining and computer programing. {Id. at 82-85, 89.) He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the American Statistical Association and as the editor of the Journal-of the American Statistical Association. {Id: at 86.) Throughout his career, Dr. Banks has supervised people performing surname analyses, has himself published on surname analysis, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group, which uses surname analysis to link records to identify civilian casualties in conflicts. {Id. at 139-40.) He has received .numerous honors and awards, including his position as a fellow of the American Statistical Association. ‘ {Id. at 86-87.) •
Dr. Banks performed analyses of the following for' this' case: ACSO’s location of checkpoints in Alamance County; the proportion of Hispanics .stopped at ACSO’s checkpoints;-. arrests .of Hispanics at ACSO’s checkpoints; the number of traffic stops of Hispanics in Alamance County; and the number of citations of Hispanics in Alamance County. Each will be addressed in turn below.
(a) ACSO’s Checkpoint Siting
Dr. Banks first performed a permutation test to analyze ACSO’s checkpoint siting. {Id. at 91-92.) A permutation test “considers all possible reassignments of labels to the data and determines whether or not the observed assignment of labels is statistically unlikely compared to random assignment of the labels.” {Id. at 92.) As applied to the current case, Dr. Bank’s permutation test examined whether ACSO sited checkpoints closer to Hispanic communities than would occur- given random chance. {Id. at 92-95.)
To do 'this, Dr. Banks analyzed a list of 305 checkpoint sites — every location at which ACSO conducted a checkpoint in the past four years. 43 {Id. at 92-94.) He then identified the six Hispanic communities that ACSO allegedly targeted through its checkpoint operations. {Id. at 94-96.) For each year from 2009 through 2012, Dr. Banks measured the distance from ACSO’s checkpoints to the six Hispanic communities {id. at 93-96) and ran a thousand simulations of ACSO’s checkpoint siting {id. at 94). Each simulation randomly selected sites from the list of 305 actual sites and, -in doing so, assumed that the list of sites reflected all -possible , checkpoint sites. 44 {Id. at 94, 97-98.) Dr. Banks then *314 compared the actual distance of ACSO’s checkpoints for each year to the distances reflected in his simulations. (Id. at 93-94.)
The results of Dr. Banks’ permutation test showed that 40% of the simulations randomly placed checkpoints closer to Hispanic communities than ACSO’s actual checkpoint sites. ' (Id. at 94-95.) Given these results, and by applying commonly-accepted statistical principles, Dr. Banks concluded that “there was absolutely no evidence that checkpoints were being sited closer to Hispanic communities than would have occurred if they were done just at chance.” (Id. at 99.) As the Government correctly points out, this conclusion assumes that ACSO’s sites reflected all reasonably available sites in the County. While the Government did not provide any credible evidence of other available sites, ACSO’s evidence demonstrated that site locations could not be selected arbitrarily, as they must meet several safety and logistical standards. Therefore, the court concludes that ACSO’s 305 sites were a reasonable reflection of available sites in the County.
(b) ACSO’s Checkpoint Stops
Dr. Banks next examined those who were stopped at ACSO’s checkpoints. 45 He found that 36% of ttie stops at an ACSO checkpoint involved a Hispanic driver. (Id. at 99.) Dr. Banks offered four reasons why this may be the case: (1) Hispanics may be more likely to commit certain types of offenses or engage in certain types of behavior that could lead to a detainment at a checkpoint; (2) Hispanics may be more likely to drive without licenses; (3) Hispanics may be of lower socioeconomic status arid thus not register their vehicles as often or have car insurance; and (4) ACSO may place checkpoints on roads where Hispanics- drive. (Id. at 172-93, 201.)
Dr. Banks offered three -studies to support his first explanation. (Id. at 174-76.) The first is a Prince William County, Maryland study that found that “illegal Hispanics were stopped at ... about three times the rate for DUI[s] compared- to non-Hispanics.” (Id. at 110 (referencing Thomas M. Guterbock et al., Evaluation Study of Prince William, County’s Illegal Immigration Enforcement Policy (2010)).) The second was a Durham -County, North Carolina stridy — conducted by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration — that showed that, in Durham, Hispanics comprised 9% of the population but were involved in 29% of-traffic accidents. (Id. at 111 (referencing National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, Promising Practices for Addressing Alcohol-Impaired Driving Within Latino Populations: A NHTSA Demonstration Project (2010)).) The third was a Fatality Analysis Reporting System study that found that, among fatal accidents, 46 to 47% of Hispanics were intoxicated as compared to 35% of non-Hispanics. (Id. at 110 (referencing Paul L. Zador et al., Alcoholr-Related Relative Risk of Driver Fatalities and Driver Involvement in Fatal. Crashes in Relation to Driver Age and Gender: An Update Using 1996 Data, 61 J. Stud, on Alcohol & Drugs 387 (2000)).) Dr. Banks provided no evidence concerning his other justifications. (Id. at 188— 92.)
To further explain his initial finding, Dr. Banks performed a study in which he compared the proportion of Hispanics stopped at checkpoints sites (36%) to the 2010 unadjusted Census estimate for Hispanics in Alamance County — 11.6%. (Id. at 101, 106.) Dividing the 36% figure by the 11.6% Census estimate, Dr. Banks derived Alamance County’s “disparity” ratio of *315 over 3.0. (Id. at 100, 106.) He then repeated this calculation of ratios for ten other (mostly nearby) North Carolina counties and the city of Burlington (which lies within the County). (Id. at 101.) Comparing ratios across these other jurisdictions, Dr. Banks found that, of the North Carolina counties (and city) examined, Alamance County had only the fourth largest ratio of Hispanics stopped at checkpoints to the unadjusted Census percentage estimate of Hispanics. 46 (Id. at 101-02.)
■ The Government criticizes Dr. Banks’ use of unadjusted Census data. Dr. Banks testified that, while he did not know of peer-reviewed studies using unadjusted Census data, he performed a case-control methodology with that data, which is a common methodology in academic literature. (Id. at 152-53, 156-57.) Second, he stated that he did not attempt to adjust the Census data because “there was no set of adjustments that I actually thought I could actually defend.” (Id. at 105.) Census adjustments are changes to the U.S. Census’ population estimates meant to improve the U.S. Census’ estimates’ accuracy. (Id. at 102.) Adjustments account for population characteristics 'like literacy rates and migrant worker patterns. (Id. at 103-04.) Third, Dr. Banks testified that making adjustments of that kind would have been “problematic” in his study without first controlling for whether or not a person operates their vehicle in a safe manner — the dominant factor in his study. (Id. at 143-45.) Because he could not adjust for driving behavior, performing other “minor” adjustments would have been “misinformative.” (Id. at 144-45.) Fourth, based on North Carolina’s Departs ment of Motor Vehicle data, Dr. Banks found that 9.92% of the commuting miles in Alamance County were driven by Hispanics — a figure he claimed was “consistent” with the unadjusted U.S. Census estimate for the County. 47 (Id. at 106-07, 205.) Fifth, and most importantly, he explained that his analysis “did not require that the actual census count be correct. It only required that the inaccuracy in the census count for Alamance County be about the same as - the ■ inaccuracy of the census count for. [the other localities].” (Id. at 105-06,198.) Dr. Banks noted that, through “pooling information” on Hispanic population figures, the U.S. Census makes the same or similar adjustments to all nearby counties’ population estimates. (Id. at 148.) Given that U.S. Census practice, Dr. Banks believed that- the lack of adjustments caused neárly identical inaccuracies across counties. (Id, at 198-99.)
The court accepts Dr. Banks’ use of Census data for the limited purpose it is offered: to compare Alamance County’s ratio to that of other North Carolina jurisdictions. For the- reasons cited by the Government, the court does so without accepting that 'any ratio is itself indicative of a true benchmark analysis; Rather, it is only Dr. Banks’ relative comparison of Census data, whose alleged internal errors are consistent across all the examined jurisdictions, that will be considered.
(c) ACSO’s Checkpoint Arrests
Dr. Banks next examined ACSO arrests at checkpoints. 48 To .conduct this analysis, he randomly chose. a 10% sample of ACSO’s 435 checkpoints conducted be *316 tween 2009 and 2012, selecting 45 different checkpoints. (Id. at 93, 111-12.) He deemed the 10% sample “adequate” because non-Hispanics had “a considerably higher arrest rate than- Hispanics,” which would require “a remarkable reversal” by the remaining arrest data. (Id. at 113 — 14.) For those 45 checkpoints, Dr. Banks “hand-matched” traffic stop.forms to arrest reports to determine the number of checkpoint arrests and found that 110 stops and 21 arrests occurred there.. (Id. at V\2, 165-66.) His results-showed, that Hispanics “were arrested conspicuously less often than nqn-Hispanics.” (Id. at 112.) However, because his confidence intervals for the two groups (Hispanic and non-Hispanics) overlapped, he determined that from a purely statistical viewpoint there cannot be said to be any difference between them. (Id. at 112-13.)
(d) ACSO’s Traffic Stops
Dr. Banks’ fourth study examined ACSO’s non-checkpoint traffic stops. In this analysis, Dr. Banks compared the proportion of non-checkpoint stops of Hispanics in several North Carolina counties to that county’s unadjusted Census estimate of Hispanics; he then divided that by the proportion of stops of non-Hispanics to the proportion of non-Hispanics in that county. (Id, at 114-15.) The product of this analysis was a ratio, from which Dr. Banks subtracted 1..0 to avoid double counting, to show “whether or not there was an excess or a deficiency of Hispanic traffic stops.” (Id.) Dr. Banks found that Alamance County’s ratio was negative, meaning that, at non-checkpoint stops, ACSO stopped fewer Hispanics compared to their proportion of the population. 49 (Id.) Because this calculation for Alamance County employed the unadjusted Census data as a benchmark, the court does not consider it reliable for the reasons noted earlier. However, Dr. Banks made similar calculations for fourteen other North Carolina counties. (Id. at 115-16.) In comparing the results across the counties, Dr. Banks found that eight of the counties had higher ratios than Alamance County. (Id.) Specifically, he found ■ that Alamance County compared “extraordinarily favorably” to Orange and Randolph-Counties, which he termed “suspicious.” (Id.)
According to Dr. Banks, the results across all jurisdictions he- examined showed that “unless many, many other counties in North Carolina are engaged in aggressive ethnic profiling, Alamance County does not seem to be misbehaving” by comparison. (Id. at 117.) Thus, he concluded, his study of traffic stop ratios “shows that there is no statistical evidence of ethnic profiling in [ACSO’s] traffic stops.” (Id. at 116.) - This is an overstatement. While Dr. Banks’ analysis in- this regard does not prove that no ethnic profiling is occurring in Alamance County, it does suggest -that the County compares favorably to -other counties about which there is no.claim of discriminatory policing.
(e) ACSO’s Citations
Finally, Dr. Banks analyzed what he termed a “Hispanic citation ratio.” In this study, apparently using unadjusted Census data, he calculated the proportion of Hispanics receiving citations relative to the proportion of nón-Hispanics receiving citations for eleven North Carolina jurisdictions. 50 (Id. at 123.) A ratio of 1.0 would reflect a completely ethnic-neutral citation rate. (Id.) The ratio for Alamance County was “above one,” 51 which "suggests that *317 Hispanics are receiving citations at a higher rate in the population” than non-Hispanics. ■ (Id.) By comparison, Alamance County’s ratio was less than thát of three other counties he compared. 52 (Id. at 123— 24.) Orange County had a. ratio “a little bit less than three” and Randolph County’s ratio was “extremely elevated.” 53 (Id.) Based on this comparison, Dr. Banks opined that Alamance County’s ratio was not “suspicious,” especially compared to those other three counties . with ■ “clearly larger” ratios. (Id. at 123-25.) Again, to the extent Dr. Banks used the unadjusted Census data to compute a figure for Ala-mance County, it would be an improper benchmark for reaching a conclusion about the County alone; but to the extent he used the unadjusted Census data across multiple jurisdictions, the court will consider that for the limited purpose it is.offered.
C. Evidence of Racial and Ethnic Bias Within

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/7232883. Public record. Not legal advice.