How a federal judge pulled over 3 times for 'driving while black' tries to keep his own biases in check
“The reality is that race, unfortunately, in America still matters. I wish it were not an issue, but it is,” said U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, speaking as part of a National Judicial College panel.
Well before U.S District Judge Reggie Walton was on the District of Columbia bench, he was a federal prosecutor—a job that paid him well enough he was able to buy “a brand new, pretty black Corvette.”
Proud of his purchase, Walton drove the car back to western Pennsylvania where he grew up to show it off to his parents. After spending an evening catching up with some hometown friends, he said he was pulled over by two Pennsylvania State Police officers on his drive home simply for being a young Black man in a fancy new car.
“I hadn’t done anything. I went to get out of the car and these two state troopers ran up and they had guns pointed at my head,” Walton told an audience of judges tuning in to a webinar Wednesday presented by the National Judicial College titled “Racial Fairness and the Courts: The Role of the Judge in Achieving Racial Justice in the Time of Racial Turmoil.”
“I said, ‘Officers, what did I do?’”
“And they said ‘Whose car is this?’”
“I said, ‘It’s my car.”
“They said, ‘How can you afford this car?’”
“I said, ‘I work.’”
“‘What kind of work,’ they say, ‘do you do that you can afford this car?’”
“I said ‘I’ll show you but I’m afraid you’re going to kill me.’”
Walton said Wednesday that after he slowly and carefully pulled his Justice Department credentials out to show the officers, they “ran” back to their car and drove away.
“They knew they stopped me for no other reason than they saw a young black man driving a pretty new car that was expensive and they thought I couldn’t afford. And I know that happens all too often,” said Walton, who said he had been pulled over twice for “driving while black” before the incident.
Walton told the anecdote to make the point that police officers sometimes don’t tell the truth just like civilians might—something he said judges have to take into consideration in settings such as suppression hearings. He’s spoken out on issues of police misconduct.
The way he “neutralizes” any claim of bias against law enforcement is by pointing back to his experience as a prosecutor. In that job, he worked with law enforcement daily and said he grew to have “the highest respect” for “the vast majority” of officers he interacted with. “I thought they were honorable patriots who were committed to the community who did the right thing,” he said.
“I think if you appreciate that we all have biases and you’re willing to acknowledge that those biases exist, then I think that gives you a first step on making sure that those biases don’t impact how we decide issues that come before us,” Walton said.
Helping judges address issues of implicit bias was the focus of the NJC panel, which was moderated by Judge Lillian Ransom formerly of the Pennsylvania Superior Court, that also featured remarks by Sue Bell Cobb, the former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court and Judge Reba Page of the U.S. Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals. But the most starkly personal stories came from Walton.
Walton also told the audience that he never met his maternal grandfather because he was shot and killed by a white man in this mother’s native Georgia. “Nobody ever did anything about it because, my mother said, the life of a black man wasn’t worth a nickel,” Walton said. “There’s no question that those experiences could cause me to have a bias against white people,” the judge said.
The judge, however, added that he keeps his potential biases in check by asking if he would treat someone who looks like him the same way he’s treating the person in front of him.
As a matter of court administration, Walton said that he tries to address the possibility of bias head on during voir dire by probing whether prospective jurors might have biases that would impact how they see the case. He said when he’s suggested the practice to others on the bench, he’s gotten pushback from jurists who say that delving into juror biases could potentially “inject” the issue of race into a case.
“I always try to convince them that the reality is that race, unfortunately, in America still matters. I wish it were not an issue, but it is an issue,” Walton said. “I think we have to proactively raise the issue with the hope that the appreciation that people have that bias does exist—that they will second guess themselves when they’re making a decision and make sure those decisions are based on the facts and the law and not biases they individually have.”
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