Dueling statistics used at hearing on racial bias in stings
CHICAGO — Dueling experts deployed statistics to make their case Thursday in U.S. District Court in Chicago in a first-of-its-kind hearing to determine if phoney drug stash-house stings run by federal agents dating back to the 1990s are racially biased.
More than 40 people convicted in such stings could go free if a special nine-judge panel eventually rules that discrimination underpins the stings. The operations run by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives typically involve agents posing as cartel couriers who talk suspects into agreeing to rob drugs that don’t exist from stash houses that are also fictitious.
While the same question has come up in courts elsewhere, it is the federal trial judges in Chicago who have taken the lead in seeking an answer. And how they decide the sensitive and complex issue could determine if agencies curtail or even abandon their use nationwide.
The answer to whether the stings do or don’t discriminate based on race largely hinges on competing interpretations of statistics.