David Defendant, an African-American male teenager, is on trial for burglarizing a residence in Lincoln Estates in Gotham City in the early morning of January 1, 2001. David was arrested and charged with burglary after police searched his car the afternoon of January 1, 2001, and there found goods that had been illegally taken during a burglary in Lincoln Estates.

Lincoln Estates is a densely-settled neighborhood of Gotham City. Gotham City is an old but flourishing city on the Eastern seaboard of the United States. The population of both Lincoln Estates and Gotham City is ethnically and racially varied. The socioeconomic status of Lincoln Estates, however, is substantially lower than the socioeconimic status of Gotham City as a whole, and rates of violent crime, drug trafficking, and auto theft are substantially higher in Lincoln Estates than they are in the city as a whole.

The intensity of police enforcement activity is substantially greater in Lincoln Estates than in Gotham City as a whole. Generally speaking, a very substantial portion of law enforcement activity in Lincoln Estates is directed at {suppression of} narcotics trafficking. In July 2000 there was a sharp upward spike in the number of nighttime residential burglaries in Lincoln Estates and the burglary rate remained at the new and higher rate for the rest of the year 2000. Several local newspaper articles characterized this spike as a “crime wave.” In November 2000 the Gotham City police department of Gotham City greatly intensified its anti-burglary law enforcement measures in Lincoln Estates and in the city as a whole (but the burglary rate remained at the ...

In the decade before the year 2001, police enforcement actvity in Lincoln Estates led to a number of deaths both among the police department personnel and among the public: during that decade a total of ten police officers and eleven members of the public were killed in Lincoln Estates as a result of shootouts involving on-duty police officers. All of the members of the public killed in such shootouts in Licoln Estates were male African-American teenagers. While almost all of these teenagers were involved in some form of criminal activity when they were shot, several of the shootouts in which these teenagers were short and killed led to successful wrongful death actions against the Gotham City police department and Gotham City police officers. Local newspaper stories often characterize the relationships between police and public in Lincoln heights as “appalling” or “terrible.” Two mayoral commissions have investigated the Gotham City police department in recent years. Both commissions concluded – first, in 1994; then, in 1997 – that the Gotham City police department is infected with a “culture of violemce.” Voluntary attrition within the Gotham Police department increased dramatically in the last decade of the twentieth century. In the year 2000 the rate of voluntary pre-retirement attrition in the Gotham police exceeded twenty per cent (20%). In recent years there have been repeated public demonstrations in Lincoln City to protest rising crimes rates and falling levels of law enforcement activity.

At David Defendant’s jury trial for burglary the prosecution offers to have several police officers – Officers Mark Smith, John Carter, andJane Martinez -- testify to the following matters:

In the early morning of January 1, 2001 – apporximately at 1:30 a.m. – three Gotham City plainclothes police officers – Mark Smith, John Carter, and Jane Martinez – were on patrol in an unmarked patrol car – a 1997 Chevrolet Impala – in Lincoln Estates. Officer Smith, who is White, was seated in the front seat and was driving the Impala. Officers Carter and Martinez were riding in the rear seat of the Impala. Officer Carter is African-American. Officer Martinez is Hispanic

Officer Smith pulled up to a red light at an intersection and stopped. He glanced to his left and saw David Defendant and two other African-American male teenagers sitting in an adjacent car, a sleek new BMW that apparently had also stopped at the red light. Immediately after Officer Smith glanced to his left and noticed David, David bent down and disappeared from Officer’s Smith’s view – and the two other occupants of the adjacent car then did quickly did the same thing. Officer Smith then blurted out, “Stop! Police! What are you guys doing out here in the middle of the night? What are you hiding?” David Defendant quickly sat up erect and glanced at Officer Smith and Officer’s Smith’s automobile, theChevrolet Impala. Almost immediately thereafter David drove away at a high rate of speed. Officer Smith then gave chase in his Impala but he was unable to catch up to David’s speeding BMW.1

Should the trial court accept or reject the prosecution’s offer of evidence at the trial on the merits?2