State will pay $250,000 in civil-rights case

The state has agreed to pay $250,000 to settle a civil-rights claim brought by a black woman who contended racial bias was behind a white State Patrol trooper's decision to pull her over for an alleged traffic infraction.

The resolution came as U.S. District Judge James Robart, who heard the case without a jury last month, was preparing to rule. It also came less than two months after the trooper at the heart of the case, Karen Villeneuve, explicitly rejected settling as an option, court papers show.

As part of the deal, the state insisted that Shirley Lacy, the plaintiff, agree to drop the race-discrimination element of her case. As a result, the settlement resolved the remaining allegation of police misconduct — that Villeneuve arrested Lacy without probable cause.

Assistant state attorney general Paul Triesch, who defended Villeneuve, said the state was motivated to settle as a result of a post-trial meeting Robart held in his chambers.

"He said that he was going to make a ruling that neither side would like, and I think the message was pretty clear that if we wanted to control the outcome we needed to resolve it between us," Triesch said.

At trial, Villeneuve, 35, and Lacy, 49, offered distinctly different accounts of what happened when Villeneuve ordered Lacy to pull over June 11, 2002, on the Columbia Way onramp to northbound Interstate 5 in Seattle. Villeneuve claimed Lacy was driving in a restricted HOV lane.

Villeneuve contended that Lacy's behavior — including repeatedly asking why she was stopped, along with her other "jittery" and "animated" mannerisms — was evidence of driving under the influence. Villeneuve's suspicions deepened, the trooper testified, when she spotted what appeared to be rock cocaine in the console between the front seats of Lacy's SUV, along with a razorblade.

After Lacy allegedly failed field sobriety tests, Villeneuve placed her under arrest for driving under the influence of drugs and for suspicion of possession of a controlled substance.

But another trooper with expertise in drug detection determined Lacy was not impaired. Lab tests later showed the "rock cocaine" was children's cereal and Lacy had used the razorblade to scrape dried glue off her windshield so she could reattach the rearview mirror.

Lacy contended her nervousness was rooted in Villeneuve's failure to explain why she had been stopped, and in fear and anxiety over her detention. Lacy conceded that Villeneuve never said anything overtly racial once she was stopped. But she testified the trooper issued "snappy orders," used sarcasm and had a "rude tone."

During the trial, Lacy's attorneys presented data from a Washington State University study of State Patrol traffic stops as part of an effort to look for signs of racial profiling.

Drawing from the WSU data, University of Washington sociology professor Avery Mason Guest testified that of the 33 troopers who patrol the same area and have 500 or more traffic stops, Villeneuve stopped the highest percentage of African Americans. He said there was a statistically significant difference indicating that Villeneuve's "disproportionate treatment of African Americans was not the product of chance but of design."

Triesch urged the court to discount the statistics entirely, contending that Guest failed to account for the seriousness of the offenses that led to the stops.

Both sides saw something to like in the settlement.

Jesse Wing, a lawyer for Lacy, described it as "a pretty substantial victory and slam on the Washington State Patrol. They're going to have to look at what happened that led them to paying this kind of money."

Patrol spokesman Capt. Jeff DeVere said what was important was that the plaintiff dropped the race-discrimination claim. That Lacy agreed to do so, he contended, "tells me that maybe they agree that that claim was baseless."

DeVere said that an internal-affairs investigation into Villeneuve's conduct — put on hold while the case was pending — now will move forward. But he said, "We continue to stand by the trooper's arrest and search and that the trooper did nothing wrong in this matter."

Still, he said internal-affairs investigators would go over the trial testimony and exhibits "to absolutely make sure" that Villeneuve behaved appropriately.

Peter Lewis: 206-464-2217 or plewis@seattletimes.com