In the case of R. v. Brown, the accused was a young black man and a professional basketball player. He was stopped by a police officer while driving an expensive motor vehicle. The officer claimed that he stopped the accused because the accused was speeding, but there was evidence that called this claim into question. The defence claimed that the accused was stopped because the police had racially profiled him. The court held that a racial profiling claim could rarely be proven by direct evidence. Accordingly, if racial profiling is to be proven, it must be done by inferences drawn from circumstantial evidence. Where the evidence shows that the circumstances relating to a detention correspond to the phenomenon of racial profiling and provide a basis for the court to infer that the police officer is lying about why he or she singled out the accused person for attention, the record is then capable of supporting a finding that the stop was based on racial profiling. Lawyers Julian Falconer and Julian Roy, of Falconers LLP, acted on behalf of the intervenor the Urban Alliance on Race Relations.
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