UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
-against-

19-cr-323 · (JSR)

JOHANSI LOPEZ,
ANGEL CRISPIN,
ANTONIO BATISTA,
KEVIN BRITO,
WANDY DOMINGUEZ,
AMAURYS HERNANDEZ,
JERVIS CIRINO,

OPINION AND ORDER

,-------~-, I 'SDC

SDNY

1 DOCUMENJ'
'

I

<

ELECTRONICALLY FILED

II)OC #:--.-----,~r..-+-rfr-

Defendants.

1

' •

OATFfTLED.

JED S. RAKOFF, U.S.D.J.
By their very nature,

so-called "reverse sting" operations,

in which the Government creates the illusion of qrimes in order to
catch would-be criminals, are open to potential ~buse, since they
are not cabined by the demands of reality, but on~y by the vagaries
of imagination. In thi 9 case, the defendants ass:ert that there is
enough suggestion that reverse stings executed :by the U.S.
Enforcement Agency

("DEA")

in this

District

are

Drug

aimed only at

persons of color to warrant discovery on the issue of selective
enforcement.
informants

While

in this

mindful

of

dangerous

the
area,

need
the

to

protect

Court

agrees

agents
that

and
some

initial discovery is warranted here, and possibly more to follow.
I.

Background
a. Reverse Sting Operations
1

 The defendants in this case,

I

Johansi Lopez,

Angel Crispin,

Antonio Batista, Kevin Brito, Wandy Dominguez, l;\maurys Hernandez,
I

and Jervis Cirino, are accused of crimes commi~ted in the course
of a reverse sting operation conducted by the DEA.

Such reverse

stings follow a

Sellers,

"common format." United States v.

906

F.3d 848, 850-51 (9th Cir. 2018). First, law enforcement agencies
select

targets

based

on

recommendations

~rom

confidential

informants. Id. at 850; United States v. Davis, 793 F.3d 712, 714
(7th Cir. 2015)

(en bane). An undercover agent or informant then

poses as a drug courier and offers the target an opportunity to
steal drugs that do not actually exist. Targets I in turn help plan
and recruit other individuals to participate in, a robbery of the
fictitious drugs. Just before the targets are apout to carry out
their plan, they are arrested for conspiracy to ¢ommit the robbery
and associated crimes.
The reverse sting that generated this case 1 is of this kind.
In

early

2019,

two

DEA

confidential

sources,:

CS-1

and

CS-2,

identified Johansi Lopez as one of an alleged group of individuals
who specialize in robbing drug traffickers. Criminal Complaint at
4,

~

8, ECF No. 1. At the direction of law enforcement, CS-1 met

with Lopez to discuss a robbery opportunity. CS-1 told Lopez that
he knew of a member of a drug trafficking organ'ization (actually
CS-2)

who

could

organization's

drug

provide

inside

delivery

schedule.
2

information
Over

the

about
next

the

several

 months, CS-1 and CS-2 met with Lopez to devise a robbery of these
fictitious drug shipments. During this time, Lqpez recruited his
codefendants to assist with the robbery. Ultimately, in April 2019,
Lopez and his codefendants traveled to the area of the planned
robbery, where they were arrested by DEA agents;
b. The Discovery Motion
I

Defendants, who are all men of color, allege that the DEA's
use of a reverse sting against them was part of a! practice by which
the DEA limits such operations in the Southerr:i District of New
York to persons of color. Specifically, they assert that the DEA,
by using reverse stings only against people of color, is engaging
in selective enforcement in violation of the Fifth Amendment's
Equal Protection Clause. Pls. Mem. of Law in Support of Support of
Mots. To Dismiss and Discovery ("Pls. Mem.") at :10, ECF No. 36.

!

To succeed on a selective enforcement claim, defendants will
need

to

show

(1)

that

they,

"compared

with

others

similarly

situated, w[ere] selectively treated; and (2) that such selective
treatment was based on impermissible considerations such as race."
I

Brown v.

City of Syracuse,

673 F.3d 141,

151-52

(2d Cir.

2012).

Because defendants are "unlikely to meet this ~emanding standard
i

without information that only the government h~s," Sellers,

906

F.3d at 850, defendants seek discovery into the D~A's reverse sting
practices.
II.

Legal Framework
3

 Whether the Court should grant discovery iri this case largely
turns on which discovery standard the Court should apply. Despite
defining the substantive requirements of a sel~ctive enforcement
claim,

the Second Circuit has not "articulate~ a

evaluating the sufficiency of a motion for

framework for

. discovery on a

selective enforcement claim." United States v. '.Garcia-Pena, 2018
WL 6 9 8 5 2 2 0 , * 4 ( S . D. N . Y . Dec . 19, 2018 ) .
The

Government

would

have

the

Court

import

the

discovery

standard for selective prosecution claims articulated in United
States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 806 (1996). In Armstrong, the Supreme
Court

held

that

a

defendant

seeking

discovery

on

a

selective

prosecution claim must provide "some evidence tending to show the
existence of

(1) discriminatory effect and J2) discriminatory

intent." Id.
1207,

1211

at 4 68
(2d

Cir.

standard," Armstrong,

( quoting United States v. 'Berrios,
1974)).
517 U.S.

This

is

at 468,

an

explicitly

501 F. 2d
"rigorous

that is "premised on the

notion that the standard for discovery for a sel~ctive prosecution
claim should be nearly as rigorous as proving the claim itself."
Sellers, 906 F.3d at 852. The defense here argues that Armstrong's
discovery standard should not apply in the selective enforcement
context, but is less clear as to what standard should apply.
III. Analysis
a. The Unsuitability of the Armstrong Standard

4

 "[A]

stash

house

sting

'

entails

consid$rable

government

I

involvement

--

including direct

solicitation of the target and

total control over the parameters of the robbery, particularly the
quantity of cocaine held in the

fictitious

stash house

appears highly susceptible to abuse." United S~ates v.
F.3d 93,

103-04

(4th Cir.

2016).

-- and

Hare,

820

This "potential for abuse and

mischief that is endemic to fictitious stash-hquse stings"

(i.e.

'

reverse

stings)

necessarily includes

profiling"

and

Washington,

869 F.3d 193,

race-based
223

a

greater risk of "racial

enforcement.
(McKee,

J.

States

concu~ring in part and

dissenting in part), cert. denied, 138 S. Ct. 7~3
Accordingly,

as

now

recognized

by

v.

at

(2018).

least

three

federal

circuits, selective enforcement claims should be'open to discovery
on a lesser showing than the very strict one requtred by Armstrong.
See Sellers,

906 F.3d at 855

(9th Circuit); Washington,

869 F.3d

at 219-21 (3rd Circuit); Davis, 793 F.3d at 720-21 (7th Circuit en
I

bane). These circuits have held that there are material differences
between

selective

prosecution

and

selective

enforcement

claims

that warrant subjecting selective enforcement claims to a

lower

evidentiary standard.
For one thing,

the policy considerations that motivated the

Armstrong Court are less important in the selective enforcement
context.
was

Armstrong explained that a

warranted

for

selective
5

rigorous d~scovery standard

prosecution

claims

because

 prosecutorial

decisions

regularity," Armstrong,

are

entitled

517 U.S.

a i "presumption

of

(citat1ion omitted),

and

to

at 464

because courts should defer to prosecutors in their exercise of a
core executive power.

Id. at 464. These considerations have less

bearing here because law enforcement agents "ar~ not protected by
a powerful privilege or covered by a presumption ' of constitutional
behavior." Davis, 793 F.3d at 720. Indeed, courts frequently assess
the

credibility

of

law

enforcement

officers

in

suppression

hearings and at trial and grant criminal defendants discovery into
various law enforcement operations. Sellers, 906 'F.3d at 853. Given
these differences, "the law supports greater flexibility when the
discretionary decisions of law enforcement,

rather than those of

prosecutors, are targeted by a defendant's reque~t for discovery."
Washington, 869 F.3d at 197.
'
Furthermore, employing the Armstrong discovery
standard would

functionally preclude discovery in any selective'enforcement case.
The Armstrong discovery standard requires defendants to make a
threshold showing that
been

similarly

available

in

similarly situated indi victuals

prosecuted.
the

selective

While

such

eviden~e

prosecution

context

is

have not
ostensibly

based

on

a

comparison of arrest and prosecution data, this is not the case in
the selective enforcement context.

"Asking a defendant claiming

selective enforcement to prove who could have been targeted by an
informant, but was not, or who the [law enforcement agency] could
6

 have investigated, but did not, is asking him to prove a negative."
Sellers,

906

F. 3d

at

853.

Applying Armstrong's

standard

to

a

selective enforcement claim would thus function to make such a
claim "impossible to prove." Id. at 854. This is, too high a bar.
'

This

Court

distinctions

is

thus

between

persuaded

selective

that

there
'

1

prosecution,

are
and

important
selective

I

enforcement claims that argue for a less demanding standard to be
I

applied before the defendants here can obtain discovery.
b. Applying a Lower Standard
However,

while

the

aforementioned

circuit

courts

have

provided convincing reasons to reject the Armstrong approach in
the selective enforcement context, they have not provided a clear
alternative discovery standard. Nor have they b;een precise about
how much discovery should be permitted. Rather, these courts have
left district courts to determine whether and how much discovery
is warranted on a case-by-case basis. See, e.g., Washington,
F.3d at 220

869

("[W]e decline to mandate a precise system or order

that a district court must follow. As we have often said, matters
of docket control and discovery are committed to broad discretion
of the district court.").
To this Court, however, the appropriate stan'dard is that where
a defendant who is a member of a protected group can show that
that group has been singled out for reverse sting operations to a
statistically significant extent in comparison with other groups,
7

 this is sufficient to warrant further inquiry and discovery. Here,
defendants have presented evidence that not a single one of the
179 individuals targeted in DEA reverse sting operations in SONY
in the past ten years was white, and that all bu~ two were AfricanAmerican or Hispanic. Pls. Mem. at 16-17. This is in stark contrast
to the racial makeup of New York and Bronx Counties,

which are

20.5% African-American, 39.7% Hispanic, and 29.5% White. 1 This is
also in contrast to NYPD crime and enforcement data for felony
drug arrests

(42. 7% African-American,

40. 8% Hispanic,

and 12. 7%

White), firearms arrests (65.1% African-America0, 24.3% Hispanic,
9.7% White),

and robbery arrests

(60.6% African-American,

31.1%

Hispanic, 5.1% White) . 2
Furthermore,
analysis

demonstrating

significant.
Crystal S.

defendants
that

According to a
Yang,

highly unlikely,

a

have
these

provided
numbers

~ompelling
are

expert

statistically

j

rigorous analysis conducted by Dr.

Harvard law and economics professor,

to the point of statistical ~ignificance,

it

is

that

the racially disparate impact of the DEA' s revers:e sting operations

See U.S. Census Bureau, 2016 American Community Survey 5-Year
Estimates: Hispanic or Latino Origin by Race, Table B03002,
https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/prod
uctview.xhtml?pid=ACS_17_1YR_B03002&prodType=table.
1

See New York City Police Dep't, Crime and Enforcement Activity
in-- New
York:
City
(Jan
1
Dec
31,
2017),
https://wwwl.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/~nalysis_and_plan
ning/year-end-2017-enforcement-report.pdf.
2

8

 is simply random. Christopher Flood Aff., Exh. I', ECF No. 38.

(Dr.

Yang's analysis is attached to the Opinion as Appendix A.)

The

combination of raw data and statistical analysis is sufficient to
I

meet the aforesaid standard and thus warrant discovery.
c. Scope of the Discovery
In granting discovery in this case, the Court emphasizes that
it must proceed in incremental steps. Courts adopting a discovery
standard lower than Armstrong
have

confirmed

the

for

importance

selective prosecution claims

of

granting

discovery

only

in

"measured steps." See Davis, 793 F.3d at 722 (faulting the district
court

for

granting

a

"blunderbuss

order"

allowing

too

much

discovery too soon). The Court finds that an incremental approach
is a prudent means of preventing fishing expeditions into what is,
'

after all, a sensitive area involving law enfoicement operations
that places the very lives of agents and informants in danger.
Accordingly,

and for now,

discovery will be limited to the
I

Government providing to the defendants, by no later than November
22, 2019,

(1) all DEA manuals, circulars, protocols, and the like
I

that provide guidelines for how and when reverse stings should be
originated; and

(2)

all notes, memoranda,

or other investigative

material showing how defendants were identified and evaluated as
targets
category

in this particular reverse sting operation.
can

include

such

appropriate

redactdons

The second
as,

in

the

Government's opinion, are necessary to protect ~he safety of any
9

 I

agent or informant, but unredacted copies must be provided, on an
ex parte basis,

to the Court.

hearing on Tuesday,

The Court will then hold another

November 26,

I

2019 at 4:00 pm to assess what

next steps, if any, are appropriate.
SO ORDERED.
Dated:

New York, NY
November

/3,

I

JED S. RAKOFF, U.S.D.J.

2019

10

  

APPENDIX A

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK

------------------------------------------------------x
United States of America,

DECLARATION OF PROFESSOR
CRYSTALS. YXNG

-v-

J ohansi Lopez,
Angel Crispin,
Antonio Batista,
Kevin Brito,
Wandy Dominguez,
Amaurys Hernandez,
Jervis Cirino

19-cr-323 (JSR)

Defendants.

-----------------------------------------------------x
Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §1746, I, CRYSTALS. YANG, J.D., Ph.D., declare under penalty of
perjury that the following is true and correct:
1. I am a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and Faculty Research Fellow at the
National Bureau of Economic Research. My primary research areas are in criminal law
and criminal procedure, with a focus on testing for and quantifying racial disparities in
the criminal justice system. Before joining the Harvard Law Sc~ool faculty, I was an
Olin Fellow and Instructor in Law at The University of Chicago,Law School. I am
admitted to the New York State Bar and previously worked as al Special Assistant United
States Attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of~assachusetts.
2. I received a B.A. in economics summa cum laude from Harvard University in 2008, an
A.M. in statistics from Harvard University in 2008, a J.D. magn'a cum laude from
Harvard Law School in 2013, and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University in
2013. My undergraduate and graduate training involved substantial coursework in
quantitative methods.
3. I have published in peer-reviewed journals such as the American Economic Review, The
Quarterly Journal ofEconomics, the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, and
have work represented in many other peer-reviewed journals and outlets.
4. I make this Declaration in support of a motion being submitted by the defendants to
compel the government to provide discovery in this case.

 Statistical Analyses Pertinent to Motion ·

5. I was retained by the Federal Defenders of New York to provid~ various statistical
analyses relevant to the defendants' motion in this case. Specifically, I was asked to
evaluate whether the observed racial composition of targets in reverse-sting operations in
the Southern District of New York could be due to random cha:¢.ce.
6. To undertake this statistical analysis, I first had to obtain the racial composition of
targeted individuals in DEA reverse-sting stash house cases brought in the Southern
District of New York for the ten-year period beginning on August 5, 2009 and ending on
August 5, 2019. Based on the materials in Lamar and Garcia-Pena, as well as additional
searches conducted by the Federal Defenders of New York, I Ul).derstand that there have
been 46 fake stash house reverse-sting operations conducted by the DEA during this time
period. These 46 operations targeted 179 individuals of whom zero are White, two are
Asian, and 177 are Latino or Black-the "sample." 1 Given these counts, this means that
of the targeted individuals, 98.9% are Latino or Black (and 100% are non-White). Thus,
the relevant question at hand is whether the observed racial composition of the sample
could be due to random chance alone if the DEA sampled from 'a population of similarly
situated individuals.
· · -·
'
I

I

7. Second, I had to define what the underlying population of similarly situated individuals
is. In other words, what is the possible pool of all similarly situated individuals who
could have been targeted by the DEA in a reverse-sting operati~n? Because the DEA's
criteria for being a target in these reverse-sting cases is unknowp., my statistical analysis
will assume a variety of hypothetical benchmark populations. ff the government provides
its selection criteria for being a target in these reverse-sting cases, a more definitive
statistical analysis may be possible. Based on materials from Garcia-Pena and Lamar, I
have identified eight hypothetical benchmark populations. Below, I present the
hypothesized populations and the racial composition (% Latino :or Black) in each
population in order ofleast conservative (i.e. smallest share of J:-,atino or Black) to most
conservative (i.e. highest share of Latino or Black):
a. 2016 American Community Survey 5-year estimates on counties in the SDNY
(from Garcia-Pena): 48.1 % Latino or Black
b. 2016 American Community Survey 5-year estimates on:Bronx and New York
Counties (from Garcia-Pena): 60.2% Latino or Black :
c. New York Police Department (NYPD) data from January 1 -December 31, 2017,
on felony drug arrests in New York City (from Garcia-Pena): 83.5% Latino or
Black
I
d. Estimates by Prof. Kohler-Hausmann on men aged 16-49 living in New York City
who have prior New York State (NYS) violent felony convictions (from Lamar):
87.1 % Latino or Black
·
1

In consultation with the Federal Defenders of New York, this sample is obtained by taking the 33 cases and 144
defendants identified in Garcia-Pena or Lamar, excluding two cases and five defendants that are either not DEA
cases or reverse-sting cases, and including an additional 15 cases and 40 defendants that were not covered by the
time frames included in the Lamar or Garcia-Pena analysis.

 e. Estimates by Prof. Kohler-Hausmann on men aged 16-49 living in New York City
who have prior NYS felony convictions (from Lamar): 87.5% Latino or Black
f. NYPD data from January 1 - December 31, 201 7 on firearms seizures arrests in
New Yark City (from Garcia-Pena): 89.4% Latino or Black
g. Reverse-sting operation defendants in the Northern District of Illinois (from
Garcia-Pena): 87.7-90.7% Latino or Black2
h. NYPD data from January 1 -December 31, 2017 on robbery arrests in New York
City (from Garcia-Pena): 91.7% Latino or Black
8. For each of these eight hypothesized populations, I then conduct an exact hypothesis test
for binomial random variables. This is the standard statistical test used for calculating the
exact probability of observing x "successes" out of n "draws" when the underlying
probability of success is p and the underlying probability of failure is 1-p. Here, each
defendant represents an independent draw and a success occurs' when the defendant is
Latino or Black. Using the exact hypothesis test, I test whether the observed proportion of
Latinos or Blacks observed in the sample (x = 177, n = 179) is equal to the hypothesized
population probability/proportion p. Under this test, the null hypothesis is that the
observed proportion is not statistically different from the hypothesized population
proportion. The alternative hypothesis is that the observed proportion is statistically
different from the hypothesized population proportion, a two-sided test. 3 Each exact
hypothesis test produces a corresponding p-value, which is the probability of observing a
proportion as extreme or more extreme than the observed proportion assuming that the
null hypothesis is true. A small p-value implies that the observed proportion is highly
unlikely under the null hypothesis, favoring the rejection of the null hypothesis.
9. The following Table 1 presents each of the eight hypothesized population proportions,
the null hypothesis under each population, the alternative hypo(hesis under each
population, and the correspondingp-value using the observed proportion of Latinos or
Blacks in the sample assuming 179 independent draws:
·
Table 1 (x = 177, n = 179)

2

Hypothesized Population
Proportion

Ho
Null Hypothesis

a. 48.1 % Latino or Black
b. 60.2% Latino or Black
c. 83.5% Latino or Black
d. 87.1 % Latino or Black
e. 87.5% Latino or Black
f. 89.4% Latino or Black
g. 90. 7% Latino or Black

Ho:p = 0.481
Ho:p = 0.602
Ho:p = 0.835
Ho: p = 0.871
Ho:p = 0.875
Ho:p = 0.894
Ho:p = 0.907

Ha
Alternative Hypothesis
Ha:p
Ha: p
Ha: p
Ha: p
Ha: p
Ha: p
Ha: p

!= 0A81
!= 0.602
!= 0.835
!= 0.~71
!= 0.875
!= 0.894
!= 0.907

p-value
0.0000
0.0000
0.0000
0.0000
0.0000
0.0000
0.0000

I choose 90.7% (the upper end of the range) as the relevant proportion given that it yields the most conservative
estimates.
,
3
This two-sided test takes the most conservative approach (in contrast to a one-sided test) because it allows for the
possibility of both an over-representation and under-representation of Latinos or Bla,cks relative to the hypothesized
population proportion.

 h. 91. 7% Latino or Black

Ho:p = 0.917

Ha: p != 0.917

0.0001

10. The above statistical calculations in Table 1 show that regardle~s of which of the eight
hypothesized population proportions is chosen, one could reject the null hypothesis at
conventional levels of statistical significance. For example, one could reject the null
hypothesis at the standard 5% significance level which requires that the p-value be less
than 0.05. All eight p-values are substantially smaller than 0.0~ and would lead to a
rejection of the null hypothesis even using more conservative 1%, 0.5%, or 0.1 %
significance levels. In other words, it is extremely unlikely that random sampling from
any of the hypothetical populations could yield a sample of 179 targeted individuals
where 177 or more individuals are Latino or Black.
11. Alternatively, one may be interested in the reverse question of what the underlying
population proportion would have to be such that the observed proportion could be due to
random chance alone assuming there are 179 independent draws. Using the standard 5%
significance level, I have calculated that the hypothesized population would have to be
composed of at least 96.0% Latinos or Blacks in order for one to not be able to reject the
null hypothesis. In other words, unless the pool of similarly situated individuals is
.·comprised of at least 96.0% Latinos or Bhcks~ it" is highly unlikely that one could get a
sample of 179 targeted individuals where 177 or more individuiils are Latino or Black.
12. One potential question with the statistical analyses in Table 1 is whether the assumption
that each of the 179 targeted individuals is an independent dravy is reasonable. For
example, what if the race/ethnicity of individuals in each rever~e-sting operation is
correlated, such that if one individual targeted in an operation is Latino or Black, the
other individuals are also more likely to be Latino or Black? This correlation within
operations could result if there is homophily, or "the principle that a contact between
similar people occurs at a higher rate than among dissimilar people." Miller McPherson
et al., Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks, 27 Ahn. Rev. Soc. 315, at 416
(2001). It is impossible to know the true degree ofhomophily or correlation among
individuals targeted in reverse-sting operations, particularly when the DEA's selection
criteria is unknown. But suppose that we took the most conservative approach and
assumed that there is perfect homophily (i.e. a perfect correlatipn of 1) such that if one
individual targeted in the operation is Latino or Black, all othet individuals in that same
operation are also Latino or Black. Under this conservative assumption, we can then treat
4
the observed sample as if there were only 46 independent draws (rather than 179 draws).
To observe a racial composition of 98.9% Latino or Black WOl\ld thus require that at least
5
45 out of 46 draws resulted in a Latino or Black individual beu:ig targeted.
13. For each of the eight hypothesized benchmark populations, I then test whether the
observed proportion of Latinos or Blacks observed in this alterpative sample (x = 45, n =
46) is equal to the hypothesized proportion from an underlyin~ population assuming that
'

I make the simplifying assumption that each of the 46 operations targeted the average number of codefendants,
3.89 = 179/46.
'
5 Technically, 45.494 draws would need to be of Latino or Black individuals but I conservatively round down to the
nearest integer.

4

 there are only 46 independent draws. The following Table 2 presents each of the eight
hypothesized population proportions, the null hypothesis under each population, the
alternative hypothesis under each population, and the correspo~dingp-value using the
observed proportion of Latinos or Blacks in the sample assuming 46 independent draws:
Table 2 (x = 45, n = 46)
Hypothesized Population
Proportion

Ho
Null Hypothesis

a. 48.1 % Latino or Black
b. 60.2% Latino or Black
c. 83.5% Latino or Black
d. 87.1 % Latino or Black
e. 87.5% Latino or Black
f. 89.4% Latino or Black
g. 90. 7% Latino or Black
h. 91.7% Latino or Black

Ho:p = 0.481
Ho:p = 0.602
Ho:p = 0.835
Ho:p = 0.871
Ho:p = 0.875
Ho:p = 0.894
Ho:p = 0.907
Ho:p = 0.917

Ha
Alternative Hypothesis
Ha:p
Ha: p
Ha: p
Ha: p
Ha: p
Ha: p
Ha: p
Ha: p

!= 0.481
!= 0.li02
!= 0.835
!= 0.871
!= 0.875
!= 0.894
!= 0.907
!= 0.917

p-value
0.0000
0.0000
0.0045
0.0255
0.0257
0.0871
0.1240
0.1795

14. Under this conservative assumption of perfect homophily, the above statistical
calculations in Table 2 show that under the first five hypothesized population proportions
(a-e ), one could reject the null hypothesis at the standard 5% significance level. In other
words, even if the hypothesized population proportion of Latinos or Blacks is as high as
87.5%, it is highly unlikely that random sampling could yield a sample of 46 individuals
where 45 or more individuals are Latino or Black. One, however, cannot reject the null
hypothesis for the next three hypothesized population proportions (f-h). Again, because I
have no knowledge of the DEA's selection criteria of potentia(targets, it is impossible to
know which of the hypothesized populations captures the relevant pool of similarly
1
situated individuals. A more definitive statistical analysis may be possible if the
government provides the requested selection criteria.
'
I

I

15. As before, I also ask the reverse question of what the underlying population proportion
would have to be such that the observed proportion could be due to random chance alone
assuming that there are only 46 independent draws. Using the standard 5% significance
level, I have calculated that the hypothesized population would have to be composed of at
least 88.5% Latinos or Blacks in order for one to not be able to reject the null hypothesis.
In other words, unless the pool of similarly situated individuals is comprised of at least
88.5% Latinos or Blacks, it is highly unlikely that one could get a sample of 46 targeted
individuals where 45 or more individuals are Latino or Black.

Dated: Cambridge, Massachusetts
September 13, 2019

Isl Crystal S. Yang
Crystal S. Yang