"MARLBORO, MARLBORO, SMOKEY SMOKEY."
Posted on 08/03/2005 8:50:53 PM PDT by seacapn
ROME, Ga., July 29 - When they charged 49 convenience store clerks and owners in rural northwest Georgia with selling materials used to make methamphetamine, federal prosecutors declared that they had conclusive evidence. Hidden microphones and cameras, they said, had caught the workers acknowledging that the products would be used to make the drug.
But weeks of court motions have produced many questions. Forty-four of the defendants are Indian immigrants - 32, mostly unrelated, are named Patel - and many spoke little more than the kind of transactional English mocked in sitcoms.
So when a government informant told store clerks that he needed the cold medicine, matches and camping fuel to "finish up a cook," some of them said they figured he must have meant something about barbecue.
The case of Operation Meth Merchant illustrates another difficulty for law enforcement officials fighting methamphetamine, a highly addictive drug that can be made with ordinary grocery store items.
Many states, including Georgia, have recently enacted laws restricting the sale of common cold medicines like Sudafed, and nationwide, the police are telling merchants to be suspicious of sales of charcoal, coffee filters, aluminum foil and Kitty Litter. Walgreens agreed this week to pay $1.3 million for failing to monitor the sale of over-the-counter cold medicine that was bought by a methamphetamine dealer in Texas.
But the case here is also complicated by culture. Prosecutors have had to drop charges against one defendant they misidentified, presuming that the Indian woman inside the store must be the same Indian woman whose name appeared on the registration for a van parked outside, and lawyers have gathered evidence arguing that another defendant is the wrong Patel.
The biggest problem, defense lawyers say, is the language barrier between an immigrant store clerk and the undercover informants...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
This part is especially disturbing:
"Prosecutors have had to drop charges against one defendant they misidentified, presuming that the Indian woman inside the store must be the same Indian woman whose name appeared on the registration for a van parked outside, and lawyers have gathered evidence arguing that another defendant is the wrong Patel."
Why would you want somebody who has difficulty with the language to represent you in a commercial enterprise?
How do you mean? I generally wouldn't, since they wouldn't be able to understand all the slang, code-words, and expressions that get used in whatever line of business it might be.
If only American citizens had these built in excuses.
In the southwest, and many other areas, law enforcement routinely hears, "I no speak English".
Ignorance of the law is no excuse......unless you're an immigrant.
I'll tell my grand kids about how I remember when most everyone in America spoke English, and all the store signs were in English too!
Of course, they won't believe me.
Right, which is why this case smells funny - it relies on an understanding of english slang and the way that people make homebrew meth.
But what exactly is the law? Is it illegal to sell someone four cold medicine packets and some aluminum foil over the course of two days? Is that a law, on the books?
They are usually the owners of these convenience stores not just people hired to staff the store.
Correct, that only applies to American citizens that speak English.
If I were a clerk and someone said that to me, I wouldn't have a clue what he was talking about.
Would that mean I committed a crime?
Stupid anti-meth rules. At some places you can only buy two packages of pills with pseudoephedrine. So you can buy two (but don't you dare buy three) of the 12 pill packages, or buy two of the 100 pill bottles. 36 pills = bad meth maker, 200 pills = good citizen with the sniffles.
How is this not entrapment? And if the GBI agents didn't use the Sudafed to actually brew up any actual drugs, then how is what the store clerks did against the law? It's only illegal to sell Sudafed to people who actually use it to make illegal drugs.
I have no idea, but that's the whole point. What about bulk item stores like Costco?
"MARLBORO, MARLBORO, SMOKEY SMOKEY."
This kind of thing frightens me. If I have a garage sale and sell off some extra rolls of foil, can I go to jail if someone tells me they're going to use it for a "cook-up?"
If someone had said this to me, I would not know what the hell they're talking about. What genius thought of this entrapment scam?
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