Accused drug dealers get off - Judge agrees racial profiling was at play

THE NEWS-TIMES ^ | May 31, 2006 | Karen Ali

[LurkedLongEnough]

DANBURY — In a decision Superior Court trial referee Robert Callahan "agonized long and hard over," he ruled in favor of two accused drug dealers who claimed they were stopped outside the Sheraton in Danbury in 2004 only because they were black.

In a written decision dated May 17 and received Friday by defense lawyers, Callahan said he came to his decision, which essentially guts the state's case against the men, "reluctantly" and after "soul-searching."

Lawyer James Diamond of Danbury said his client Demetere Taft, 30, of Beaver Street, is "obviously very pleased that the judge has agreed with the arguments he made."

"The judge has thrown out all the evidence against my client," Diamond said. "There's nothing left to proceed on, unless this Constitutional decision gets overturned."

"There's no basis for the police officers to search my client. There was no reason to believe he was violating the law," Diamond said.

Joseph Mirsky, the Bridgeport defense lawyer for the other client, Jamar Crawford, 29, of Waterbury, agreed there was no reason to stop the men.

"It was a very, very, very weak case for the state," Mirsky said. "So I think this decision was great. It took months and he gave it a great deal of thought."

The arrests occurred Oct. 5, 2004, when Danbury detectives went to the Sheraton on Old Ridgebury Road to look for anyone who might have had information about a fatal shooting in Waterbury that happened about 15 hours earlier.

The men were taken into custody as they left the hotel separately shortly after 3 p.m.

Crawford had more than 30 grams of crack cocaine and heroin in his luggage, according to police. He also was carrying about $1,000 in cash, police said.

Taft had 3.5 ounces of powder cocaine, more than two ounces of crack cocaine, and two handguns, according to police.

The men face multiple charges, including possession of narcotics, possession of crack cocaine and possession with intent to sell.

Diamond, who said he has never before raised the issue of race in his decade-long career as a Danbury defense lawyer, said he is not surprised by the decision.

Prosecutor David Shannon was out of the office Tuesday and could not be reached for comment. He could appeal the decision. He also could decide to drop the charges against the defendants.

Shannon's boss, Danbury State's Attorney Walter Flanagan, declined to comment.

"I'm in no position to say anything," Flanagan said.

The two detectives involved in the arrest, Joseph Norkus and James Lalli, could not be reached.

In December a Danbury police spokesman, Capt. Dan Mulvey, said he knows the two detectives who caught the two men and he doubts the arrest was based on race.

The defense lawyers aren't convinced.

"If my client was a white male walking out of the Sheraton hotel with a suitcase in his hands, he never would have been stopped and searched," Diamond said.

Diamond said he had not yet heard whether Shannon plans to appeal the decision from Callahan, who was the state's Supreme Court chief justice before becoming a trial referee after retiring in 1999.

[54-46 Was My Number]

May be just semantics here, but this is more appropriately explained as 'stop and frisk.'

That is what I meant, and I do defer to your expertise in the matter as a retired MP.

[BlueStateDepression]

PC

I would say Political correctness has already been established and needs to be addressed for what it is. ;)

[BlueStateDepression]

If that were the case, do you think the cop would risk his career and his neck to search on a hunch?

That is the point of it you see. For them to rely heavily on a hunch and they know they risk their career, they will indeed think hard before they make that decision.

If there is a reason to litigate why a search took place, so be it, litigate. I am saying do it seperately from the evidence that was gained. Why a search was done does not remove the evidence found found nor should litigation about a search remove the truthfulness of that evidence found.

[freepatriot32]

Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here

[freepatriot32]

is post number 11 and 19 intentional hyperbolic sarcasm? Or are you really serious about what you just typedin those 2 posts?

[Army MP Retired]

lets say they did botch it. Does the cops botching it equate to these guys being innocent rather than guilty?

Certainly not. They are guilty as sin IMHO.

Our law may have worked in the past but today it only works to see the guilty go free and we should adjust it so that stops happening.

The 4th Amendment didn't address how to handle illegally obtained evidence - the supreme court did. Until that time, illegally obtained evidence was admissible. It still is under some circumstances.

Maybe it's time to go back to the common law. I think you're right - if an officer violates a person's rights he should be held accountable, but evidence of crime obtained in the process should not be summarily disposed of.

[BlueStateDepression]

I agree it was SCOTUS that made this tarbaby. I feel Congress should excercise its rightful authority and fix the problem. After all it is their job to form the law.

I think the fourth didn't handle the what to do with it part because I think the founders were honorable men that believed in truth. I think they meant it to be understood that courtroom evidence was supposed to be about presenting truth so that proper justice may be administered.

I would offer that SCOTUS was trying to protect our 4th when they made this ruling and indeed they rule in ways that do. I would just like to see this nation get back to basics and common sense. When something was intended for good but begets bad, it is time to act not time to rest on our laurels. Congress could and should deal with this so it can be done with.

[54-46 Was My Number]

That is the point of it you see. For them to rely heavily on a hunch and they know they risk their career, they will indeed think hard before they make that decision.

You understand, of course, you're advocating a system where the presumption is of guilt, not innocence, and that's wholly incompatible with the American system of jurisprudence . . .

[54-46 Was My Number]

I think the fourth didn't handle the what to do with it part because I think the founders were honorable men that believed in truth.

. . . except for those Founding Fathers who made their fortunes by smuggling . . .

[zeugma]

And this is the way it should be. Otherwise, the police would have carte blanche to stop anyone, for any reason, absent suspicion, and search them. That notion should be completely abhorrent to freedom-loving people.

Yup. Too bad there are not more freedom-loving people around. 

[quadrant]

Perhaps some of the lawyers out there could answer this question: since this was a decision in state court, does any law prohibit the prosecutor from turning the evidence over to the DEA for federal prosecution?

[TKDietz]

The law doesn't have to be this way. The Constitution doesn't require that evidence be tossed if there is a Fourth Amendment violation. I think the reason that's the remedy in most instances is that they want to discourage police from violating constitutional rights, but they don't want to discourage them from doing their jobs. If police were facing jail time or being fired for a bad search, they're going to be far more timid in performing their jobs. Having evidence tossed because an officer didn't follow the rules is an embarrassment to them, but not that big of a deal unless it happens all the time. Police officers tend to be well trained on 4th Amendment issues, but it's not all black and white. They're all going to make mistakes. There has to be some type of significant consequences for violating constitutional rights or police will do it anyway, but it can't be so hard on an officer that it will discourage him from doing his job because he's afraid he might mess up an end up in jail or end up without a paycheck to feed his family.

The good thing is that in real life evidence is rarely excluded. In real life probably one motion to suppress evidence is granted out of a hundred filed, and none are filed in most cases. We always hear about these cases where evidence is thrown out though. They make the news. Cases where the motions are denied rarely ever make the news unless it is a high profile case. Every once in a while there will be some murder or other serious case that gets thrown out because of a bad search. That's rare, but it is bad when it happens. But for dime a dozen drug cases like the one that is the subject of this article, they'll just nail those losers next time they catch them, and odds are there will be a next time. They'll be watched like hawks. Snitches will be sent to make buys from these guys. If this bust didn't scare them enough to make them quit what they were doing, they'll get their's in the end. It's not that big of a deal. Drug dealers are a dime a dozen. Convicting these two guys wouldn't have made a bit of difference in the availability of drugs.

I am a criminal defense attorney and I've probably filed hundreds of motions to suppress over the years. To cover our rear ends we pretty much have to do it whenever there is a possible suppression issue. Very few that I have filed have actually been granted, and in some cases where they have been granted there was still enough evidence for a conviction so the cases weren't tossed. To tell you the truth, I wouldn't exactly be elated to see one of these granted and a case dismissed in a case where my client was some kind of hardcore criminal who needed to be locked up for the safety of us all. So far that hasn't happened to me. Usually it's just happened in stupid little drug cases. I'm not bothered by those because the whole thing seems so pointless to me anyway. We lock people up left and right and it has no appreciable effect on the availability of drugs or the percentage of users. If a hardcore type gets off on a "technicality," he'll just get stuck harder the next time he gets caught. If basically good guy does something stupid and gets caught, the whole ordeal he goes through prior to getting his case dismissed might very well scare him straight.

I had one thrown out a few months ago, not on a motion to suppress, but because of a speedy trial violation. My client was actually a pretty nice guy who had just done something stupid. He was a nurse with a clean record who got mixed up in something with his career criminal uncle who had raised him most of his life. They got caught on the interstate transporting a few pounds of pot. I'm not sure what possessed this guy to do what he did, but he sure was in a world of hurt after he got caught. For almost two years he was anticipating having to go to prison. He was going to spend a couple of years in the pen and lose his nursing license, after being the only person in his family to get so far in school and actually make something out of himself. He was terrified, ashamed, and very angry with himself for being so stupid. The first thing he said when I told him his case was being dismissed was "Praise God!" He knew someone upstairs was looking out for him, and I honestly doubt he'll ever do anything like what he did again. Last I heard he was in night classes trying to move up from being an LPN to a registered nurse. Good for him. Good for us. Had he have gone to prison and lost his license he probably would have just ended up a career criminal like his uncle and his brothers. In the grand scheme of things, while his case being dismissed may seem like a failure of the system to some, society will probably benefit more from this guy getting off on a technicality than if he had have gone to prison.

Sometimes though it would be a pretty darned bad thing for someone to get off because a motion to suppress is granted. Every once in a while some sexual predator or serial murderer or something will get off and commit more horrible crimes. That rarely ever happens, but it's really bad when it does happen. Maybe a better remedy in cases like these where law enforcement don't follow the rules would be to do something like impose hefty fine on the law enforcement agency employing the offending officer(s), with the a small part of the fine going to the defendant whose rights were violated and the rest going to supplement budgets of local public defenders. I know our public defender office could sure use the money, and our local law enforcement tend to have pretty healthy amount of cash on hand most of the time from asset forfeitures. If the department was fined rather than the officer the officer wouldn't have such a disincentive to get out there and make arrests as he would if he was facing jail time or loss of his job or pay if he screwed up and violated some Constitutional right, but he'd still want to be careful because his superiors wouldn't put up with him causing them to have to pay to many fines out of their budgets.

The only problem with this is that if the fines aren't high enough police will just look at them as a cost of doing business and even break the rules on purpose sometimes knowing they'll get called on it if they want to get someone bad enough, but if the fines are too high they might cripple a law enforcement agency. Maybe the best thing to do is do like we do and say that if they want to use a piece of evidence they have to play by the rules when they obtain that evidence. Or, we could keep things like they are for most cases, but allow for hefty fines instead of suppression as a remedy in certain serious types of cases like murders or child molestations.

[Riverman94610]

"You likely have no legitimate business there"
WTF?What if I was there to tutor a child I volunteered to work with with?What if I had friends in that neighborhood?What if I am a potential investor and am checking out some property?What if I teach at a school in the ghetto?
Man,if you were in charge I would be in jail constantly for not having my"ghetto pass"

[LibertarianInExile]

I think the fourth didn't handle the what to do with it part because I think the founders were honorable men that believed in truth.

. . . except for those Founding Fathers who made their fortunes by smuggling . . .

...or dressed up as Injuns and dumped someone else's tea in the harbor...

[LibertarianInExile]

"Man,if you were in charge I would be in jail constantly for not having my"ghetto pass"

Of courze! You vould haff need of ze papers to move in ze safe und ordered society dat dese volk vant.

[muir_redwoods]

"BS ! If some white guys covered in tattoo's wearing gang style clothes with their pants hanging down to their knees, gold chains around their necks and pagers on their hips came out of the hotel carrying bags while looking suspicious and guilty while sweating profusely and constantly sniffing... they sure as heck would of been stopped and searched!"

I missed the part of the story where the black men in question were characterized as such.

[conservative physics]

the article specifically said that if the defendants were white ... they would not have been stopped. I attest that under the certain circumstances (like the one I described) they would have been stopped regardless of their skin color.

I can bet you dollars to donuts those guys looked something like what I described. It's ridiculous to think policemen are just standing outside of hotels searching every black person that comes out the door regardless of how honest or professional they look.

I want to see security footage of all the other black people those cops stopped and searched that night. Or are you claiming they got lucky on their first of many planned searches of black people that night?

[muir_redwoods]

"I can bet you dollars to donuts those guys looked something like what I described. It's ridiculous to think policemen are just standing outside of hotels searching every black person that comes out the door regardless of how honest or professional they look"

Gee, I just can't find the part in the 4th amendment whereby we give up our rights to it's protection if we make dumb fashion choices.

[Know your rights]

if an officer violates a person's rights he should be held accountable, but evidence of crime obtained in the process should not be summarily disposed of.

I agree ... but as long as exclusion of evidence is the prescribed way to handle illegal searches, they must all be done that way. I've heard no probable cause cited for this search.

[af_vet_1981]

More proof that

Liberalism is a mental disorder