Posted on 01/04/2007 4:58:32 AM PST by grjr21
A Bryn Mawr College student wrongly jailed for three weeks on drug charges by Philadelphia police has settled her civil-rights case for $180,000.
Janet H. Lee, now a senior, was arrested at Philadelphia International Airport in 2003 after screeners found three condoms filled with white powder in her carry-on and city police said field tests showed that the substances likely contained opium and cocaine.
Lee was held in lieu of $500,000 bond for 21 days, until further drug testing proved that her unlikely story - that the powder was just flour - was true.
As part of an exam ritual in her dorm, Lee had filled the condoms with flour to make a phallic toy that freshmen squeezed to reduce stress. She had found it so funny that she had packed them to take home to California to show friends after exams.
Lee's civil-rights case against the city had been scheduled for trial today in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia.
"Everyone wants their day in court, so it was difficult" to settle, in part because she will never know why the flour initially tested positive for drugs, she said yesterday.
"It's like everyone was at fault, but no one was responsible," Lee said.
At least, she said, the settlement means she will not have to testify about what it is like to spend three weeks in a city jail for a crime she did not commit, particularly after spending much of the last three years working to heal herself psychologically.
"Part of going to trial would have meant that I have to acknowledge losses and admit that this had damaged me," she said. "I didn't want to have to admit that."
Lynne Sitarski, chief deputy of the city solicitor's civil-rights division, said the city "is not admitting wrongdoing or liability."
The settlement, the city lawyer said, was "in the best interests of the city."
Lee, now 21, was not physically injured while jailed, said her lawyer, Jeffrey Ibrahim.
One of the settlement provisions allows Lee to meet with city police to discuss what happened.
"Leadership is going to sit down and listen with her to see what went on," Ibrahim said.
Lee has heard criticism that carrying white substances onto an airplane was a foolhardy act. But, she said yesterday, she did not know at the time that drug dealers often carry drugs in condoms. "I was naive, really stupid," she said.
Nonetheless, her lawyer said, the police drug test should not have detected drugs.
"Under the circumstances, something went terribly wrong," Ibrahim said. "We're trying to ensure that nothing like that ever happens again."
Asked if others had successfully sued or settled claims involving false-positive drug tests in Philadelphia in the last two or three years, Sitarski said that no one had.
Lee, a comparative literature major, said she planned to use the settlement money to pay for graduate school, though she has not determined what kind of graduate work she will pursue. Law school is an unlikely option, she said.
It also says drug smuggler to an airport screener, especially if it's in a suitcase, filled with a white powder (instead of sand or water), and there's three of them.
Unless you're saying she had three hands?
Assuming she keeps one, she only has two friends? Uh-huh.
You're hearing hoofbeats and you're trying to convince me that they could be zebras. I prefer the simpler explanation.
This woman was not trained or employed as an airport drug screener. It is not any more reasonable to expect her to know how drugs are smuggled than it is to expect the airport drug screeners to know the fine points of her comparative literature.
Yeah. Forcing.
Would you do what she did?
How many drug smugglers put drugs into condoms and then put them in a suitcase? Drug smugglers put drugs into condoms and then swallow them. They don't put them in their luggage. Sheesh.
The circumstance that "forced" the city to prosecute the woman in question was the city's use of an evidence lab that couldn't tell the difference between DEA Schedule I controlled substances and wheat flour. Of course, given the reputation the city of Philadelphia has for quality policing, such performance standards should probably be considered par for the course.
You should go to work for them, rp, and quit posting here. The average IQ of FreeRepublic and the city of Philadelphia would both increase.
The careless ones. The stupid ones. The arrogant ones. The forgetful ones. The ones who plant them in other people' luggage. The ones who think they're being clever.
Can you cite a sigle case of this ever happening - someone putting drugs into condoms and then attempting to smuggle the condoms in thier, or someone else's luggage?
I don't disagree. But what came before that was the "circumstance" of a dingbat attempting to "smuggle" three condoms filled with a white powder through an airport screener.
"You should go to work for them"
And you should go through airport security with a suitcase containing an innocent length of pipe, a battery, and some wires wrapped around them (to merely hold them together). You can explain they were for some friends.
While I'm in Phildelphia (raising their IQ), I'll visit you in prison -- you can tell me about how unfair life is.
First they came for the ignorant condom carriers, I remained silent; I was not....
She should have gotten more than the $180K. Another brilliant waste of resources fighting the failed and unwinnable war on some drugs.
In condoms? Not that I'm aware of, but I don't see why not. Maybe they have.
The Ignorant Condom Carriers would be a good name for a rock band.
Why are you assigning motive? She wasn't attempting to smuggle anything---she was attempting to travel with three condoms filled with flour in her suitcase. The evidence proves precisely that.
The real story, as you agree, is that the Philadelphia police cannot tell cocaine from flour, and cannot staff their department with personnel able to tell the difference without the use of technology. This whole issue could've been cleared up by one person on scene with enough experience to tell coke from flour on sight/smell/taste alone. At $180,000, the city got off lightly.
If you're in Philly and I'm in prison, we'll each have our own problems to deal with. =]
If you're a cop, you don't taste stuff you suspect could be drugs, and probably don't smell it either, no matter what they show on TV.
You just don't.
Is it possible for an experienced narcotics officer to tell coke from flour by sight?
If you don't see why "in a condom" vs in a toothpaste tube, footpower container, or anything else you would normally expect to see in luggage, and isn't transparent enough to see what's in it, then no amount of explaination is going to help.
I have no idea, really.
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