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'Race bias' could free alleged drug dealer
Judge tosses evidence because police routinely search more minorities
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Posted: September 18, 2003
5:00 p.m. Eastern
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
A Massachusetts judge might let a Latino man caught with 2 pounds of cocaine in his car go free today because the state police troopers who arrested him had routinely searched more cars driven by minorities than by whites.
Worcester, Mass., Superior Court Judge John S. McCann threw out the evidence of the cocaine and the man's admission he planned to sell it, the Boston Globe reported.
Excluding evidence because of a statistical pattern suggesting racial bias is extremely rare and could be a "pathbreaking decision," said law professor Samuel R. Gross of the University of Michigan, who has written about racial profiling.
If the ruling is upheld, it could jeopardize similar arrests and force police to monitor their officers' patterns of stops and searches, the paper said.
Charges against Andres Lora of New York City have not been dismissed, but the case is based entirely on the cocaine found in the trunk and his admissions to officers he planned to sell it, the Globe said. The judge will decide today whether to release Lora while an appeal by the Worcester district attorney's office is being heard.
The court records show Lora was a passenger in a car stopped the evening of Dec. 21, 2001, near Worcester by Trooper Brendan Shugrue. The officer said he followed the Pontiac Grand Am because it was in the left lane of Interstate 290, which is illegal in Massachusetts, except to pass or prepare for a left turn.
Shugrue testified he noticed the men in the car were dark-skinned but insisted that was not the reason he pulled them over. The trooper saw a sealed plastic bag on the driver-side floor, near Lora, containing what he thought was cocaine. He called for backup, Trooper William Pinkes, to search the trunk, and they discovered a larger package of cocaine.
The officers said Lora, a 53-year-old Dominican immigrant, admitted he had bought the cocaine in the Bronx for $26,000, and intended to sell it in Worcester for $30,000, the Boston paper reported.
But Lora's attorney, Michael Erlich, obtained copies of all tickets written by Shugrue during a six-month period, and Pinkes for two months, the Globe said. The records showed Shugrue had searched the cars of 5.1 percent of the white motorists he ticketed for moving violations, but 33.2 percent of minorities' cars. Pinkes had searched 1.6 percent of the white motorists, but 69.7 percent of minorities.
The defense also submitted a series of Boston Globe articles indicating the disparity is far above average.
Judge McCann ruled Shugrue properly pulled over the car for violating the left-lane prohibition, but he found the troopers' pattern of traffic stops relevant.
In an unusual appeal to the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection Clause, McCann said the evidence "leaves no reasonable conclusion but that Shugrue stopped the motor vehicle in which the defendant was a passenger because of the race of the operator and the race of the defendant."
The Protection Clause usually is restricted to civil law, not criminal law.
John Reinstein, legal director for the ACLU of Massachusetts, applauded McCann's ruling, though Erlich acknowledged some people might find it difficult to accept because his client did have 1,000 grams of cocaine in his trunk.
"But the Equal Protection Clause does not focus on what was found, or how much was found, but on the process in which it was found," Erlich said.
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Whatever the methods used to catch this guy, he was caught red-handed. To let him go would surely be irresponsible.
Another thing to consider is that the high percentage of minorities searched by this officer does not necessarily indicate race as the factor in his decision to search. New Jersey officers have been accused of racism because of similar statistics, but the fact is that minority officers in NJ search the same percentage of minorities as white officers. There are other factors to consider.
Judge tosses evidence because police routinely search more minorities
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: September 18, 2003
5:00 p.m. Eastern
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
A Massachusetts judge might let a Latino man caught with 2 pounds of cocaine in his car go free today because the state police troopers who arrested him had routinely searched more cars driven by minorities than by whites.
Worcester, Mass., Superior Court Judge John S. McCann threw out the evidence of the cocaine and the man's admission he planned to sell it, the Boston Globe reported.
Excluding evidence because of a statistical pattern suggesting racial bias is extremely rare and could be a "pathbreaking decision," said law professor Samuel R. Gross of the University of Michigan, who has written about racial profiling.
If the ruling is upheld, it could jeopardize similar arrests and force police to monitor their officers' patterns of stops and searches, the paper said.
Charges against Andres Lora of New York City have not been dismissed, but the case is based entirely on the cocaine found in the trunk and his admissions to officers he planned to sell it, the Globe said. The judge will decide today whether to release Lora while an appeal by the Worcester district attorney's office is being heard.
The court records show Lora was a passenger in a car stopped the evening of Dec. 21, 2001, near Worcester by Trooper Brendan Shugrue. The officer said he followed the Pontiac Grand Am because it was in the left lane of Interstate 290, which is illegal in Massachusetts, except to pass or prepare for a left turn.
Shugrue testified he noticed the men in the car were dark-skinned but insisted that was not the reason he pulled them over. The trooper saw a sealed plastic bag on the driver-side floor, near Lora, containing what he thought was cocaine. He called for backup, Trooper William Pinkes, to search the trunk, and they discovered a larger package of cocaine.
The officers said Lora, a 53-year-old Dominican immigrant, admitted he had bought the cocaine in the Bronx for $26,000, and intended to sell it in Worcester for $30,000, the Boston paper reported.
But Lora's attorney, Michael Erlich, obtained copies of all tickets written by Shugrue during a six-month period, and Pinkes for two months, the Globe said. The records showed Shugrue had searched the cars of 5.1 percent of the white motorists he ticketed for moving violations, but 33.2 percent of minorities' cars. Pinkes had searched 1.6 percent of the white motorists, but 69.7 percent of minorities.
The defense also submitted a series of Boston Globe articles indicating the disparity is far above average.
Judge McCann ruled Shugrue properly pulled over the car for violating the left-lane prohibition, but he found the troopers' pattern of traffic stops relevant.
In an unusual appeal to the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection Clause, McCann said the evidence "leaves no reasonable conclusion but that Shugrue stopped the motor vehicle in which the defendant was a passenger because of the race of the operator and the race of the defendant."
The Protection Clause usually is restricted to civil law, not criminal law.
John Reinstein, legal director for the ACLU of Massachusetts, applauded McCann's ruling, though Erlich acknowledged some people might find it difficult to accept because his client did have 1,000 grams of cocaine in his trunk.
"But the Equal Protection Clause does not focus on what was found, or how much was found, but on the process in which it was found," Erlich said.
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Whatever the methods used to catch this guy, he was caught red-handed. To let him go would surely be irresponsible.
Another thing to consider is that the high percentage of minorities searched by this officer does not necessarily indicate race as the factor in his decision to search. New Jersey officers have been accused of racism because of similar statistics, but the fact is that minority officers in NJ search the same percentage of minorities as white officers. There are other factors to consider.
If you catch one, nail him, if you search someone's house and they're clean, you can tell 'em to stay that way.
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