Connecticut ping!
Please Freepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent Connecticut ping list.
Posted on 05/31/2006 7:49:33 AM PDT by 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.
Come hence, libertarians.
dog-bites-tail.
Would love to know what the probable cause was in this case...
Rather ironic that they managed to hit major pay dirt.
Here is a perfect example of where guilt or innocence dont mean Jack Sheit.
Turn them boys loose they is just a couple of poor old black boys being caught because they was black. Sure they was dealing dope, but what difference does that make?
I still say when caught with drugs make the perp eat what they have on them.
Apparently none, so the case was tossed.
I don't know anything about this case or judge..but I wouldn't want to be stopped simply because I was a white guy in a black neighborhood. Unless a cop can show good cause to stop someone, as hard as it is, they should be let go..watched like a hawk for the NEXT time to be sure but no one should be stopped without just cause IMHO.
Meanwhile racial profiling in the form of Affirmative Action will continue and be expanded...
"...but I wouldn't want to be stopped simply because I was a white guy in a black neighborhood. Unless a cop can show good cause to stop someone,..."
That would make you suspicious in my book. You likely have no legitimate business there.
I'd be suspicious of anybody driving on Beaver Street.
For your ping list...
"...but I wouldn't want to be stopped simply because I was a white guy in a black neighborhood. Unless a cop can show good cause to stop someone,..."
That would make you suspicious in my book. You likely have no legitimate business there.
***
BUT THIS IS AMERICA AND HE IS FREE, AS AM I AS A BLACK WOMAN, TO BE IN ANY NEIGHBORHOOD AT ANY TIME - white, black, asian, latino, mixed, etc. It gives no cop the right to stop and search. It does not equal probable cause.
Thank you! I'll ping the CT list now...
Connecticut ping!
Please Freepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent Connecticut ping list.
The problem here, as I see it, is this: the police had no reason to detain these men in the first place. They were investigating a wholly separate crime---they weren't patrolling the area on the lookout for drug dealers. They had no probable cause to detain these men on suspicion of the crime they were investigating, so that detention was unjustified. Anything the police discovered as a result of that detention would never have been known or realized had not that detention taken place, and since that detention was unjustified, it's as if the evidence against them never existed.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.
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