Oklahoma Criminal Defense Blog

There is a budget crunch in state government so every agency is looking to save its budget.  The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs is no exception.  Director Darrell Weaver has just announced a “spike” in drug deaths in Oklahoma.  He calls it a crisis.

There were 577 who died of drugs in 2009.  Hydrocodone (Lortab) led the list as cause of 130 deaths, an increase of 17 deaths from the year before.  Oxycodone followed wit 117, then methadone, which lead the list in 2002, caused 84 deaths in 2009, but it was down from 110 deaths in 2008.  Cocaine caused 37 deaths, a decrease of 13 from the year before.

The use of different usage drugs and deaths caused by drugs will vary and certainly the use of drugs has been increasing in the last several years.  But why does that justify a separate agency to enforce the drug laws?    Every police officer, every deputy sheriff, every highway patrol trooper and town marshal and Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent is enforcing the drug laws every day.   If that isn’t enough, there are many federal law enforcement officers in the state of Oklahoma, including the F.B.I., who enforce the federal drug laws, which mirror state drug laws.  So why does Oklahoma need a separate agency with a separate budget, separate buildings and salaried employees and pensions dedicated to enforcing the drug laws?  Of course such an agency is always pushing the emergency alarm, calling for higher penalties and more money for their agency.

The drug war is similar to the military war fought by our national defense.  There is always a fear of invasion just as there is a fear of drug crazies running around the country.  There is always to announce a “crisis.”  The fears are real because the dangers are real, but the manipulation of this fear and threat is a very old bureaucratic trait.  There is no such thing as enough tax-payer money going to feed that will feed either the defense department or the drug agencies.  They have become empires unto themselves, and anyone who has any pause in giving them everything they ask for is tarred as unpatriotic.

Notwithstanding there is a real danger from the misuse of drugs, that danger need not necessarily be attacked like a military target.  If it is, that approach may remind observers more of the quagmire in Vietnam more than World War II: always more money needed, always more troops needed, but always more explanations and alibis instead of success.  Victory is just barely out of reach- always.  Just give us another 12% increase of funding and we’ll lick this thing for good.

Part of the problem is that the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs is almost oriented almost exclusively for punitive action, for “law enforcement.”  This has not proved to reduce the use of drugs any more than the American military had the prospect of outlasting Ho Chi Minh.  Drug education and prevention is given only superficial investment even though some different approach, like education and some new looks at prevention will be needed if we are going to seen anything different in the next decades.

Why don’t all the millions of dollars of cash money that flows to the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs every year from forfeitures go to drug prevention instead of more automatic weapons, bullet-proof vests, bullets, and black SUVs instead of to teaching children the perils of using drugs without threatening them?  At least going through the motions keeps the empire in business.

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, a vast system has grown up to collect information about Americans has grown up.  No one knows how many programs exists within it or even who many people it employs or how much it costs.  It is the largest, most technologically advanced in our history.  It is designed to collect, analyze information about thousands of Americans, many of whom have been charged with a crime, feeding information from the F.B.I., local police, state homeland security and military criminal investigators.

Such snooping is new to America, but Israel and Britain, among others, have had such domestic security.  There are 3,984 federal, state, and local organizations working on domestic counterterrorism.  The F.B.I. is building a database with the names and certain personal information whom a local police officer or fellow citizen believes is acting in a suspicion manner.  It is accessible to an increasing number of local law enforcement officers, so it may end up as public records.

Some law enforcement agencies have sought to learn more about Islam and terrorism, so they have hired trainers.  These have included self-styled experts whose views on Islam and terrorism are considered inaccurate and counterproductive by the F.B.I. and U.S. intelligence agencies.  Yet the Department of Homeland Security sends the state and local agencies in its network intelligence reports with little helpful guidance.

Of course, everyone in government believes in the program, certainly the players in the  executive branch of the federal government.  Their instincts are all toward security.  “The old view is that if we fight terrorists abroad, we won’t have to fight them here’ is just that – the old view, “ Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Neopolitano told police and firefighters.  The Obama administration claims its local approach is the preferred approach, but the effectiveness of its programs is difficult to assess.

Neopolitano is a former governor of Arizona, which built one of the most extensive state  intelligence bases outside New York to combat illegal immigration.  “See Something, Say Something, “ was the catch phrase in Arizona.   Now, traffic signs in Washington, D.C. ask motorists for “Terror Tips,” and to “Report Suspicious Activity.”  Now, Neopolitano has enlisted as partners in her campaign Wal-Mart, major league baseball, Amtrack, and hotel chains.  She compares this fight against terrorism to the cold war fight against Communists.

Now in Arizona, members of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Facial Recognition Unit use a type of equipment common in war zones, recording 9,000 biometric digital mug shots per month.  Now along the Mexican-U.S. border, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection flies predator drone along the border equipped with real-time, full motion video cameras.  These are the same aircraft as used in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Kosovo, manufactured by General Atomics.  Hand-held, wireless fingerprint scanners are being sold to police departments to check motorists identity.  Such scanners were used by American troops to register residents of neighborhoods in Iraq.

Special operations forces fighting overseas demanded technological advances that are now used at home.  In combat that technology enabled the quick use of biometric identification, captured computer records and cellphone numbers to give the troops the ammunition to launch their next surprise raid.  Now Department of Homeland Security has helped the Memphis Police Department purchase surveillance cameras that monitor high-crime housing projects, problem street corners, and bridges and other infrastructure.  It helped to pay for license plate readers and helped with the costs of setting up the crime analysis center in Memphis.  The D.H.S. has given Memphis $11 million total since 2003 in homeland security grants, most of which Memphis used to fight plain vanilla crime, not Al Queda.  There is no such thing as spending too much money to fight crime, so long as the taxpayers are willing to keep paying the bills.

Memphis is using the new equipment.  The police department all information it can get from government and private industry.  It now has daily updates on the names and addresses of subscribers from the utility company.  Instead of waiting for a patrol officer in the field to decide which license number to input, the officers now just drive around using one of their fancy new license plate readers installed on the hood of the car read and transmit to the center every license
they drive by.  The computer in the vehicle will tell the officer in the field the name, address and criminal history of the vehicle’s owner, along with the names of any one else who lives at that address with a criminal history.

The F.B.I. has 90,000 sets of fingerprints stored in Clarksburg, W. Va.  Stored there are fingerprints from this country with those collected by American authorities from Saudia Arabia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen.  Now the F.B.I. has developed sharing its fingerprints files with D.H.S. and the Department of Defense fingerprint databases.

Meanwhile the F.B.I. maintains a top-secret vault on the fourth floor of the J. Edgar Hoover building. Kept there are the profiles of thousands of Americans, none of whom have been even accused of a crime.  Instead, the profiles are of people who have acted in a suspicious manner to any deputy sheriff, police officer or neighbor.  This should be a concern for all citizens, not just criminal defense lawyers.

A total twenty present or former New Orleans police officers have been charged last year with civil rights violations arising out of police misconduct during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  Federal court in New Orleans saw the jury bring verdicts against the first five to go trial last December.  Of those, three were convicted while two were acquitted in the death of a man in September, 2005.  .

Henry Glover was shot to death outside a strip mall.  Charged with manslaughter, former officer David Warren was convicted and Lt. Dwayne Scheuermann was acquitted.  Officer Gregory McRae was convicted of burning Glover’s body in a car.  The jury also convicted Lt. Travis McCabe of writing a false report on the shooting event, while former Lt. Robert Italiano was acquitted of that charge.

Thousands of people were trapped in New Orleans during this chaotic, dangerous time after the flooding of the city.  Bodies rotted in the streets because there was nowhere to take them.  Looting was everywhere.  People were desperate.  All five defendants testified in the trial and described the horrific conditions.

The defendants testified they did not have time to investigate any but the most serious crimes and writing reports was the least important of their duties.  Assistant United States Attorney Tracey Knight, prosecuting the case, urged in opening statement that the conditions prevalent may have made the defendants believe they could get away with their actions because no one was watching.

Several of the officers who testified as government witnesses admitted they had lied to the F.B.I. or the grand jury before they agreed to “cooperate.”   As any criminal defense attorney will tell you, the government makes every case it can from cooperating witnesses.

David Warren was guarding a police substation at a mall when Glover and his friend, Bernard Calloway arrived.  Warren testified that they arrived in what he thought was a stolen truck.  He claimed they ran toward a gate and ignored his commands to stop. He claimed he thought he saw a gun in Glover’s hand and then shot at Glover.

Warren’s partner at the time, officer Linda Howard, testified to the contrary that neither Glover nor Calloway was armed and posed no threat.  Glover’s friend, Calloway, testified that he saw Glover leaning against the truck lighting a cigarette just before he was shot.   And Warren had fired his rifle earlier day, having shot a warning shot at a man on a bicycle because, Warrent testified, the man kept circling and looking up at him on the second-story balcony.

A passing motorist named William Tanner, stopped, picked up and drove the wounded Glover, his brother Edward King, and Calloway to a school.  Tanner and Calloway testified they were ordered out of car at gunpoint, handcuffed and beaten by police while they begged the police to help Glover.

Defendants Scheuermann and McRae beat two of the men according to the testimony of policed Sgt. Sandoz, testifying for the government with a promise of immunity.  Sandoz testified that he lied to the F.B.I. and the grand jury about what happened.

Scheuermann and McRae denied beating the men, of course, but McRae did admit he drove Glover’s car to a levee on the Mississippi River and torched it with Glovers’ body inside.  He said he was just tired of seeing dead bodies rot in the street and didn’t want to add to the corpse count.  McRae said it was his idea alone to burn the body.  Scheuermann testified he was surprised and shocked to see McRae toss a flare into the car.  Lt. Joseph Meisch testified he was nearby and that McRae was laughing after setting the fire.

The government’s theory of the case was that Italiano and Mcabe of trying to cover up the shooting and charged them both with lying to the F.B.I. and of submitting a false, misleading report.  As well, McCabe was charged with perjury in his grand jury testimony.  Sss

Sgt Purnella Simmons who arrived at the mall after the shooting told Italiano that Warren’s partner, officer Linda Howard, did not believe the shooting was justified.  Simmons later lied to the grand jury and adopted a report that covered up the shooting, even though that report contradicted her findings.  But she then returned to testify again to tell the grand jury the truth, she testified.  McCabe testified he helped Simmons interview witnesses and write the report that covered up the shooting, but he blamed Simmons for any omissions in the report.

Italiano signed that report and testified he did nothing to write a false report or cover up the shooting.  He testified he did not even know until years later that the shooting at the mall was connected to Glover’s burned body in the car because Simmons did not give him that information.