Oklahoma Criminal Defense Blog

New Jersey’s Supreme Court has recently ordered an overhaul in the procedures judges and juries use to treat evidence from a police lineup.  Police have always resisted encroachment on their own rules for lineups.

The Court recognized decades of research that shows the traditional procedures used for lineups have problems.  The result has been that innocent people convicted and sent to prison.   The problem has been that police, often unconsciously, give subtle hints as to which person the witness should identify.  These hints never show up in any record, so they cannot be questioned.  Both the police and the crime witness even deny that such hints exist, yet they do exist, and they have influenced the identifications of suspects in court. When that identification is the sole or strongest evidence of a suspect’s guilt, the flawed identification can be the basis for the conviction of an innocent person.

Finally there are consequences for police who refuse or fail to follow proper procedures. Courts have always been reluctant before to sanction such careless or deliberate conduct by the police.  New Jersey is one of the fifty states, but there are more than 16,000 law enforcement agencies in the country that deal with suspect identification.  Many remain skeptical about the research that faults their present procedures.  Many resent the suggestion that they could be having an affect on the accuracy of the responses of witnesses in the identification.  This resentment is no less because, research shows, the influence is unintentional.

Most police identifications are conducted the same way they have been for years and years.  Most use photos rather than an array of actual persons because photos are much easier to assemble.  The standard requirement is that all the suspect photos are supposed to be of similar race, facial hair, age so as not to make one of them obviously prominent.

More than 2,000 scientific studies have shown problems with witness accounts.  Add to that at least 190 people who were convicted by eyewitness testimony and later proved to be wrongly convicted by that gold standard of science, DNA evidence.   Those who have studied the field estimate that there are about 75,000 witness identifications each year, and some studies suggest about a third are incorrect.

Larger police departments are taking the lead in adopting the new procedures which the the New Jersey court has mandated in its jurisdiction.  In Dallas, elaborate precautions are taken to keep out any taint that might cause a question later in the courtroom or on appeal.  Witnesses are sent to a special unit of the police department that is dedicated to lineups and the detectives there have no other relationship to the case or the witnesses.  The witnesses are read instructions and shown the photos by specially trained police officers.  The photos are shown one at a time, rather than all at once.  At each photo, the witness is asked to indicate how confident he or she is about their reaction to that photo.  The entire process is recorded by videotape in case any questions later arise during the judicial process about what happened in that identification.

Naturally, the police in Dallas resented new procedures at first.  They felt their integrity was being challenged.  But after thorough training that included explanations of memory functions and the psychology behind the dynamics, the procedures began to gain some believers in the police department.   Veteran detectives notices over the years that during lineups that police gave small facial cues when a witness picked a suspect the police had in mind.

Police departments rarely make any changes until wrongful convictions become an issue, and there have been many DNA exonerations of death row inmates from convictions in Dallas.

Denver Police Department is another one that has adopted some of the new procedures about six years ago.  When they really looked at the procedures they were using, they concluded their practices were suggestive.  They have found that the new procedures help, rather than hurt, their investigations.  Only 15 miles away in Aurora, Colorado, police are doing things the same old way.  Specifics may be hard to come by since there are is no written policy on lineups.  They do not follow the National Justice Institute guidelines because state law does not require them to do so.  Ordinarily, the investigating officer in the case conducts the lineup, and it is important to him to see that the witnesses are careful in their identifications.  However, no particular consistent steps are taken to prevent influencing the identification.

For years judges have disallowed evidence of studies that explained these problems in lineups, so the juries never heard any evidence that offered the least question to the emotionally powerful testimony of an eyewitness.  The juries never got a chance to see anything behind that testimony, what did or might have suggested or tainted that testimony that was now so positive and unshakable in the courtroom.

Another law enforcement has been charged with the commission of rape while on duty.  Patrick Venable, an Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper until he was forced to resign for this offense, is charged with Rape Second Degree.  The Logan County District Attorney claims this crime took place while Venable was on duty.

The fact that Venable is neither incidental to the crime or an aggravating factor.  It is essential to the crime.  Why?  Because the sex was apparently or possibly consensual.  Why, then, if the sex was indeed consensual, could this be rape?   Because the young woman in question was allegedly in Venable’s custody at the time.  Venable’s attorney flatly denied at the time of Venable’s arraignment that the young woman was under arrest or in custody.

The Oklahoma statute which defines rape, Title 21, Section 1111, provides in relevant part that a rape occurs when:

7.    Where the victim is under the legal custody or supervision of a state agency, a federal agency, a county, a municipality or a political subdivision and engages in sexual intercourse with a state, federal, county, municipal or political subdivision employee or an employee of a contractor of the state, the federal government, a county, a municipality or a political subdivision that exercises authority over the victim; or….

The facts alleged by the District Attorney, same as the Highway Patrol at the time of pressuring Venables to resign, include the facts that when Venables was on duty on the Broadway Extension in Oklahoma City, he stopped a woman for driving under the influence of alcohol.  After putting the woman in his patrol car and talking for a while, Venables allegedly turned off the video recorder that records the events for the later use of the prosecution at trial.  Venables then allegedly drove the woman to her home, took her inside and had sex with her at her home located in Logan County.  Apparently, the woman was very much under the influence of alcohol because, although she admits “sexual contact in the patrol car,” she had no recollection of what happened at her home.  Venables faces up to 15 years in prison if he is convicted.

Venables claimed the sex he had with the woman in her home was “100% consensual.”  That would be irrelevant, of course, if the woman was “under arrest or in custody” because the rape definition statute subsection quoted makes no reference to consent.

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.

Kevin Cooper was convicted of murdering a family in 1983.  As his execution approaches, not only have serious questions have been raised about the evidence used to convict him but some federal appeal judges have accused police of framing him for the murders.

Doug and Peggy Ryen were stabbed to death along with their 10-year-old daughter and 11-year-old houseguest.  The 8-year-old son, Josh, survived.  Doug initially told investigators the perpetrators were three white people.  But at trial, he said he had seen only one person, who wore his hair in an Afro.  Kevin Cooper is black.

Cooper had walked away from a minimum security where he was serving a burglary sentence and hidden in an empty house 100 yards from the crime scene at the Ryen’s home.  The police decided he committed the crime alone.

The weapons used in the murders included an ice pick, a hatchet and one or two knives.  Not only were there five occupants to overpowered by the killer or killers but Doug Ryen, the father, was a former Marine who was 200 lbs. and had a loaded rifle nearby.  How could Kevin Cooper, alone, have accomplished such feats?   That’s what ten judges on the Ninth Circuit United States Court of Appeals wanted to know.

Four of those judges joined Judge William Fletcher’s one-hundred page opinion in dissenting to the Court’s decision to deny a rehearing of Cooper’s appeal.  Six other judges also wrote separate dissents to the Court’s majority decision.  Judge Fletcher not only found the evidence to support Cooper’s conviction inconsistent and lacking, he accused the police of framing Cooper for the murders.

Judge Fletcher said the police are under heavy pressure to solve high-profile crimes.  When they think they know who committed the crime, they sometimes plant evidence to help the prosecution to result in a conviction.  In this case, Judge Fletcher highlighted a number of problems in the evidence in the case.

Cooper’s blood was found on a beige T-shirt left at the scene of the murders, but the blood was then found to contain a preservative, the kind used by police when they keep blood in test tubes.    After that a scientist discovered that a sample of from the test tube of Cooper’s blood which police held contained blood from more than one person.  This indicated to Judge Fletcher and Cooper’s lawyers that someone with access to police evidence removed blood and then refilled the tube with someone else’s blood.

There was also evidence that police ignored.  Two women told police that one of their housemates, a convicted murderer, had appeared with several other people late on the night of the murders wearing blood-spattered overalls and driving a station wagon similar to the one stolen from Ryen family.  The man was no longer wearing a beige T-shirt he had been wearing earlier in the evening, the same kind of T-shirt found at the murder scene.  That man also had a hatchet missing from his tool area, a hatchet that resembled the one found at the murder scene.  The women gave the blood-spattered overalls to the police for testing, but the police threw them away.   The police had decided that Cooper was the one they wanted.

Now that the federal appellate court has declined to intervene to stop Cooper’s execution, only California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger can stop it.

“Don’t taze my granny,” Lonnie Tinsley cried.  He was yelling at the police he had called to help his 86-year-old grandmother in his home in El Reno.  Actually, he had called for help for his grandmother, thinking medical personnel would arrive.  The police arrived.  But the police didn’t listen to him.  When the grandmother, Lona Vernon, ordered the police out of her home, they decided she was being aggressive-as she lay in her bed-and used their tasers on her.

Tinsley had called for help, expecting he would get help from medical technicians.  But he got the police who had their own agenda, a dozen of them.  Police used their tasers on Mrs.  Vernon because she had taken an aggressive posture lying in her hospital bed.  One taser wasn’t enough, however, so another police officer shot her.  But the tasers followed a special move that was based on “officer safety.”  Officer safety required stepping on Mrs. Vernon’s oxygen hose until she suffered oxygen deprivation.

Meanwhile, the police saw what they thought was obstructive behavior from the grandson, so the police took him from the room, threw him to the floor, handcuffed him, and took him out to a police car.

Aggressive hospital bed posture is not a crime familiar to most citizens, but when police need to excuse their excesses, they must get creative.  When they’re in a hurry, however, their creativity gets transparent.  Suffocating grandmothers in their beds is a little hard to sell, except to the hard-core “police-are-right-no-matter-what” crowd.  No facts will sway this crowd.  They will find some cover to excuse the police no matter, no matter, no matter what the police do.  To them, everything the police do that is ethically questionable or even illegal has some way to justify it.

The police finished up on Leona Vernon by handcuffing her, roughly, of course, and taking her away, proud, no doubt, of nipping the aggressive hospital bed behavior that so threatened the peace and dignity of the commonwealth.

Some people just cannot imagine the police would do anything illegal.  Some people cannot imagine the police would lie under oath.  They’re just doing their job, they posit, so why would commit perjury?  Do they ever get caught?  No, so there is no risk to their perjury.  Whey would they abuse a citizen?   Because some police officers think the citizen had it coming.  Police deal in the blame business every day.  That judgmental attitude can make an impact on some police officers, those who come to have contempt for those whom they believe are criminals.  For those police officers, the legal system is an obstacle to their brand of justice, an obstacle they can circumvent on a daily basis.

When a police officer testifies he observed a traffic violation or a driver moving excessively in the front seat on a car, what judge will doubt him?  The police officer knows that.  It is futile for an arrested party to dispute it.  Only when external evidence challenges the statement of the police officer can some doubt be raised, never when it is a police officer’s word against the accused.  When this goes on for long enough, the result is all the wrongly-accused prisoner’s on death row in Texas.   It took irrefutable DNA evidence after years and years of questioning to prove these people did not commit the crimes of which they were convicted. What those reversed convictions show, however, is an underlying question about the truth in which convictions in all criminal cases rest.

Former federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives agent Brandon McFadden is in jail, having pled guilty to conspiracy to a drug conspiracy and reportedly telling a federal grand jury how he and Tulsa Police Officers broke the law with him.  Ryan Logsdon, the informant McFadden and Police Officer Jeff Henderson used to convict father and daughter Larry Wayne Barnes and Larita Barnes, recanted his testimony, resulting in the Barnese’s release from prison.  Henderson in on paid leave, waiting to be indicted.

Now more names are coming out, people who have been released from wrongful convictions and Tulsa police officers.  Bobby Wayne Hadley, serving a 20-year sentence for a drug conviction is expected to be released from federal prison.  The reason is stated in a petition filed in U.S. District Court in  Tulsa.  The petition states that an informant, said she lied about a fabricated drug buy and that was coached by two Tulsa police officers.

Rochelle Martin swore in an affidavit that Tulsa police officers Jeff Henderson and Bill Yelton told her to testify falsely that drugs were being sold at Bobby Wayne Hadley’s house. “My false testimony was solicited by Jeff Henderson, who was at the time a Tulsa police officer,” she stated in an affidavit.  “Jeff Henderson and Bill Yelton [another police officer] coached me on what they wanted me to say to the judge.  They drove me to the hearing together and told me to testify that I had been to Bobby Haley’s home and his salvage yard and that I had been present during drug transactions at those places.”

Haley would be the fourth inmate released from the revelations of this grand jury.  Besides the two Barneses, Demarco Deon Williams has been released from federal prison.  Fred Allen Shields had his federal conviction vacated.  The petition with Rochelle Martin’s affidavit is being considered by U.S. District Judge Terence Kern.  Neither Henderson, Yelton or John K. Gray, another Tulsa police officer implicated, has been charged with anything.  But that is not unusual because the federal process is slow and goes as wide as it can, rolling up everyone it can.  McFadden has reportedly implicated at least Henderson, while Henderson has been taking lie detector tests and holding press conferences to tell about it. His legal bills are being paid by the Fraternal Order of Police.

One of the ghosts of Hurricane Katrina has surfaced – again.  A fifth former police officer has been charged in federal court for covering up the killings of unarmed civilians in the days after Hurricane Katrina.  Ignatius Hills was charged in New Orleans federal court with obstructing justice and misprison of a felony.  Hills resigned from the police force less than a week ago, obviously in anticipation of this filing.

A week after Hurricane Katrina, police were called to the Danziger Bridge on a report that shots had been filed.  Lance Madison, a 40-year-old mentally disabled man, and James Brissette, who was 17, were both shot to death by the police.  Police arrested Madison’s older brother, Ronald, on eight counts of attempted murder of a police officer.  All those charges were later dropped, obviously charges trumped-up by the police to cover their wrongdoing.

Four other former police officers and one civilian have pled guilty to covering up the shootings.  They all plead guilty to plea agreements.  Hills has been charged by Information rather than Indictment, indicating he is going to plead guilty with a plea agreement.  The reason this is indicated by the filing of an Information is that a person has a right under the fifth amendment to the constitution to be charged only by indictment by a grand jury.  The government would not bother to file the Information unless Hills’ attorney, Robert Jenkins, had agreed to plead to it.   Hills is facing a maximum sentence of eight years.

The government Information claims Hills and others shot at unarmed people and then covered up to make the shootings appear justified.  Hills allegedly wrote a police report which accused Lance Madison of eight counts of attempted murder, even though Hills had no firsthand knowledge of wrongdoing by Madison.  The Information claims another officer dictated the report to Hills, who signed it, even though Hills believed Madison was being framed.

Hills is accused of getting together with other officers to develop false stories about the incident.  Those get-togethers included one particular secret meeting in January, 2006.  The government also accuses Hills him of giving false testimony when he testified to a state grand jury in October, 2006.

Bernard Kerik was on top of the world.  He had served gloriously as police commissioner of New York City for Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.  Bernie was famous in his own right, often on television screens, sporting his trademark mustache and shaved head.  He was sent by President George Bush to reorganize the police force in Iraq.  Finally, he was nominated to head the Department of Homeland Security.   After that, things went downhill.

Kerik was indicted in federal court with corruption for allegedly accepting unreported gifts of construction work on his home.   Kerik failed to report as income more than $200,000 in rent paid on his behalf to use a luxury apartment where he lived with his family when he left his city post, paid for by Steve Witkoff, a commercial real estate developer. Also, a construction company with alleged mob ties paid for the $165,000 in renovations on Kerik’s home in Riverdale, the Bronx, apparently in hopes of obtaining a city license. In 2006, Kerik plead guilty in the Bronx to state misdemeanor charges stemming from those renovations.

In 2004, after nomination by Rudy Giuliani, President George W. Bush nominated Kerik to head the Department of Homeland Security.  Seven days later, Kerik withdrew his name from consideration.  Then fell the avalanche of questions about Kerik.

Had Kerik inappropriately lobbied New York City on behalf of Interstate Industrial, a construction company with alleged links to organized crime?  At first, Giuliani denied he knew about Kerik’s ties to Interstate Industrial when he appointed Kerik as police commissioner. Then in 2006, Guiliani acknowledged that city investigations commissioner, Edward Kuriansky, said Kuriansky has stated he told Giuliani in at least one briefing about Kerik’s problems, but Giuliani said he did not remember any such briefing.

Kuriansky’s diaries confirm that one of those briefings did take place.  Additionally, Kuriansky stated, based on his recollections and his diaries, he also briefed Dennison Young, Jr., one of Mayor Giuliani’s closest aides, about Kerik’s ties to the construction company only days before Mayor Giuliani appointed Kerik police commissioner.  Giuliani is well-known for the premium he places on loyalty and his own loyalty to others.  Giuliani Partners, his consulting firm did employ Kerik and continues to employ Alan Placa, a high school friend, in spite of allegations he molested young men years ago.

By the time Giuliani recommended Kerik for the Homeland Security job, his administration knew Kerik had acted on behalf of Interstate Industrial and knew about other criticisms of Kerik, including sending detectives to look for his lover’s cell phone and using police officers to research his autobiography.

In 2000, more than half the mayor’s cabinet opposed Bernie Kerik’s appointment to police commissioner.  They had concerns that included the fact that Kerik did not have a college degree, a police department requirement at the time for captains and above.

Giuliani met Kerik in 1990 at a fund raiser in New Jersey honoring a slain new York City police officer. Kerik was a decorated undercover detective with a ponytail and earrings, big biceps. Kerik cultivated political connections, such as the sheriff of Passaic County, N.J., who had made Kerik five years earlier the youngest jail chief in the county’s history.   When Giuliani ran for mayor in 1993, Kerik organized Giuliani’s security detail of off-duty officers to reserve the weekend shift for Kerik himself.

A year after Giuliani became mayor, he appointed Kerik first deputy correction commissioner to include supervision of Riker’s Island.   One year after that, Kerik was appointed  correction commissioner, where he showed up for spot inspections at 2:00 a.m.  When violence in the jails dropped, public praise climbed.  Now reported are some of his questionable activities then, such as his dating a woman who was a correction officer and his getting close to the department’s inspector general, whose responsibilities required him to avoid such closeness with other city personnel.  Later, one of his top deputies was convicted of taking $142,000 from a Correction Department that Kerik headed.  Another deputy was convicted of forcing staff members to do political campaign work and dispatching officers to renovate his home.

Lawrence Ray was a friend of Kerik and served as best man at Kerik’s wedding.  Ray even paid for much of the wedding, and Kerik in turn recommended Ray for a $100,000 job at Interstate Industrials, a New Jersey construction company with tens of million dollars in contracts with New York City.

Interstate Industrials hoped that Lawrence Ray could change relations with the City because, two years before, city investigators had found the company employed mob figures and denied the company an operating license. After hiring Ray, Interstate hired Kerik’s brother, and from then on, the then-correction commissioner began lobbying unofficially for Interstate. Kerik defended Interstate to the chief of enforcement for the city commission, a cousin of Giuliani who was reviewing Interstate’s license application.  Kerik telephoned an assistant commissioner at the Department of Investigation to say Interstate’s owners were clean of mob ties, so far as he knew.  He even had city detectives who were investigating Interstate meet Lawrence Ray in Kerik’s own city office, sending a strong signal to the detectives.  But the lobbying stopped in March, 2000, when Lawrence Ray and Edward Garafola, a mob soldier associated with Interstate, were indicted on a federal stock scheme not related to Interstate’s business.  New York City suspended Interstate’s $85 million in city contracts.

Three weeks later, Bernie Kerik interviewed for two hours with the Department of Investigation and talked about his relationship with Lawrence Ray, Interstate and its owners and his brother.  However, Kerik never mentioned that Interstate was paying for $165,000 worth of renovations on his new apartment in the Bronx.

That is when the police commissioner job came open.  Bernie Kerik was one of the candidates with his eight years experience as a police officer.  Edward Kuriansky, the city investigations commissioner, was assigned to oversee background investigations of Kerik and the other candidate, Joseph Dunne.    Kuriansky’s agency was supposed to be semi-independent, but Kerik had coopted it to some extent, appointing friends like Kuriansky to the commission and having them attend his morning meetings.  Kuriansky was a former prosecutor, and he knew Kerik had intervened on behalf of the company suspected of mob ties and that Kerik’s best friend and brother worked for that company.  Kuriansky, however, did not know Interstate was renovating Kerik’s apartment.

Giuliani selected Kurik as his police commissioner, and he served in that capacity for 16 months.  Crime fell, and Kerik enjoyed not only public approval during his tenure but celebrity.   Bernie Kerik adopted the persona of a steady figure after the World Trade Center attack on 911.  He continued to receive good press.  Three years later, after he had withdrawn his nomination as head of Homeland Security, it came to light that Kerik had used an apartment dedicated for weary rescue workers at ground zero for an extramarital affair with his book publisher, Judith Regan.

After Kerik’s three months in Iraq, he spoke at the Republican National Convention. But his candidacy to head Homeland Security lasted only a week.  He withdrew himself, saying he discovered his nanny was in the country illegally and he had not paid taxes on her.

Kerik couldn’t even stay out of trouble after he was indicted in federal court.  U.S. District Judge Stephen Robinson revoked Kerik’s bail when the judge found Bernie had, in apparent hopes of generating sympathy in his trial, leaked information the judge had ordered sealed.  Kerik ultimately pled guilty to eight counts in hopes of receiving a  two or three years sentence, as indicated by the Sentencing Guidelines and the expectations of the prosecutors.      Whoops. The judge gave him four years and said Kerik had violated the public trust immeasurably.   While waiting for his sentencing, Kerik complained that he had not heard from Rudy Giuliani.  Small wonder why.  The wonder is that he overlooked Kerik’s fleas so long.

A new study has just concluded that ninety per cent of American currency carries traces of cocaine.  Does that matter?  You bet it does matter to anyone arrested with cash on them, whether they are innocent or guilty of a crime.

What every criminal defense lawyer knows, but few of the average citizens know, is that the trace of drugs on money is a law enforcement device to take cash away from citizens and to convict them for criminal offenses.  This is one of the “tools” that law makers have shoveled to “law enforcement” to help fight crime, i.e., take away those impediments to police efficiency, to wit;  the rights of citizens.

Of course, if you believe only criminals ever need their Constitutional rights, then you will not care.  And if you ever need your to exercise your any of your rights under the Constitution, you will have no cause to complain when you discover these rights are not waiting for you to pick up at your leisure on the foyer table.

U.S. currency has a life of about 20 months.  In that span, bills pick up dirt, food, germs and drugs.  Some currency is used in dope deals or even to use drugs but not all of it.  A bill that goes through a currency counter at the bank can pick up traces if some previous bill carried a trace.  Those bills have fewer traces than others. Some bills were found to have .008 micrograms, which is several thousands of times than a single grain of sand.  Apparently the cocaine binds to the dye in money.

But if that trace can be found by scientific means, law enforcement can find it.  And if you had it in your possession, then law enforcement can demand you explain. Routinely, drug teams, highway patrol troopers, and deputy sheriffs seize cash they find in someone’s possession. It the cash is found near drugs, it is legally presumed to be the fruits of illegal drug activity when you file your petition in district court in an effort to regain your money.  No crime need to have been committed nor alleged.  This is a forfeiture action, and the aw enforcement officers’ team gets to keep the money to buy fancy vehicles, etc.

Yuegang Zuo, professor of chemistry at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth presented his paper at a national meeting of the American Chemical Society showing $5, $10, $20 and $50 bills were more likely to be positive for cocaine than $1 bills.  Drug teams would probably not bother with mere $1 bills anyway.

Professor Zuo also found geographic variations in his findings.  Rural areas had less cocaine trace.  One hundred percent of the money from Miami, Boston, and Detroit.  Also, American money had the highest percentage of traces with 90 per cent of 234 bank notes tested.  Canada had 85 per cent, followed by Brazil with 80 per cent.  The lowest percentages were from China with 20 per cent and Japan with 12 per cent.

The drug taint should not be a health problem, Health agencies have advised people to wash their hands after touching cash.  Disease-causing organisms such as staphylococcus aureus and pneumonia-causing bacteria have detected on paper bills. A 2002 study published in the Southern Medical Journal, 94 per cent of tested bills had potentially disease causing organisms.  But Adam Negrusz, associate professor of forensic sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said he is not worried about adverse effects on the general health from these drug traces.

Professor Negrusz published a study in 1998 with similar findings.  His study compared freshly minted currency with currency collected from circulation in a Chicago suburb.  The study found 92.8 per cent of the circulated money had traces of cocaine, but none of the uncirculated money had any trace.    He noted that while such drug traces are not a general health problem, that they could be a serious problem to anyone who handles a lot of cash.

A new study has just concluded that ninety per cent of American currency carries traces of cocaine.  Does that matter?  You bet it does matter to anyone arrested with cash on them, whether they are innocent or guilty of a crime.

What every criminal defense lawyer knows, but few of the average citizens know, is that the trace of drugs on money is a law enforcement device to take cash away from citizens and to convict them for criminal offenses.  This is one of the “tools” that law makers have shoveled to “law enforcement” to help fight crime, i.e., take away those impediments to police efficiency, to wit;  the rights of citizens.

Of course, if you believe only criminals ever need their Constitutional rights, then you will not care.  And if you ever need your to exercise your any of your rights under the Constitution, you will have no cause to complain when you discover these rights are not waiting for you to pick up at your leisure on the foyer table.

U.S. currency has a life of about 20 months.  In that span, bills pick up dirt, food, germs and drugs.  Some currency is used in dope deals or even to use drugs but not all of it.  A bill that goes through a currency counter at the bank can pick up traces if some previous bill carried a trace.  Those bills have fewer traces than others. Some bills were found to have .008 micrograms, which is several thousands of times than a single grain of sand.  Apparently the cocaine binds to the dye in money.

But if that trace can be found by scientific means, law enforcement can find it.  And if you had it in your possession, then law enforcement can demand you explain. Routinely, drug teams, highway patrol troopers, and deputy sheriffs seize cash they find in someone’s possession. It the cash is found near drugs, it is legally presumed to be the fruits of illegal drug activity when you file your petition in district court in an effort to regain your money.  No crime need to have been committed nor alleged.  This is a forfeiture action, and the aw enforcement officers’ team gets to keep the money to buy fancy vehicles, etc.

Yuegang Zuo, professor of chemistry at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth presented his paper at a national meeting of the American Chemical Society showing $5, $10, $20 and $50 bills were more likely to be positive for cocaine than $1 bills.  Drug teams would probably not bother with mere $1 bills anyway.

Professor Zuo also found geographic variations in his findings.  Rural areas had less cocaine trace.  One hundred percent of the money from Miami, Boston, and Detroit.  Also, American money had the highest percentage of traces with 90 per cent of 234 bank notes tested.  Canada had 85 per cent, followed by Brazil with 80 per cent.  The lowest percentages were from China with 20 per cent and Japan with 12 per cent.

The drug taint should not be a health problem, Health agencies have advised people to wash their hands after touching cash.  Disease-causing organisms such as staphylococcus aureus and pneumonia-causing bacteria have detected on paper bills. A 2002 study published in the Southern Medical Journal, 94 per cent of tested bills had potentially disease causing organisms.  But Adam Negrusz, associate professor of forensic sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said he is not worried about adverse effects on the general health from these drug traces.

Professor Negrusz published a study in 1998 with similar findings.  His study compared freshly minted currency with currency collected from circulation in a Chicago suburb.  The study found 92.8 per cent of the circulated money had traces of cocaine, but none of the uncirculated money had any trace.    He noted that while such drug traces are not a general health problem, that they could be a serious problem to anyone who handles a lot of cash.