Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 31, 1995 TAG: 9510310102
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press|
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The justices said they will review rulings that threw out federal indictments against five men who had been charged with trafficking in crack in the Los Angeles area.
The men said they were chosen for federal prosecution because they are black, and federal prosecutors initially refused to rebut the allegations.
The issue for the nation's highest court is not whether racially biased prosecution took place, but whether lower courts wrongly required the federal government to combat the selective-prosecution allegations.
A decision is expected by July.
The dispute involves race and economic class, as does the national debate over the federal policy of punishing crack-cocaine offenders much more harshly than those caught with the powdered variety of the drug.
In the crack-cocaine case, Christopher Armstrong, Aaron Hampton, Freddie Mack, Shelton Martin and Robert Rozelle were charged in 1992 with participating in a drug ring.
The charges stemmed from a joint investigation by Inglewood, Calif., police and federal drug agents.
The decision to charge the five men with federal, rather than state, crimes was significant. Federal law imposes a minimum sentence of 10 years and a maximum of life for those convicted of selling more than 50 grams of crack. Under California law, however, the sentence for that crime ranges from three to five years.
To support their racial-bias claim, the five defendants pointed to a study of every crack prosecution closed by the local federal public defendant's office in 1991. In all 24 such cases, the defendants were black.
``What we have here is institutional racism,'' said Los Angeles lawyer David Dudley, who represents one of the five men whose indictments were dismissed. ``The fact of the matter is they [federal prosecutors] are going after black people.''
Although the popular view is that crack is mostly an inner-city drug, Dudley said in a telephone interview Monday, ``The majority of people who sell crack cocaine are white, there can be no doubt. Two-thirds of the users are whites, and white kids who buy crack aren't going to the ghetto to buy it. Other white kids are selling it to them.''
A federal judge, ruling in favor of the defendants, ordered prosecutors to provide further racial data and to explain how they chose which crack cases to pursue in federal court.
The government chose not to comply with that order, and instead appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeals court upheld the judge's order and subsequent dismissal of the indictments against the five men. In other matters Monday, the court:
Turned down a grandmother's attempt to reinstate an invalidated Georgia law that had allowed grandparents to win court-ordered visitation with their grandchildren over parents' objections.
Rejected the appeal of Mexican businessman Ruben Zuno-Arce, sentenced to life in prison in the 1985 kidnap, torture and murder of U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena.
by CNB