Justice more complicated than black and white
BY GREG SOWINSKI - Jan. 14, 2007
LIMA — Paul Howell Jr. walked home from work at 2 a.m. Jan. 3, minding his own business. Then a sheriff’s deputy stopped him.
The deputy asked for Howell’s name and birthday and ran a quick check. In the few minutes that took, two other officers arrived as backup. The 59-year-old Howell, who only has traffic violations on his record during the past 20 years, cleared the check and went on his way, he said.
“There was no reason for them to come up to me,” he said. “I didn’t break no law.”
He has a theory why the deputy stopped him, though.
“Because I was black, I guess,” Howell said.
The Lima Police Department heard complaints of racial profiling following a three-day, multidepartment blitz targeting crime in September. Officers issued more than 300 traffic citations and seized guns and more than 150 grams of crack cocaine. Residents said blacks were unfairly targeted.
“We don’t do racial profiling,” said Lima police Maj. Kevin Martin. “We don’t condone it, and it is against our department policy.”
Still, an anonymous Lima News survey of defense attorneys in the area showed a division in whether they thought police, sheriff’s deputies and state patrol troopers were more likely to stop a black driver than a white driver. Of the respondents, 38.5 percent thought blacks were more likely to be stopped, compared to 38.5 percent who thought they weren’t. Another 23 percent expressed no opinion.
A Lima attorney, Ken Rexford, renewed the debate about racial inequality recently. He said statistics showed blacks are sentenced to nearly twice as long in prison as whites on drug charges.
Inequality in the criminal justice system against blacks is frequently discussed, but not many blacks are willing to address it publicly for various fears such as retaliation or fear of losing their jobs, said Tommy Pitts, the 5th Ward councilman in Lima who hired Rexford to defend his son, Ryan, on drug charges.
“We talk about it behind closed doors. It’s a conversation that African-Americans speak about all the time,” Pitts said.
Perceptions among blacks
Dr. H. Frank Taylor, president of the Black Ministerial Association and the pastor at Tabernacle Baptist Church, said he frequently hears people saying blacks are treated tougher than whites in the justice system.
But Taylor said he does not get too involved in the dynamics of the criminal justice system.
“The first thing I say is when you’re wrong, you’re wrong. I don’t condone that,” he said.
Pitts said he knows people are going to attack him or even the attorney he hired for his son. Such attacks are done to shift the focus from the issue at hand, he said. Pitts said he does not condone lawbreakers, saying people, regardless of race, should receive equal treatment in the criminal justice system, he said.
Pitts has watched as Judge Richard Warren refused to hold a hearing on the issue of racial inequality in his son’s drug case. He also does not buy Warren’s reason that it would amount to an effort by an attorney to use his courtroom as a “bully pulpit” to try to divide the community.
“For anyone to try to skirt the real issue or to put off that, ‘He is trying to divide the community.’ Well, I have a news flash: This community is already divided, and it’s been divided for years. The judicial system is part of the reason,” Pitts said.
Taylor said the judges are fair in Allen County.
“I have seen [judges Richard] Warren and [Jeffrey] Reed be extremely fair dishing out punishment,” he said.
Lima attorney Farley Banks, one of two black attorneys in town, said he hears complaints that are in general terms and not specific against any one person in the justice system.
Banks has heard complaints from whites, as well. The complaints from whites typically are police are after them for a certain reason. He offered an example of a white man who lost his driver license, only to be pulled over later. The man claimed the officer recognized him and knew he didn’t have a license, Banks said, using it as an example of targeting.
But issues, such as with police, for example, can be viewed differently, he said.
“Where I see profiling, police may say it’s good police work,” Banks said.
A blitz of concerns
In September, police officers conducted a three-day blitz in the county targeting crime. More than 300 traffic citations were issued. Officers also seized more than 150 grams of crack cocaine, as well as some guns.
But as quickly as police were calling the blitz a success, there were complaints of racial profiling. The issues became the subject of several hearings with City Council. Pitts had people complaining to him come forward to express concerns, and he expressed his own concerns.
Chief Greg Garlock defended his department, saying racial profiling doesn’t happen in Lima.
Garlock, as well as other city officials, disagreed over the concerns of racial profiling connected to the blitz. The chief directed statements at Pitts, accusing him of having his mind made up without hearing the other side.
Martin said since the allegations of profiling surfaced following the blitz in September, he is unaware of any other complaints other than what initially were received.
Such complaints are taken seriously and investigated. If an officer acted wrongly, the officer is disciplined, Martin said.
Stopped twice in a week
Howell still questions why a deputy stopped him Jan. 3 while walking through a gas station parking lot, just off Harding Highway near Interstate 75 and less than a mile from his home.
“He said, ‘You walked past this business. You ain’t got no business walking past this business this time of night,’” said Howell, a married grandfather.
The deputy sheriff who stopped him was sitting in a nearby parking lot, Howell said.
Allen County Sheriff’s Maj. Gene King said he had no record of the stop that night but did have a record of a stop at 1:24 a.m. Jan. 9. He said deputies do not stop people based on race. Sheriff’s deputies, however, will stop pedestrians who are near closed business, white or black, King said.
During the Jan. 9, stop. Howell and two white men were riding bicycles home from work without lights, King said. Deputies decided not to cite the three men.
As for Howell, he still believes the first stop happened only because he is black.
Under a microscope
Rexford took on the cases of Pitts’ two sons, Che and Ryan, and put drug trafficking cases under a microscope. He pulled every drug case in 2004 and 2005 containing a trafficking charge, meaning the offender might’ve been a dealer.
He said the statistics were alarming. Of 186 criminal cases filed in two years, only 17 were against white defendants.
Whites received an average sentence of two years in prison, compared to four years for blacks. When first indicted, though, those whites faced a maximum possible sentence of 17 years, compared to 16 years for blacks.
Whites pleaded to all charges filed just 22 percent of the time, compared to 49 percent for blacks.
When comparing third-degree felony trafficking charges, 29 percent of blacks had no charges dropped, compared to 11 percent for whites.
Rexford has pushed his findings, trying to convince a judge to drop half the charges against Ryan Pitts, who had no previous record. Rexford’s requests with the court have been denied throughout, as well as his requests for hearings to argue his case.
Tommy Pitts has heard the complaint that he wouldn’t criticize the system so much if his sons weren’t in trouble. He said that simply is not true and goes beyond his family.
“They try to make it appear the only reason why I was speaking out is because of my boys, but anybody who knows me can go back to the late ’60s. This is nothing new to me,” he said.
Cases in court
There are various factors that go into why an individual receives a certain sentence or goes to prison, Warren said. Factors include whether it was a crime of violence, protecting the public and the nature of the crime, he said.
Race is not a factor when determining a sentence. Warren said he often does not know the race of a defendant until he sees the person in the courtroom for the first time.
The other judge in Allen County, Reed, also talking in general terms, said judges have numerous guidelines to consider when choosing a sentence.
Such guidelines include the crime committed, the affect of the crime on a victim, whether the defendant has a record, whether previous sanctions have worked, and whether the defendant shows remorse, Reed said.
Attorneys surveyed by The Lima News seemed to think the judges are consistent and fair. Three-fourths of the survey respondents said black defendants receive about the same sentence as a white defendant convicted of the same crime. Only one attorney indicated a black defendant would get a harsher sentence in Allen County than in another nearby county.
Thirteen of 31 defense attorneys who regularly handle cases in Allen County responded to the survey.
Longtime Lima attorney Bill Kluge, who has a staunch reputation for his criminal defense representation during the last 30 years, said Rexford and Tommy Pitts could do more for the black community by working with black children than creating data studies.
“They would be better off worrying about the future of black kids in this community instead of saying the system is slanted against black defendants,” Kluge said.
Kluge also said he rarely hears discrimination complaints based on race.
“I just don’t see it, especially at the public defender’s office. We would hear about it right away,” he said.
Reed said it’s hard to take any study, such as Rexford’s, and make a concrete conclusion that explains a complicated process with numerous variables.
“Unless you’re able to delve into each and every present investigation and each and every circumstance, and fact and difference in fact, those statistics have to be misleading. It’s just not a matter of black and white,” Reed said.
Challenging the prosecutor
Rexford said the numbers show prosecutors are cutting fewer deals or no deals at all for blacks.
In his motion, Rexford wrote, “It is a result of a prosecutor who refuses to negotiate in good faith with black offenders but gives away the farm to white offenders.”
Allen County Prosecutor Juergen Waldick responded Friday to Rexford’s motion, writing in court records he was offended and outraged.
“Decisions in the Allen County Criminal Justice System in general, and at the Allen County Prosecutor’s Office specifically, have never been based on race,” Waldick said in court records.
Rexford’s study is only a small sample of nearly 1,200 cases filed during the two years. It further ignores circumstances the court takes into consideration before issuing the appropriate sentence regardless of race, Waldick said.
Waldick also addressed accusations on plea negotiations by first saying no defendant has a right to a deal. Deals are made based on various factors, such as strength of the case, cooperation by the defendant and previous record.
To say the criminal justice system be operated based on statistics is suggesting a quota system, Waldick said.
“Such a system would also place at risk citizens or crimes which would not be punished in areas where, for example, these quotas had been met,” Waldick said in court records.
The concerns Taylor said he’s heard are that Waldick is harder on people committing crimes than former Prosecutor David Bowers was.
“When you’re wrong, you’re wrong, and you sometimes have to pay the piper. But when you pay the piper, you need to use the same measurement for a minority as you would a white person,” Taylor sai
Oh, Great Spirit, grant that I may not criticize my neighbor until I have walked a mile in his moccasins." - Old Indian Prayer My dad told me!! |
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