Pubdate: Sun, 12 Mar 2000
Source: Denver Rocky Mountain News (CO)
Copyright: 2000 Denver Publishing Co.
Contact:  400 W. Colfax, Denver, CO 80204
Website: http://www.denver-rmn.com/
Author: Kevin Flynn and Lou Kilzer

NO-KNOCKS NET LITTLE JAIL TIME

Of suspects arrested in drug raids last year, only two felons went to
prison, statistics show

Denver police targeted 146 suspects in no-knock drug raids last year.

A third of those suspects ended up facing felony charges.

And, of those, two were sent to prison.

In fact, felony arrests from no-knock drug raids in Denver are far less
likely to result in prison sentences than overall felony arrests, a study
by the Denver Rocky Mountain News found.

Here's how the statistics break down: 4 percent of the no-knock felons went
to prison compared with 21 percent of all Denver felony defendants.

The News analysis of search warrants, police reports and court records
shows that if prison time is the measure, no-knock raids are a fairly
ineffective tool in the city's war on drugs.

The no-knock tactic has come under increased scrutiny since officers raided
the wrong house in September and shot to death northwest Denver resident
Ismael Mena.

Of the 49 people charged with felonies as the result of 1999 no-knock drug
raid arrests, nearly all got probation, community service, deferred
judgments, or a month or two in Denver County Jail.

Two people -- or 4 percent of those charged -- were sent to prison. One got
three years because he was already on probation. The other received five
years because he was a parolee.

By comparison, Denver filed 5,300 felony cases in 1998 (the last year for
which overall figures are available), 2,145 of them drug-related. Of the
5,300 charged, 1,138 went to prison.

District Attorney Bill Ritter, who is serving on a panel examining the use
of no-knock raids, said the findings are significant.

"That's an important thing to know because no-knocks are so invasive," said
Ritter.

"That's an important statistic to have out there."

Ritter's office is responsible for plea-bargaining the vast majority of
drug cases. That happens because their numbers overwhelm court resources,
according to the district attorney.

Community activists, defense lawyers and others question the wisdom of
no-knock raids in light of such leniency. Officers risk their lives and
those of people inside when they burst unannounced into a house looking for
drugs.

"The war on drugs is a big joke, and it's full of hypocrisy," said Craig
Silverman, a former Denver prosecutor who opposed Ritter in the last
election and is now a defense attorney.

"I'm not blaming anyone in particular, but when you have that violent
intrusion on people's homes with so little results, you have to ask why."

Some say the Denver Drug Court is the problem. Started in 1994 as a way to
divert routine drug abusers from prison, the court now often frees drug
pushers, some of whom are charged with several felonies.

Almost all of the 1999 no-knock cases were targeted at people suspected of
being dealers, the News' study shows. Often, the tips went unsubstantiated
and little in the way of narcotics was recovered.

The problem doesn't stem only from the work of inexperienced street cops,
which city officials have maintained.

Even veteran narcotics detectives sometimes seek no-knock warrants based on
the word of an informant and without conducting undercover buys to try to
verify the tips.

"People have been asking the police for more accountability," said Leroy
Lemos of the Justice for Mena Committee. The community organization sprung
up in the aftermath of the September no-knock raid that left Mena dead.

The raid was at the wrong house, and the officer who wrote the search
warrant affidavit, Joseph Bini, has been charged with perjury. The SWAT
team members were cleared of wrongdoing because they said Mena aimed a gun
at them before they fired.

"No-knock raids are being used loosely with little regard to public
safety," Lemos said. "The more information we receive about the
effectiveness of no-knock warrants, and also about where they are being
served in communities of people of color, it seems mighty suspicious."

Capt. John Costigan, commander of the Denver Police vice and narcotics
bureau, said he expects fewer no-knock raids but they won't be eliminated.

"Some are necessary," he said. "Otherwise, you're putting the officers in
danger if no-knocks are no longer available. The drug business is very
dangerous."

Officer Bini wrote seven no-knock affidavits in 1999, according to records
on file in Denver District Court. Target suspects were named in three of
them. Records show one felony case filed as a result of Bini's raids.

A prior offender, that person pleaded guilty and got three years on
probation from drug court even though he was on a deferred judgment at the
time in the previous drug case. Under deferred judgment, if the defendant
stays out of trouble for a set period of time, the conviction will be wiped
out.

Other than the two suspects who went straight to prison, nearly all the
cases were plea-bargained. Two of those went to prison later for violating
their terms of probation. Three others were given 120 days in boot camp and
are eligible for release if they complete the program. Two are out already,
one comes up in May.

Two other cases were dismissed. Another was reduced to a misdemeanor after
what was thought to be cocaine turned out to be marijuana in a bust in the
Barnum neighborhood.

"A no-knock warrant ought to be an extraordinary investigative technique,"
said Rick Kornfeld, the attorney who defended the 46-year-old Barnum
resident whose home was raided by a SWAT team on Feb. 28, 1999.

"It's a pretty intrusive device and you hope that police use discretion,"
Kornfeld said. "I think the boilerplate nature of some of these no-knock
affidavits ought to be a concern."

Kornfeld's client eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of
possession of drug paraphernalia after being jailed on a felony count
involving cocaine possession. No cocaine had been found, however. Other
charges were dropped.

Nor did it appear that the man was "dealing a large quantity of illegal
narcotics," as a confidential informant tipped police.

In this case, an experienced narcotics detective went only on the word of
the informant, who he said had been reliable "on several occasions."

The detective also revealed that the informant had bought drugs from the
suspect in the past but hadn't done so recently because of a dispute over
money.

Although this information should raise questions about the informant's
motives, Denver police sought and obtained a no-knock warrant from County
Judge Aleene Ortiz-White without further investigation such as doing their
own "controlled buy" to verify that the suspect was a dealer.

Instead of finding a significant "crack house" operation as the informant
alleged, police busted down the door of an apparent pot smoker in order to
obtain, in the end, a municipal court plea to possessing paraphernalia.

Police Chief Gerry Whitman said the department needs to strive for more
"consistent quality" in preparing for no-knock raids.

"We have to replicate what the narcotics bureau does almost flawlessly," he
said, acknowledging that the Barnum case shows that even with narcotics
detectives, problems can happen.

Informants' identities are protected when police can obtain the evidence
they need in a raid. That way, prosecutors don't need to rely on the
testimony of an earlier transaction with the informant, and the informant
can continue to be useful to police.

"If informants knew they had to testify, we wouldn't have informants,"
Ritter said.

Often, information given by confidential sources goes unsubstantiated. In
many of last year's raids, the News reported last month, no drugs or much
less than expected were found.

In one no-knock raid set up by officer Bini, he and his partner Dan Andrews
conducted an investigation that involved just 30 minutes of surveillance.
From a hiding place, they watched a house on Humboldt Street as people came
and left.

Then, they followed a visitor and stopped him elsewhere. They found a rock
of crack cocaine on him. The man said he bought it at the Humboldt Street
house and had been doing so for a month.

Without any further investigation to rule out the possibility that the man
was lying -- he could have had the crack cocaine prior to going to the
house -- Bini asked the judge for a no-knock warrant.

Bini told the judge the same house had been searched three months earlier
by narcotics detectives, and that they found nothing -- another potential
red flag.

The News found no record of this earlier search warrant in Denver District
Court files, although it appears in police dispatch records.

Bini also said he and Andrews recovered a small amount of marijuana from
the house during an earlier consensual search, but doesn't say anything
about crack cocaine being there.

A day later, the Humboldt Street house was raided, but instead of finding a
major crack dealing operation, Bini confiscated a VCR, two compact disc
players and several hats.

"Snitches give inaccurate information sometimes," attorney Kornfeld said.
"They can create crime where none exists. My client wasn't who the snitch
said he was."

Assistant District Attorney Chuck Lepley said only one of Denver's seven
criminal court judges presides over a courtroom devoted to drug offenses.
The judge deals with 1,600 of the 2,300 drug cases filed a year, which is
like "trying to pour the Mississippi River through a straw."

No trials or violent drug crimes are handled in drug court, only plea
bargains.

Defendants arrested in no-knock raids make up a very small percentage of
the drug cases filed annually by Ritter's office, just over 2 percent.

Ritter said no-knock raids may produce proportionately fewer criminal cases
because of potential courtroom proof problems linking drugs found at the
scene of a raid to a specific suspect in the house. Without that certainty,
the chance of winning a case is less.

By contrast, a street arrest in which drugs are found in a suspect's pocket
or automobile has a better chance to hold up in court.

Because of the increased danger no-knock raids present to police officers
and suspects, and in light of the Mena case, a city panel is examining the
continued use of the tactic.

Ritter serves on the panel with Denver County Chief Judge Robert Patterson
and Safety Manager Butch Montoya.

"We are looking at whether or not we can satisfy community concerns, use
less invasive techniques than a no-knock warrant, and still assure officer
safety," Ritter said.

Ritter and others say the number of prosecutions isn't the only measure of
the effectiveness of no-knock raids -- which are certain to remain in the
arsenal of the Denver Police Department even if the review panel recommends
tighter requirements.

Mayor Wellington Webb has said that he doesn't intend to prohibit them.

No-knocks have been effective in closing crack houses where they have been
endangering neighborhoods even if no one is arrested, Ritter said.

Silverman agreed that the goal is more than making arrests and convictions.

"Nobody likes crack houses in their neighborhood," he said. "Even if they
shut down crack houses without felony charges, they consider it successful."

Lepley said the number of prison terms isn't the only yardstick for success.

"In terms of making a difference for the community as a whole," he said,
"all of these things play together. We can walk around just carrying a
hammer and treat everyone like a nail, but you have to use every tool in
the toolbox."
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