Thursday, November 7, 2002 Associated Press COLUMBIA-South Carolina's Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in a case aimed at overturning the state's unique law that prosecutes women for homicide if they kill their fetus by taking drugs. Defense lawyers are trying to throw out the conviction of Regina McKnight of Conway, who's serving 12 years in prison after a jury took 10 minutes to convict her last year in the death of her stillborn daughter. Arguments covered several issues - from whether a sentence as harsh as life in prison was cruel and unusual punishment to whether a pregnant woman could be prosecuted for smoking. Defense attorney Jodie Kelley said justices should overturn McKnight's sentence because prosecutors never excluded any other cause of death for the woman's stillborn fetus. [continues 396 words]
COLUMBIA-For the second time, attorneys will try to overturn a South Carolina law allowing prosecutors to charge pregnant women with homicide by child abuse if they kill their fetus by using cocaine. This time, the law is being challenged by Regina McKnight, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison after a jury took 10 minutes to convict her in the death of her stillborn daughter. Attorney C. Rauch Wise, who will argue McKnight's case before the state's high court Wednesday, said he doesn't understand how a state that struggles to provide drug treatment to the poor can justify such a harsh sentence to a woman who had named her daughter and begged nurses to be allowed to hold the tiny body. [continues 632 words]
A career criminal gunned down by Charleston police more than five years ago has become a focal point in the race for attorney general. The violent life of "Rusty" Corvette is now front-and-center in Democrat Steve Benjamin's campaign against Republican Henry McMaster. Corvette died in a hail of police bullets in 1997 after a 20-year life of crime, not far from the Byrnes Down neighborhood in West Ashley where he grew up. But it was his involvement in the slaying of a Greenville law enforcement officer that Benjamin is using - making it the second time in 12 years that Democrats have tried to taint McMaster as being soft on a criminal. The story begins in the early 1980s when Wilbur Rutledge Corvette Jr. agreed to testify about a cocaine ring in exchange for a lenient sentence. [continues 569 words]
Those chronic criminals who have long operated with near impunity by intimidating entire neighborhoods in Charleston should take note: Law-abiding residents are increasingly ready, willing and able to resist your bullying tactics. Another indication of that welcome trend came this week with the opening of "Operation Neighborhood," a wide-ranging initiative by the city of Charleston that includes intensified efforts - from both residents and law enforcement - to make drug dealing and related offenses losing propositions in communities where such lawlessness previously thrived. As Wednesday's Post and Courier reported, the operation started this week with a drug bust and strengthened police patrols in a community that lies between Cannon Street and the Crosstown Expressway. As the Rev. Sidney Davis, head of that community's neighborhood association, explained: "Like the East Side community, Cannonborough/Elliottborough will no longer be a safe haven for drug dealers or those who do criminal behavior. This is what happens ... when you stand up and take charge of your life." And an encouraging pattern of communities taking action against criminals is what happens when one neighborhood - such as the East Side - sets a good example for other neighborhoods. Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. praised the Cannonborough/Elliottborough leaders and residents: "They have stood up, they've been counted, and criminals are going to jail. We are taking back our streets; we are taking back this neighborhood." However, Operation Neighborhood isn't confined to targeting dope traffickers. It's broadly aimed at all "quality of life" issues. The mayor said nearly 100 citations have recently been issued for code violations, such as improper disposal of garbage. Many of those code-violation cases will go to the city's Livability Court - and will underline the city's determination to make Charleston more "livable" for its residents. Meanwhile, drug dealers in all Charleston neighborhoods should realize that business as usual is coming, or has come, to an end. The growing willingness - the growing courage - of residents to report drug activity to city narcotics officers at 720-3937 or 554-1111 is making a positive difference. Though the profit motive will continue to power the illegal drug market, good people in Charleston appear primed to continue pressing this ongoing battle against the criminals who have pushed dope on their streets - and pushed law-abiding citizens around - for far too long. [end]
Eight women who sued the Medical University of South Carolina after the hospital drug tested them and turned the results over to police did not agree to the tests, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. The decision is the latest development in the nearly decade-old case that stems from the hospital's attempts in the 1980s and early 1990s to reduce the crack baby epidemic. The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court on appeal last year and refined earlier court opinions involving the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures unless police have a search warrant or probable cause. The high court ruled that the hospital's now-defunct policy violated the amendment, but it sent the case back to the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond to consider whether the maternity patients gave consent for the testing. A three-judge panel ruled 2-1 Thursday that eight of the 10 women who sued did not know they were being tested for cocaine and did not consent to the testing. Two Charleston attorneys who argued on opposite sides of the case disagreed Friday on the decision's meaning. [continues 466 words]
A careful look at recent headlines in The Post and Courier tells an important story about the U.S. government's War on Drugs. On Aug. 18: "Homicide rate spikes after summer killings" - a story about local murders often blamed on illegal drug involvement. On Aug. 20: "Crack raids hit suppliers" - about yet another local neighborhood drug sweep to drive out illegal drug sellers. On Aug. 26: "Record 6.6 million in U.S. prison system" - reporting that one in every 32 adults in the U.S. is in prison, on probation or parole, many for drug possession, drug selling or drug-related violence. [continues 343 words]
There's good news from the front line of the war on drugs. Visiting Tijuana, a dangerous crossing point for trade in narcotics, U.S. drug czar John P. Walters last week praised the Mexican authorities for cracking down on the cocaine cartels and said, "From two years ago, there's no question that Mexico is moving ahead." Mr. Walters, who was sworn in as director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy only eight months ago, was giving deserved credit to Vicente Fox, Mexico's first truly democratically elected president, for purging corrupt police officers and government officials. [continues 411 words]
Regarding your July 20 editorial: "Operation Broken Needle" did not "make the peddling of illegal drugs on our streets less profitable." The drug war is not exempt from immutable laws of supply and demand. Drugs were recently taken off Charleston streets, but with drug problems among residents left intact, addicts are now forced to pay higher prices. The resulting increase in local crime will no doubt be labeled "drug-related." Prohibition-related is a more accurate term. With alcohol prohibition repealed, liquor bootleggers no longer gun each other down in drive-by shootings, nor do consumers go blind drinking unregulated bathtub gin. While U.S. politicians ignore the drug war's historical precedent, European countries are embracing harm reduction. Harm reduction is a public health alternative based on the principle that both drug use and drug prohibition have the potential to cause harm. [continues 90 words]
WASHINGTON-FBI director Robert Mueller said Tuesday that the war on terrorism demands that the FBI pull agents away from narcotics task forces and no longer make drug enforcement a top priority. The comments, which came at the 20th anniversary celebration for the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force, followed statements by Attorney General John Ashcroft reaffirming that the drug war would be reorganized but not abandoned. Ashcroft said law enforcement agencies have created a "most wanted list" of 54 drug organizations that must be toppled here and abroad. The list will allow crime fighters to focus their resources, Ashcroft said. [continues 616 words]
Another law-enforcement sweep of alleged drug dealers Thursday re-affirmed the city of Charleston's sustained messages that those who engage in such illegal commerce do so at tangible risk of criminal charges - and that peninsula neighborhoods will not continue to be overrun by such insidious enterprises. Though critics likely will point out that the police described the 32 suspects targeted in Thursday's Operation Broken Needle as "low-level" heroin dealers, the sweep was still a positive step on the city's East Side. And the related seizure of 350 bags of heroin and a half-kilo of cocaine in a Mount Pleasant motel room was a clear indication that more than a few local dope customers lost their sources Thursday. [continues 233 words]
BEAUFORT - Hundreds of Beaufort County drug cases have been thrown out because of delays in drug evidence analysis and missing witnesses and informants. Deputy prosecutor Steve Knight said the cases had collected dust for more than three years because authorities couldn't find investigators and witnesses after waiting months for the State Law Enforcement Division to analyze drug evidence. Before the county got its own regional drug lab in March, results often could take up to a year. "Sometimes these cases didn't have the defendants or the evidence because the defendants would be bailed out of jail and then it would take SLED a long time to analyze the drugs," Beaufort Sheriff P.J. Tanner said. Most of the cases that were tossed out involved the Beaufort County Drug Task Force going undercover to make a sale, Knight said. "Most of the time, the (informant) was gone, moved, or in some cases, even died," he said. Officials hope the Beaufort County Regional Drug Lab, which also assists Jasper, Hampton and Colleton counties, will keep similar problems from happening in the future. The county lab was partly funded by a $100,000 federal grant and should be able to process drug evidence in a month, said Debbie Szpanka, spokeswoman for the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office. "We can move faster now to get these cases to court," Knight said. "This problem shouldn't happen again or be as dramatic as in the past." [end]
One of the most surprising discoveries that awaits a visitor to Colombia is that the capital city of Bogota is a delight. Despite the three-way war being waged against the country by leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and ruthless drug cartels, and the fact that city is literally under siege, Mayor Antanas Mockus has made Bogota one of the most attractive and enjoyable cities in the world. It is his success and popularity that has made the mayor and more than 100 of his fellow mayors, who have also bravely defied the triple terror that menaces Colombia, targets for assassination. [continues 323 words]
Saving Charleston County's Drug Court may be important, but doubling the county's marriage license fee to $70 isn't the way to do it. Fees should bear some relationship to services provided. There is no relationship to marriage license fees and the drug court, except that the county has control of each. Probate Judge Irving Condon made the case to council's Finance Committee for maintaining the drug court, noting that there is the possibility of increased state support in the future. But if County Council agrees that the drug court is worth saving in the interim, it should look to some other source of funds than marriage license fees. Currently, the county charges $35 for a marriage license. Of that, $15 is the county fee, and $20 is a state fee imposed for a program to abate domestic violence. Presumably, there is a relationship between marriage and domestic violence, though we imagine the link is at least as great when two people merely live together without benefit of clergy. The marriage license fee in Charleston is less than in some other counties in South Carolina. That may serve as a rationale to increase the fee, but it's not a particularly good one. Fees should reflect actual expense; they shouldn't be viewed as a way to arbitrarily generate revenue. County Council should consider other options to raise the $140,000 that the increase would generate, and leave the marriage license fee alone. [end]
With Federal Grant Exhausted, Officials Seek Alternative Sources For Funds If private donors and elected officials do not rescue it, the Charleston County Adult Drug Court will end this fall, its presiding judge said Monday. Since 1999, the drug court has stretched a two-year federal grant to run a highly structured program that recently lost its federal funding. With its federal money nearly gone, Probate Judge Irvin Condon is expected to meet June 27 with Charleston County Council's Finance Committee in hopes of saving a program that has diverted some drug cases from clogged court schedules and helped non-violent drug users improve their lives. [continues 642 words]
Colombia's president-elect, Alvaro Uribe, campaigned on the slogan "a firm hand but a big heart." It was the promise that he would use a firm hand against left-wing guerrillas that gave him an overwhelming victory at the polls - but also garnered the label "hard-liner." The label won't do Mr. Uribe any harm. After more than 20 years of soft-lining presidents who have tried to make peace with the Marxist rebels who control huge areas of Colombia, a majority of the people want a government that will impose law and order with a firm hand. [continues 403 words]
COLUMBIA-A former program director at the state's drug abuse agency was charged Friday with embezzlement, forgery, conspiracy and obstruction of justice, the State Law Enforcement Division said. Katherine "Kathy" Yandle, 36, was arrested as the result of an ongoing SLED investigation. Yandle has been charged with embezzling $48,789 by submitting fraudulent invoices and purchase orders, arrest warrants showed. She also is charged with hindering the ongoing investigation of the Department of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services by telling witnesses to lie to SLED agents. Yandle also is charged with conspiracy. [continues 67 words]
The Charleston County Adult Drug Court has achieved impressive results since its creation in July 1999. If the looming expiration of federal funding for the court is not followed by another federal grant, a combination of state, county and private funding should be crafted to prevent this positive innovation's demise. As Herb Frazier reported Sunday, the initial federal grant that started the county's Adult Drug Court runs out at the end of this month. Though the court's fine record makes it a strong candidate to secure a second two-year federal grant of $300,000, the competition for that money will be intense: Congress has approved only half of the more than $100 million now being sought by more than 270 drug courts around the nation. And though continued federal funding would be welcome, the concept behind these grants is to "start up" a pilot project that ultimately can sustain itself without federal funds. [continues 292 words]
Original Federal Monies To Run Out May 31; Officials Hope To Win Second Competitive Grant The Charleston County Adult Drug Court, which has kept scores of nonviolent drug offenders out of prison and drug free, soon could reduce services if its federal funding ends this month. The first federal grant that created the innovative program in July 1999 will expire May 31. But a second two-year grant for $300,000, if approved, would improve the court and give it time to become less dependent on public money, court officials said. As the first grant expires, the court could learn if it is picked from drug courts around the nation for the competitive second grant, said program coordinator Schelley Strasberg. More than 270 drug courts nationwide have applied for more than $100 million in funding, but Congress has approved only half that amount for the next fiscal year, a Justice Department spokesperson said. The possible loss of funding has created optimistic tension among local court officials and their clients, who in many cases have shaken drug habits to work full time and care for families. "We are in the eleventh hour," said Associate Probate Court Judge Tamara Curry, who presides over the drug court with Probate Judge Irvin Condon. "If the funding does not come in May, I am not going to say the program ends in June." If the grant is denied, the drug court will ask Charleston County Council and other local groups for help to continue the court's most expensive service, drug treatment, she said. The court has three paid employees and 10 volunteers on the staffs of the solicitor and public defender. The S.C. Senate has put $1 million in the pending state budget to fund drug courts in 10 of the state's 16 judicial circuits. [continues 600 words]
Federal agents and North Charleston residents and community leaders ended a three-day drug conference Wednesday, offering several solutions to the growing problem, from improving parent-child relationships to creating more after-school programs for children. The conference, held by the Drug Enforcement Agency, is designed to partner federal agents with local law enforcement to target drug dealers who have infiltrated area neighborhoods. The federal agency chose North Charleston - along with Allentown, Pa., and Portsmouth, Va. - to participate in the pilot program that also focuses on ways to strengthen communities and curb demand once dealers have been ousted. [continues 161 words]
WASHINGTON-A State Department official assured senators Wednesday that U.S. soldiers will not be fighting Colombian rebels even if Congress lets Colombia use anti-drug helicopters and other equipment to battle the insurgents. "Not one of us here is talking about U.S. troops in a combat role," said Marc Grossman, undersecretary of state for political affairs. "The Colombians need to take the brunt of this, but we need to be there to help them." The Bush administration has no intention of exceeding the limits of 400 U.S. military trainers and 400 civilian contractors that were set to join in Colombian President Andres Pastrana's anti-drug Plan Colombia, Grossman told the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. [continues 120 words]
