NJ Supreme Court Decision About Error, Not Crime

It was a tough decision for the New Jersey Supreme Court. Five voted to dismiss a drug conviction, and four voted against. The event took place nearly six years ago, in September 2005, which shows just how long such cases can drag along. The NJ Supreme Court decision took place in April 2011.

It was the case of the juvenile bikers, who were riding their bicycles on sidewalks in Millville, which is against the municipal ordinance. They were detained by the police. Germaine Handy’s name showed up in a search done by a dispatcher who told police that Handy had an outstanding warrant against him out in California. Because of this, the police searched Handy and found cocaine on him. They arrested him for cocaine possession and Handy was sentenced in 2007 to serve three years, of which he served nine months and then was paroled.

It turned out that the dispatcher had made an error, and it was not the same spelling or birthdate, and thus not the same Germaine Handy. Handy’s lawyer argued that since the police had no valid reason to search Handy, the cocaine on him should not be used as evidence against him. The trial judge found him guilty, and they appealed.

It’s always amazing how the same set of facts can bring about such different interpretations and reactions. The dissenting judges pointed out that Germaine Handy had purposefully given out wrong birthdates and differing spellings of his name and different Social Security numbers on occasions to law enforcement officials in the past. It must have seemed likely and possible that this could have still been the one with the warrant.
They agreed with the prosecutors who had contended that despite the dispatcher’s mistake, the evidence should stand because the officer acted properly based on the information that he received.

On the other hand, the majority opinion written by Justice Virginia Long said that suppressing the evidence against Handy "would have the important deterrent value, would underscore the need for training of officers and dispatchers to focus on detail and would serve to assure that our own constitutional guarantees are given full effect." She did not want to see police “being free to act heedlessly and unreasonably, so long as the last man in the chain does not do so.” She added, "Nothing in our jurisprudence supports that view.’’

Sometimes it’s hard to know whose rights to protect.