Tuesday, March 29, 2011
PROLOGUE: THROW DOWN CASES
Back when I was a public defender, the police used a popular technique to make drug arrests. “Drug holes,” so called by police, especially in front of juries, were places where dealers and customers gathered. These were just places on the street or in a building. There was no hole there.
Some of you may be faintly reminded of “remainder” holes. These are places where the owner’s experts claim the owner was put, “down in a hole”, as a result of a condemnation.
Usually, in neither case is the place really a hole.
If you said this to someone who lives in the mountains, or even in Atlanta, they would laugh.
But in Florida, which is mostly flat, it goes over well. (Postscript: Either in criminal law prosecution, or property owner eminent domain defense!)
The police watched these places for drug activity, then charged with spotlights, trying to make ‘em all freeze.
Some, perhaps the most guilty ones, ran away. Those remaining ‘in the hole’ were arrested.
Drugs were inevitably "found" on the ground nearby. The officers later reported that they saw a particular person throw a particular drug down.
These cases became known as “throw down” cases. Arrests and convictions played a part in officers’ advancement. Some said that previously confiscated drugs were sometimes planted to frame people. I don’t know about that.
In one case I tried, three officers said they saw my client throw drugs down, right at their feet, drugs bouncing off their toes. What they said may have been true. The wording of all three reports was identical. All three officers’ testimony at trial was identical: a veritable chorus of accusation.
Sounds like an open and shut case. The jury somehow let him go. Why? Lets hold that question.
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