ACLU says Ethnic [and linguistic] Bias Steered Georgia Drug Sting

[Harold F. Schiffman]

>>From the NYTimes,  April 6, 2006

A.C.L.U. Says Ethnic Bias Steered Georgia Drug Sting
By KATE ZERNIKE

The American Civil Liberties Union is accusing federal prosecutors of
ethnic bias in a sting last summer in which South Asian owners of
convenience stores in Georgia were charged with selling household
ingredients that could be used to make methamphetamine, a highly addictive
drug. In a legal filing, the A.C.L.U. said yesterday that prosecutors
ignored extensive evidence that white-owned stores were selling the same
items to methamphetamine makers and focused instead on South Asians to
take advantage of language barriers.

The sting sent informants to convenience stores in six counties in rural
northwest Georgia beginning in 2003 to buy ingredients that can be used to
make the drug ordinary household items like Sudafed, matches, aluminum
foil and charcoal. Prosecutors said the clerks should have known that the
ingredients would be used to make methamphetamine because the informants
who bought them said they needed the items to "finish up a cook," slang
for making the drug. But several South Asians said they believed that the
informants were talking about barbecue.

Forty-four of the 49 people charged were Indian, and 23 out of 24 stores
in the sting were owned or operated by Indians. Documents filed by the
A.C.L.U. yesterday include a sworn statement from an informant in the
sting, saying that federal investigators sent informants only to
Indian-owned stores, "because the Indians' English wasn't good." The
informant said investigators ignored the informant's questions about why
so many South-Asian-owned stores were visited in the sting.

Other filings said prosecutors had several tips that more than a dozen
white-owned stores were selling the same ingredients, but failed to follow
up on them. According to a sworn statement from a witness, law enforcement
officials tipped off a white store owner about the investigation and
recommended ways to avoid scrutiny. David E. Nahmias, the United States
attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, denied any bias. "We
prosecute people based on the evidence and the law," Mr. Nahmias said in a
statement, "not their race or ethnicity." To date, he said, 23 defendants
have pleaded guilty, and eight cases have been dismissed. Some of those
cases were dismissed because prosecutors charged the wrong people because
of confusion over names; more than 30 of the defendants share the common
Indian surname Patel.

Of 629 convenience stores in the six-county area in the sting, 80 percent
are owned or operated by whites, according to the A.C.L.U.'s court filing,
but fewer than 1 percent of the stores in the sting are white-owned or
operated. The filing said the clerk at the only white-operated store was
known widely as a methamphetamine addict whose husband was in prison for
making the drug. None of the Indians charged are accused of using or
making methamphetamine. Mr. Nahmias noted that several defendants had
already filed motions claiming selective prosecution and that the court
had rejected them.

But the A.C.L.U. said that the United States District Court in Rome, Ga.,
rejected the motions because the group had not provided any evidence.
Since then, lawyers have spent $60,000 to track down evidence, hiring
private investigators and searching 10,000 documents, according to the
A.C.L.U. filing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/06/us/06sting.html