COURT OVERTURNS I-40 DRUG CONVICTIONS

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned the 1999
drug-trafficking convictions of two men arrested near Amarillo after
an Interstate 40 traffic stop.

In a ruling Monday, the New Orleans-based court ruled that officers
from the Panhandle Regional Narcotics Trafficking Task Force
illegally seized evidence in the case.

The two men, Napoleon Jones and Eduardo Gabriel Daniel, were arrested
April 2, 1999, after an I-40 traffic stop that netted more than a
pound of cocaine. The men initially were stopped near I-40 and
Coulter Street for a speeding violation.

In their briefs filed with the 5th Circuit, Jones and Daniel argued
that the Amarillo federal court erred by failing to suppress evidence
obtained from the traffic stop. Jones and Daniel also maintained that
their detention by officers was prolonged and unreasonable, violating
the Fourth Amendment and that any contraband was seized illegally.

"Because the narcotics were the fruit of an illegal seizure, we
vacate the convictions and sentences and remand," the court said.

The court agreed with some aspects of the men's appeals and
questioned why they were detained after a dispatcher told officers
the men had no outstanding warrants. The appeals court said in its
ruling that the Amarillo court erred by not holding that the
detention of the men was illegal.

The appeals court also said the officers had no reasonable suspicion
that the men were engaged in criminal activity.

"The basis for the stop was essentially completed when the dispatcher
notified the officers about the defendants' clean records, three
minutes before the officers sought consent to search the vehicle,"
the court wrote.

"Accordingly, the officers should have ended the detention and
allowed the defendants to leave. And the failure to release the
defendants violated the Fourth Amendment."

The case now returns to Amarillo's U.S. District Court, but evidence
in the case, including narcotics and a surreptitiously taped
conversation of one of the defendants, cannot be used by prosecutors.

Amarillo prosecutors could ask the 5th Circuit to rehear the case,
but the men eventually could be freed from federal prison.

Both men received lengthy sentences from U.S. District Judge Mary Lou Robinson.

Daniel pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to possess with intent to
distribute cocaine base and cocaine. He was sentenced to 135 months
in federal prison. A jury also convicted Jones, who was sentenced to
151 months in prison on charges of conspiracy to possess with intent
to distribute cocaine and cocaine base; possession with intent to
distribute cocaine; and possession with intent to distribute cocaine
base, according to court records.