CRITICS QUESTION VOLUNTARY SEARCHES BY STATE TROOPERS

Thomas White says he boiled with anger when a state trooper asked
permission to search the trunk of his Buick after a traffic stop on the New
Jersey Turnpike.

But the 70-year-old black Philadelphia resident says he stifled his rage,
tried to radiate a demeanor as warm as the June 1998 day, and replied,
"Absolutely."

"That wasn't my true feeling," recalled White, a retired corrections
officer. "I didn't want to do nothing to provoke the gentleman. . . . He
was using the term 'sir' a lot, but between the 'sirs,' I could hear the
arrogance in his voice."

It's called a "consent search." A trooper suspects trouble but lacks the
hard evidence needed to search a vehicle without permission. Statistics
released last week, however, show that the term "consent" is a misnomer.

Virtually all motorists, whether they are hiding drugs, guns, or something
else illegal in their car, will begrudgingly allow troopers to rummage
through their trunk, glove compartment, and back seat.

Troopers asked 210 motorists for permission to search their cars from Nov.
1, 2000, to April 30 of this year. Only nine motorists declined to give
their consent, according to state police figures released last week.

Critics of consent searches say they are hardly voluntary. The critics
contend that troopers coerce motorists, primarily minority drivers, using a
variety of subtle and not-so-subtle tactics.

"Giving consent is about responding to authority," said David Harris, a
criminal justice professor at the University of Toledo in Ohio. "People
feel it's not a real choice. They are being told what to do."

Most people know they have a right to refuse. Troopers can't search a car
until motorists sign a form telling them of that right. So why do motorists
give in? The answer is simple: They believe they will pay a price for
asserting their rights.

Wilfredo "Fred" Caraballo, an assemblyman from Essex County and an
attorney, says he let a trooper search his red Camaro because he got caught
speeding.

"I actually think the reason why he didn't give me a ticket is because I
said OK to getting my car searched," Caraballo said. "He didn't do a big
search. Just peered in the trunk real quick. Seconds later, he said, 'OK,
you can go.' "

Fear of getting a ticket aside, Caraballo worried that the trooper would
make him sit by the road for hours until he agreed.

"It's just not worth your time," Caraballo said. "You know you don't have
to agree to it. You also know that not agreeing to it might mean that you
waste a lot of time."

Jeff Steinfeld, a Hackensack-based defense attorney who represents
motorists caught with cocaine or marijuana, said his clients say troopers
bullied them into searches.

The trooper says something like, "We can do this the easy way or the hard
way," and makes it known that the hard way entails waiting by the side of
the road while he gets a search warrant, Steinfeld said. Sometimes the
trooper lies and offers to cut the driver a break if only he would open the
trunk, he said.

"They're stopped late at night by an armed, uniformed trooper. They're
extremely nervous," Steinfeld said. "They're going to do almost whatever
they're asked."

Outside monitors, appointed by a federal court to keep an eye on the state
police, scrutinized the videotapes of 24 consent searches performed by
troopers.

The monitors found that in all 24 cases, the trooper's requests were "based
on reasonable, articulable suspicion that a search might uncover evidence
of a crime." However, in four of the 24 cases, the trooper's methods for
developing reasonable suspicion were "questionable," involving
"intimidating statements," according to a July 17 report.

In one case, a trooper told two black males he was going to call in the
drug-sniffing dogs if they didn't agree to a search. In another, a trooper
asked a motorist how much money he had in his pocket after stopping him for
a traffic violation. In a third case, a trooper targeted minority men
driving trucks with Texas license plates and questioned the driver "to the
point of creating reasonable suspicion," the report said.

Thomas White, the retired corrections officer, says the trooper accused him
of driving "erratically," although he didn't get a ticket. The trooper
never gave a reason for the search and didn't find anything, White said.

White has filed a suit against the state police in federal court for what
he sees as a violation of his civil rights. In a deposition last month, he
said when the trooper asked to search his car, he kept thinking of an April
1998 shooting on turnpike in which two white troopers fired 11 shots at
four minority men, injuring three.

"I was just totally convinced that all they need is a little excuse . . .
to put a cap in you," White said. "That put a definite fear in me."

White, whose charges have not been verified, is part of a class-action suit
against the state. The stop he claims made him feel intimidated occurred
prior to the institution of state police reforms requiring consent searches
to be videotaped, approved in advance by a superior officer if possible,
and later spot-checked by a supervisor.

Charges such as White's, coupled with statistics showing that troopers
patrolling the southern end of the turnpike search more minority motorists
than white motorists, are fueling a searing debate on whether to ban
roadside consent searches.

Law enforcement officials, who call consent searches "a valuable tool," are
pitted against critics who believe troopers should search cars only if they
have probable cause, such as seeing drugs or a weapon in plain view.
Probable cause doesn't require the driver's permission.

"The only tool consent searches give law enforcement is a tool to inflict
more abuse on the rights of minorities," said state Sen. John A. Lynch,
D-Middlesex.

Lynch sits on the 11-member Senate Judiciary Committee, which called for a
prohibition on consent searches in May after listening to hours of
testimony during nine hearings on racial profiling. The panel's attempt to
end consent searches failed in the face of resistance from acting Gov.
Donald T. DiFrancesco.

Leaders of the troopers union react furiously when they hear of lawmakers
looking to eliminate consent searches.

"I hope that it's some legislator's daughter who is kidnapped in the trunk
of a car that we can't get a consent search for and not some other person,"
said David Jones, a vice president of the State Troopers Fraternal
Association. "We should have the opportunity to rescue victims from
wrongdoing."

Jones points to the minuscule number of consent searches and the few
troopers found abusing their authority.

Less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the motorists stopped are asked for a
search. Of the more than 200,000 traffic stops in a six-month period, only
201 led to a consent search, the statistics showed. The monitors flagged
only four troopers for bad behavior.

But it's not the number of consent searches that's at the center of the
controversy. It's who's being searched.

Of the 201 consent searches conducted by troopers statewide, 59 percent
were of vehicles operated by minority motorists. On the turnpike, the
number of minority drivers subjected to consent searches rose to 77
percent. And for troopers based in Moorestown, the barracks that patrols
the turnpike from Exit 7 to the Delaware Memorial Bridge, 90 percent of the
people asked to approve consent searches were minorities.

"We are the ones being disproportionately stopped and searched, we are the
ones who have to teach our children and remind ourselves what to do if
stopped by police, we are the ones who are suspects solely because of
race," said the Rev. Reginald Jackson, executive director of the Black
Ministers Council of New Jersey.

Jones asserts that people are drawing unfair inferences from the statistics.

"You can't say that the people searched were subjected to any level of
disparate treatment," Jones said. "None whatsoever."

All the fighting comes down to one question: Are consent searches really
worth it?

The Record asked the state Attorney General's Office for the number of
arrests resulting from the 201 consent searches, but a spokesman said the
numbers were still not available.