PROFILING PAPERS RENEW CONTROVERSY

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 7:08 p.m. ET

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- Nearly 100,000 documents about racial profiling
released by the New Jersey attorney general's office this week have renewed
controversy over whether former Attorney General Peter Verniero should be
serving on the state Supreme Court.

Verniero's detractors said Thursday that evidence of racial disparities in
traffic stops, searches and arrests by state troopers on the New Jersey
Turnpike show he had not been truthful during his confirmation hearings
last year.

Gov. Christie Whitman has defended Verniero, her former chief of staff and
campaign aide, saying the new materials must be examined in context.

"He's the one who started the process of really going after it," she said.

Verniero was attorney general from 1996 to May 1999, when the Senate
confirmed his nomination to the Supreme Court by the minimum 21-vote
margin. The vote ended the most contentious confirmation process since the
current court system was established in 1948.

Verniero told lawmakers he began examining the racial-profiling issue after
an April 1998 incident during which two troopers shot three unarmed
minority men during a traffic stop. A year later, his office issued a
report acknowledging racial profiling was a problem.

William Buckman, a criminal defense lawyer, said Thursday his review of
roughly 91,000 documents and records made public Monday produced evidence
that Verniero was briefed on the matter in early 1997 but chose not to act.
Buckman defends a number of clients whose cases might be affected by
charges of racial profiling.

One document that has aroused suspicion is a memo Verniero addressed to his
own file on March 16, 1999, one day after his nomination to the Supreme
Court was filed with the state Senate and two years after other documents
show he had been briefed about the racial-profiling problem by the State
Police superintendent.

In the memo, Verniero wrote: "Today I became aware, for the first time, of
the existence of certain State Police documents containing data and
information relating to stops and searches of minority motorists not
heretofore produced to us by the State Police."

Republican Sen. John Matheussen, who provided a decisive vote in putting
Verniero on the high court, said Thursday he is having second thoughts as a
result of the released documents.

"I am thinking now that it is important to look at these documents to
verify in my own mind that his testimony was complete," Matheussen said.
"One thing I always told people: Never lie on your job application." The
senator is a member of the judiciary committee which questioned Verniero
during the confirmation process.

Sen. Jack Sinagra, one of only three Republicans to oppose Verniero's
appointment, claimed justification by the documents.

He said he had opposed Verniero because of his inexperience. "I certainly
would have voted against him with the increasing documentation that is
coming out about racial profiling," he said.

As a nominee, Verniero was under attack on many fronts. He was the youngest
nominee ever, age 40 at the time, and had spent most of his career in
politics, working for Republicans and Whitman.

The New Jersey Bar Association's judiciary committee, in a rare step,
opposed his appointment. In response, Whitman has refused to submit any
more of her Supreme Court nominees for Bar Association review.

N.J. State Police: http://www.njsp.org

N.J. government: http://www.state.nj.us/