TRAFFIC STOP BOGUS, APPEALS COURT RULES

New Orleans police did not have reasonable cause to stop a white woman as
she drove a rental car through a black neighborhood in the fall of 1999, a
state appeals court said last week in throwing out the woman's conviction
on drug charges stemming from her arrest after the stop.

Police said their suspicions about Karen Vingle, then 39, were raised by
the color of her skin and the new red Mustang with temporary license tags
she was driving in Pigeontown. Police said they had arrested several white
people cruising the neighborhood in search of drugs, and someone in the
neighborhood also was suspected of selling temporary car tags.

Vingle pleaded guilty late last year to attempted possession of cocaine,
heroin and diazepam on condition she be allowed to appeal Criminal District
Judge Leon Cannizzaro's refusal to throw out her arrest and suppress drug
evidence police found inside her purse and car.

Vingle was sentenced to two years in prison without probation, but was
released after a few months under a Louisiana law that allows offenders
sentenced to fewer than five years a chance of bonding out of prison while
an appeal is pending.

In a unanimous decision handed down the day before Thanksgiving, a
three-judge panel of the appeals court sided with Vingle. The ruling was
written by Judge Michael Kirby and joined by Judges Steven Plotkin and
Patricia Rivet Murray.

Voiding Vingle's conviction and sentence, as well as the seizure of
evidence from her, the appeals judges said Cannizzaro "erred in finding
that the officers had reasonable suspicion to stop the car."

Ticking off a list of reasons for that conclusion, the panel said, "The
event did not take place at a late hour. It, in fact, happened at 10 a.m.,
near a commercial or retail area of the city in a neighborhood used by many
white people to pass between Jefferson and Orleans parishes."

Also, the appeals judges found, Vingle made no effort to avoid the
officers, and the temporary license plate on the Mustang, a rental vehicle,
was explained by the fact that it was a brand-new car.

Vingle's attorney, Ben Bagert, said what the appeals court has declared in
his client's case is, "Incongruity with one's surroundings, without more,
does not rise to a level of suspicion sufficient to justify a (police) stop.

"When police spoke of suspicions here, they spoke of race, and that was
insufficient," Bagert said.

Orleans Parish First Assistant District Attorney Tim McElroy said his
agency may ask the Louisiana Supreme Court to review the 4th Circuit's
decision.

"It's very rare that a trial judge's decisions in matters of suppression of
evidence are reversed," he said. McElroy said the appeals court panel was
very impressed by the time of day that Vingle was stopped and "the fact
that there were not witnessed (drug) transactions."

Though Vingle has won a round in her criminal case, she is not out of the
woods, legally speaking.

Court records show she failed three drug tests late last year and did not
show up at hearings in February and March, when her $5,000 cash bond was
forfeited and Cannizzaro issued a warrant for her arrest.

Until the 4th Circuit opinion becomes final, that arrest order "is not
automatically recalled," McElroy said. "Judge Cannizzaro would still have
to cancel the arrest warrant. We would argue it's not over until the
appellate decision is final."