N.J. JUDGES REINSTATE CRIME CHARGES OF TROOPERS

FIRST JUDGE DISMISSED `RACIAL PROFILING' CASE, BLAMING PUBLIC FRENZY

TRENTON, N.J. -- A New Jersey appeals court Friday reinstated criminal
charges against two state troopers who shot and wounded three unarmed black
and Latino men in a van on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1998, the incident
that made ``racial profiling'' a national issue.

In a unanimous opinion, a three-judge panel of the Appellate Division of
Superior Court ruled that a lower court judge had erred when he threw out an
indictment of the troopers, James Kenna and John Hogan, Oct. 31.

Kenna's attorney said Friday night that he was unlikely to appeal to the New
Jersey Supreme Court, meaning that if Hogan also forgoes an appeal, their
case could proceed to trial by late spring or summer. Both troopers are
charged with aggravated assault; Kenna is accused of attempted murder.

The ruling was a legal victory not only for the shooting victims and for
civil rights advocates, who hailed the decision, but also for Gov. Christine
Todd Whitman's outgoing administration, for New Jersey Republicans
generally, and in particular for Peter Verniero, who was Whitman's attorney
general when several crucial decisions in the case were made. Verniero was
later named to the state Supreme Court.

The lower-court judge, Andrew Smithson of Superior Court in Trenton, had
dismissed the indictment on several grounds, but directed his most pointed
criticism at Verniero.

Smithson found that ``powerful and intimidating forces'' had compelled
prosecutors to announce the indictment of the troopers on separate charges
of falsifying records at the same time that the second grand jury was
deliberating in the shooting case and the Legislature was considering
Verniero's court appointment.

Smithson called the timing of the announcement ``a matter of political
expediency,'' suggesting it was meant to quiet a ``frenzy of public interest
in racial profiling.''

Friday, the appellate judges called Smithson's comments ``unfounded and
unfair.'' They also, in effect, vindicated Verniero: ``We cannot fault the
attorney general's office for mounting a timely investigation and obtaining
an indictment when faced with evidence that defendants might have violated
the law.''