N.J. MAY DROP DRUG CHARGES IN PROFILING CASES

TRENTON, N.J., Nov. 28 (AP) - After admitting that the state's war on drugs
unfairly victimized minority drivers, New Jersey's attorney general may
drop drug charges against hundreds of motorists who claim they were pulled
over because of their race.

The state could also be forced to settle dozens of lawsuits filed by black
and Hispanic state troopers who allege they were forced to practice racial
profiling.

Attorney General John J. Farmer Jr. said his office will review each
pending criminal case in which bias allegedly tainted drug seizures.
Criminal charges could be dropped, he said.

Civil lawsuits will also be examined with an eye toward settlement.

"Where they are reasonable, we're going to settle these cases," Farmer said
on Monday. "We'll certainly look at it a lot more closely based on what
we've discovered."

On Monday, Farmer released nearly 100,000 pages of documents showing that
state troopers stopped overwhelmingly disproportionate numbers of
minorities in searches for drugs. New Jersey's top law enforcement
officials had known about that since at least 1989 but didn't admit that
racial profiling was widespread until an April 1999 report.

Attorneys for the motorists and the troopers returned to a state reading
room today to resume their review of the documents.

"The constitutional violations are so egregious, and they've been sitting
on these documents for years," public defender Kevin Walker said today.

Walker, who represents several defendants stopped on the New Jersey
Turnpike, said the state's only option is to dismiss the charges. His
office is considering a court motion to ask just that.

"If they're talking about settlement, if they're taking that approach with
the civil cases, it's certainly more important with the criminal ones
because of the constitutional violations," Walker said.

Attorneys predicted that courts would be overwhelmed with pleas to overturn
drug convictions.

"I hope more people come forward. If the New Jersey justice system has any
moral strength and strength of character, it should be willing to reopen
cases where the convictions aren't sound," attorney William Buckman said.

Buckman led a legal challenge that ended in 1996 when a judge ruled that
troopers on the turnpike targeted minorities more than whites. Despite
internal evidence to support that conclusion, the state continued to appeal
the ruling until 1999.

Included among the documents released on Monday are many key reports whose
existence state officials had denied, Buckman said. Some of them were
evidence he requested as early as 1990 for criminal trials.