COURT REVIEWS WHITMAN PHOTO FRISK CASE

Camden, NJ, July 18 -- The New Jersey state Supreme Court has agreed to
review a case involving the man that Gov. Christine Todd Whitman was
photographed patting down on a Camden street four years ago.

THE COURT AGREED to review how Sherron Rolax, now 21, was sentenced on
two 1997 Camden drug offenses not related to the governor's search.

Rolax's pending appeal and the photograph could be troublesome for two
Whitman-appointed Supreme Court justices -- Chief Justice Deborah
Poritz and Associate Justice Peter Verniero.

Former New Jersey State Police Superintendent Carl Williams maintains
that Poritz, Whitman's former attorney general, and Verniero, her
former chief of staff and later attorney general, went along with
Whitman in 1996 when a trooper snapped the photo.

The governor and a court spokeswoman denied that Poritz or Verniero
were present. Antonio English, Rolax's father, said that he spoke to
his jailed son by telephone Sunday, and he confirmed he is the young
man in the photograph.

"Why did she [Whitman] have to search him when the police already
searched him? She is supposed to handle stuff in the office, not in
the street," said.

Rolax is serving a seven-year sentence for selling cocaine within
1,000 feet of a school zone in 1997. He is not eligible for parole
until June 2002.

The stiff sentence came after Rolax was rearrested on drug charges
after failing to show up in court for sentencing for two earlier drug
possession convictions. It is those earlier convictions that the
Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments about in the fall. When
Rolax failed to show for sentencing, his guilty pleas remained intact,
but the lighter sentence offered by prosecutors was rescinded.

What happened in Rolax's case is a practice, long-used by prosecutors,
commonly known as a no-show plea. If a defendant fails to show for
sentencing or re-offends, the guilty plea stands, but the sentencing
deal is dropped.

The high court will consider whether the practice conflicts with a
1998 Supreme Court decision, known as the Brimage ruling, which
requires prosecutors to use uniform plea bargain guidelines in drug
cases.