TAMPA LAWYER WANTS HIGHWAY PATROL TROOPERS INVESTIGATED

TAMPA - An attorney asks a state law enforcement commission to look
into false affidavit allegations against two troopers.

A prominent Tampa defense lawyer is asking the state commission that
polices Florida's police officers to investigate the case of two
highway patrol troopers who signed a misleading arrest report under
oath.

The lawyer, Norman Cannella, sent a formal complaint to the Florida
Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission in Tallahassee late
Wednesday, saying that Troopers Douglas Strickland and Bruce Hutcheson
violated the laws they were sworn to uphold.

``It is inconceivable to me Troopers Strickland and Hutcheson can,
with impunity, violate the oath they took when they first placed their
badges on their chest,'' he said in his complaint.

Cannella played no role in the case, but said he was outraged because
the highway patrol has not disciplined the officers.

Jim Murphey, chief of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Bureau
of Standards, had not received Cannella's letter Thursday but said the
commission typically refers ``verifiable'' citizen complaints to the
agency that employs the officers. Then the agency investigates and
sends all its documentation to the commission for additional review.

The commission's 19 members, most of whom were appointed by the
governor, have the power to ``decertify officers,'' an administrative
process in which officers are barred from further work in law
enforcement.

If an officer is convicted of a felony or a lesser offense involving
lying on the job, the commission must revoke his license, Murphey
said. In the FHP case, neither trooper has been charged with a crime.

Cannella's letter followed a decision by U.S. Attorney Donna Bucella
on Feb. 25 to dismiss a federal cocaine case against three men who
were indicted after the two officers searched a car stalled on the
shoulder on Interstate 4 near Lakeland.

Although the troopers found 220 pounds of cocaine in the trunk,
Bucella said prosecutors could not proceed with the case without
``moral tarnish.''

The dismissal led to the release of two defendants, Norman Dupont and
Dewey Davis, from jail. A third defendant, Michael Flynn, 40, of
Orlando, was already out on bail.

Bucella acted after considering testimony Strickland gave during a
hearing Dec. 7 in U.S. District Court in Tampa. The trooper
acknowledged he concealed information from the arrest report, hoping
to hide the circumstances that led him to search the car on May 19,
1998.

Strickland's report, filed with a Polk County judge, made it sound as
if he happened across the vehicle by chance and ``grew suspicious''
only because Flynn wouldn't open the trunk.

What the report did not say was that the arrest resulted from a
reverse sting set up by the FBI - that he already knew the cocaine was
there because he'd watched undercover agents load it earlier that day.

He also knew the FBI had rigged the vehicle with a remote-control
switch that killed the engine and was the reason it stalled.

Strickland testified he and other troopers regularly filed incomplete
reports when assisting federal agents to prevent the suspects from
discovering they were the targets of an ongoing sting.

Hutcheson has not testified about the controversial practice but
assisted in the search of Flynn's car and signed the affidavit.

Highway Patrol Maj. Ken Howes had not seen the complaint Thursday, but
said internal investigators launched a review of the case shortly
after Strickland testified. That review has not been completed, he
said.