COURT: COPS NEED GOOD REASON TO ORDER PEOPLE OUT OF VEHICLES

Bay State police officers need a good reason before ordering anyone
out of a car during a traffic stop, the state appeals court said yesterday.

In two rulings that prosecutors say will hamstring police and help
criminals, the court found that a United States Supreme Court decision
letting police order drivers and passengers out of cars whenever they
make a traffic stop does not apply here.

Prosecutors want the state's Supreme Judicial Court to review the
rulings, which defense lawyers say protect the public from police harassment.

In one case, the court threw out the conviction of a Roxbury woman
caught with two bags of crack after being pulled over by Boston police.

The Appeals Court said it didn't matter that the woman, Marchania
Williams, admitted her guilt in court.

The evidence should have been thrown out because it was obtained after
the police officer illegally ordered her from the car. It was not
enough, the court ruled, that the police officer - who had stopped the
woman for failing to use a directional signal - found the woman "nervous."

"The reasons articulated by the police were she was acting
suspiciously. She was moving around and appeared to be nervous," said
her lawyer, Pedro Jaile.

"They really ordered her out of the car because she was black," he
asserted.

Authorizing police to order "nervous" people out of their cars would
give them free reign to order anyone out of their cars and lead to
"random and unequal treatment of motorists," he said.

In the second case, the court ruled that John Gonsalves, who was
arrested for cocaine possession after a state trooper ordered him from
a taxi, could not be convicted of the crime.

Again, the court wrote, state Trooper William Serpa's report that
Gonsalves was "highly nervous" did not justify the officer to order
him from the car.

Therefore, the 78 grams of cocaine, enough to indict him on
trafficking, could not be used against him, the court said.

"I'm absolutely applying for further appellate review," said Plymouth
County Assistant District Attorney John E. Bradley, who handled the
case.

"Police officers are entitled to know what the law is and have our
courts clearly interpret the law."