MONROE MAN'S DRUG CONSPIRACY CHARGES DROPPED

Judge Rules Prosecution Needs More Evidence Than Fingerprint To Make Case

A fingerprint does not a conspirator make, a federal judge ruled Monday.

U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Phillips dismissed drug conspiracy
charges against Steven Bivens before a jury hearing the region's first
ever federal methamphetamine lab case even heard the defense's side.

"I do not believe a reasonable jury could fairly conclude guilt beyond
a reasonable doubt," Phillips said.

Bivens, who remains charged with being a felon in possession of a
shotgun, is one of five Monroe County residents who are being tried on
federal conspiracy charges for allegedly operating a
methamphetamine-making operation in November 2002.

It is the first time conspiracy laws have been used in this region to
prosecute suspects for actually making or "cooking" the potent
stimulant. If the case is successful, law enforcement in rural
counties, where the production and use of meth has become an epidemic,
likely will look to the federal system as a solution. Federal drug
conspiracy laws carry harsher penalties, and there is no parole for
offenders.

But building a federal conspiracy case is challenging, as prosecutors
learned in Bivens' case.

Bivens had just arrived at the ramshackle trailer where authorities
allege the lab was operating when the Monroe County Sheriff's
Department began a search that led to the conspiracy charges.

Attorney Bruce Poston argued the only evidence prosecutors had linking
Bivens to the alleged operation was a fingerprint on a heating element
found inside the trailer and typically used in the production of meth.

Prosecutors failed to show any proof that Bivens had touched the
device in the process of cooking the drug, Poston contended. He argued
prosecutors had nothing else to tie Bivens to the alleged conspiracy.

"The only thing less in this case would be no evidence at all," he said.

Poston has told jurors Bivens, who looks like TV mountain man Grizzly
Adams, was a meth-using ne'er-do-well who sent his wife off to work
while he hocked their possessions to buy the drug from alleged
conspiracy leader Ernie Miller.

Assistant U.S. Attorney James Brooks said deputies found a batch of
meth boiling on a hot plate in a shed behind Miller's trailer when
they arrived and that Bivens showed up at a time when the drug was
being manufactured.

That fact and the fingerprint should be enough to allow a jury to
decide if Bivens was part of the conspiracy, Brooks argued. Phillips
disagreed.

Although a blow to this precedent-setting case, the judge's ruling was
not a fatal one. Phillips refused to dismiss charges against the
remaining four defendants: Miller; his wife, Mary Miller; his
stepdaughter, Samantha Moreno; and his friend, Richard "Rambo" Ramsey.