WBAL-TV (Baltimore), March 7, 2009
Baltimore City police arrested the vice president of Baltimore’s NAACP on Thursday after heroin and marijuana were recovered during a search of his car.
Joe Sviatko, a spokesman for the State’s Attorney’s Office, said prosecutors have declined to prosecute the case because they do not believe it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
Police said Ellis L. Staten Jr., 44, who is also an executive committee member of the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People Maryland Conference, was in the driver’s seat of a car that had stopped near Pennsylvania Avenue and Dolphin Street.
Officers described the area as a well-known drug market.
According to arrest documents, police, officers in an unmarked vehicle observed a man walk away from a large crowd of people huddled on a street corner and climb into the passenger seat of a silver vehicle.
The officers also said they observed a back-seat passenger hand cash to a man standing outside his window in exchange for suspected drugs.
Doc Cheatham, president of the NAACP Maryland chapter, would not comment on the case.
Original article
(Posted on March 11, 2009)
Comments
Speaking of, did you know that Paducah, Kentucky has an NAACP? It’s powerful enough so that it has influence over the choosing of a new Police Chief for the city:
http://tinyurl.com/d3h32c
Does every city with at least 10,000 people 2 of them black have to have an NAACP?
We have a new president who has admitted to frequent marijuana and cocaine use, so there’s no news here.
Joe Sviatko, a spokesman for the State’s Attorney’s Office, said prosecutors have declined to prosecute the case….
Why do we all think that if this was White a “racist”, not only would it be prosecuted until and beyond the United States Supreme Court, the city would bankrupt itself to appeal the case!
I’m sure he’ll claim it was racist to arrest him, only he’ll say it with a prominent black figure standing next to him.
As a former prosecutor, I can tell you that this factual situation is so airtight, that we used to give these “CAN’T LOSE” cases to our inexperienced prosecutors to try.
You could not lose this case unless you tried very hard. Whatever is going on, it has nothing to do with the “winning” quality of this case. Where I used to try cases, this fact pattern always led to a quilty plea because ther was no chance of the defendent winning in front of a judge( bench Trial) ,or a jury.
Why would prosecutors drop the charges in an open-and-shut case like this?
For political reasons? Or do they assume jury nullification in mostly-black Baltimore?
“Joe Sviatko, a spokesman for the State’s Attorney’s Office, said prosecutors have declined to prosecute the case because they do not believe it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Just let the perp be mr. white Joe average and see how fast he would go to the slammer.
The fix is in.
To Anonymous (former prosecutor) 8:11 PM 3/11 poster:
Your prior prosecutor experience obviously was not in a jurisdiction like Baltimore. How do you say jury nullification in Ebonics?
This is repeating the same message of a couple of posters before, but even as a lay person who has observed the present jury/justice system at work in cases like these in heavily Black districts, jury nullification is the obvious outcome. After observing the original criminal trial of O.J. Simpson and the shocking power of an (almost;10 out of 12) all-Black jury on an obviously guilty Black man, the verdict of this would-be trial is a foregone conclusion.
“As a former prosecutor, I can tell you that this factual situation is so airtight, that we used to give these “CAN’T LOSE” cases to our inexperienced prosecutors to try.
You could not lose this case unless you tried very hard. Whatever is going on, it has nothing to do with the “winning” quality of this case. Where I used to try cases, this fact pattern always led to a quilty plea because ther was no chance of the defendent winning in front of a judge( bench Trial) ,or a jury.
Posted by Anonymous at 8:11 PM on March 11 “
Get one Black on the jury and see how fast you loose the case. Even if you did get a convection, then you got another Marion Berry.
“declined to prosecute” because they don’t the rev Jesse Jackson threatening them.
We have a new president who has admitted to frequent marijuana and cocaine use, so there’s no news here.
Posted by Cliff Yablonski at 6:39 PM on March 11
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How do you say jury nullification in Ebonics?
Posted by Flaxen-headed Strumpet at 9:25 PM on March 11
While the authorities are at it, they should check for tax evation for this ” fine ” individual and then his whole corrupt ” racist ” hater-crime organization.
The current mayor of Baltimore City, a black woman, was indicted about two months ago on theft charges. She needs all the racial unity she can get in the hopes of “predisposing” her potential jury pool.
The State’s Attorney for Baltimore City, also a black female, needs the same level of racial unity to continue her re-election streak.
The mayor and the state’s attorney, usually at odds with one another, definitely know they need the backing of the NAACP. On this one event they definitely saw eye-to-eye, so there was no way in the world a “minor” CDS charge was making it to court.
I used to live near Baltimore and I can tell you that Quiet Professional is right. The city is so corrupt with blacks it is useless to try to arrest any black of “importance.” I predict the mayor will not be convicted.
