In some of the arrests by Tarpon Springs police being scrutinized by the FDLE, charges were dropped because evidence was improperly seized.
By CANDACE RONDEAUX
Published December 14, 2003
TARPON SPRINGS - On its face, it's a simple request: "Would you do me a favor and open your mouth?"
Tarpon Springs police Sgt. Michael Trill has asked drug suspects this question countless times. The night he asked Paul R. Smith that question, it led to a bust on a charge of possession of crack cocaine. It was one of many such arrests by the veteran officer.
It began around 9:30 p.m. on Jan. 9, 1998. Trill stopped Smith, then 32, as he walked near a bar at 405 Pinellas Ave. S on suspicion that he had crack. He asked Smith if he could search him. Moments later, Trill had Smith's cigarettes and money on the hood of his police cruiser and was asking Smith to open his mouth.
"Can I look under your tongue?" Trill asked next.
Smith complied but then refused when Trill asked him to spit out what was in his mouth. That's when things got physical. Trill grabbed Smith's jaw as another officer restrained him. Seconds later, Smith coughed up two rocks of crack cocaine, records show.
The charge could have sent Smith to prison.
But roughly two years later, an appeals court threw out the evidence against Smith, saying Trill had erred when he searched Smith's mouth and that the drugs had been illegally seized.
Now Smith's case is one of 16 that the Florida Department Law Enforcement is reviewing in its investigation of the Tarpon Springs Police Department. Court records show that in three of the 16 cases charges were dropped after judges determined that police searches were not conducted properly or prosecutors concluded that evidence seized didn't stand up.
FDLE agents have asked for police records on more than a dozen arrests or instances in which officers used force, according to records obtained by the Times. Investigators, in a Sept. 9 memo, named Trill, 34, and retired Officer Romando Black, also 34, as officers whose actions are under review.
Tarpon Springs Police Chief Mark LeCouris said FDLE has revealed little else about the scope or focus of the inquiry. He expressed frustration at the agency's handling of the inquiry, saying that, so far, investigators have only asked to review police records. LeCouris said state investigators have not interviewed any of the department's officers as far as he knows.
FDLE spokesman Rick Morera said he could not comment on the focus of the inquiry in Tarpon Springs while the investigation is ongoing.
But a review of the Tarpon Springs cases FDLE has asked to see reveals that police procedures used in several drug arrests have led to questions about police officers' judgment and credibility.
Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender Bob Dillinger said last week that he is concerned that there is a pattern of questionable searches conducted by Tarpon Springs police officers. He said his office has received numerous complaints about officers' use of force and search techniques.
"We saw, on a per capita basis, more motions to suppress and cases dismissed with these specific officers than with the general population of police officers," Dillinger said.
In addition to the three FDLE cases, the Times has found two other cases where the evidence was successfully challenged on the same grounds. Those cases also involved Trill and Black.
As in Smith's case, judges threw out evidence after concluding that the searches violated defendants' Fourth Amendment constitutional rights to be free of "unreasonable searches and seizures."
A key question was whether the officers had the suspects' consent to search their mouths or whether they had "probable cause" to believe that the suspects had drugs at all.
"A reasonable person engaged in "minimal' contact with an officer might well expect that the officer wanted to perform a pat-down of "his person' and not a dental examination," 2nd District Court of Appeal Judge Darryl C. Casanueva wrote in his ruling on Smith's case.
But LeCouris denied there was anything wrong with conducting such searches. He said Trill, Black and other officers were simply doing their job. Doing oral searches of drug suspects is a common practice for most law enforcement agencies in the area, and it's no surprise that courts periodically throw out such searches, the police chief said.
"You win some and you lose some. I mean lots of cases get suppressed. There's no doubt in my mind that we did everything right," LeCouris said. "That's evidence and you have a right to try to retrieve that evidence."
LeCouris said the only thing that would change his department's policy on such searches and police officers use of force would be a direct order from the State Attorney to modify police procedures.
Pinellas-Pasco County State Attorney Bernie McCabe said last week that he could not comment on FDLE's investigation in Tarpon Springs. He also declined to say whether his office is cooperating with the inquiry. But he acknowledged that his office had received "a few" complaints about Trill and Black's behavior on the job prior to the investigation's launch more than six months ago. Most, he said, came from the Rev. James Warren, an outspoken critic of the Tarpon Springs Police Department.
Careful not to criticize the Tarpon Springs department, McCabe said the cases in question do not necessarily represent a pattern of abuse within the agency. However, he acknowledged that an individual police officer with a string of questionable arrests and reversals in court "might raise a red flag."
McCabe said police searches that involve probing someone's mouth for evidence can be done legally "under certain circumstances."
"Now those circumstances are fairly narrow," he said. "If you see contraband and you can identify contraband and you try to take it and the person throws the contraband in their mouth then it's permissible. Now you've got to be pretty certain that it's contraband though."
Stetson University criminal law professor Robert Batey agrees that such police searches must adhere to strict standards to be legal. But, he said, police must have a good reason to stop a suspect, force his mouth open and look inside for drugs. Otherwise, Batey said, the city and the police department could face lawsuits.
"If I were an adviser to the police department I would be worried about the possibility of civil liability because officers are using questionable search methods," Batey said. "Perhaps the municipality ought to encourage the department to develop a policy about these kind of searches.
- Times researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this report. Candace Rondeaux can be reached at (727) 445-4181.
