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Court blocks killer's profiling claims
By CHASE SQUIRES © St. Petersburg Times, published January 6, 2001 The state's highest court rejected claims from killer Robert Dewey Glock II that he was the victim of racial profiling when he was arrested back in 1983, returning a ruling one day after Thursday's 45-minute hearing in Tallahassee. In a 6-0 ruling, with Justice Peggy Quince recusing herself for unspecified reasons, the court issued a 26-page ruling that rejected every argument made by Glock's appointed attorney, Terri Backhus of Tampa. The justices also ruled that the case cannot be returned to them for another hearing. Glock and cohort Carl Puiatti, both of Lee County, were arrested Aug. 29, 1983, four days after they abducted Sharilyn Ritchie, a 34-year-old school teacher, from a Bradenton mall. The two confessed that they took her to an orange grove outside Dade City, stole her jewelry and car and shot her to death. With Glock's execution date set for 6 p.m. Jan. 11, Backhus said that she will appeal the case to the federal level, either to an appeals court in Atlanta or directly to the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. "I think there are some issues in there that I don't think the court fully understood," Backhus said Friday. One key argument was Backhus' contention that Glock, 39, and Puiatti, 38, were stopped illegally as they drove through New Jersey by a trooper engaged in racial profiling -- a controversial method of detaining motorists based on race. New Jersey officials in November released 91,000 pages of information documenting race-based policing methods on state highways. Backhus contended that the use of race in a traffic stop was a constitutional violation to Glock's right to equal treatment. But the justices saw the argument as one of search and seizure law and felt that the trooper had reason to stop the two when he noticed that they had an illegible out-of-state license plate. Backhus said Puiatti is of Italian descent and Glock had very dark skin at the time. The court rejected those claims as well. "As noted by the trial court Glock, who was the driver of the vehicle, was Caucasian," the ruling states. "Therefore, even assuming that an official policy of racial profiling existed in New Jersey as of 1983, it is mere speculation that the stop in this case was connected to such a policy; that is, that the stop was based on race." Even if there was evidence of racial profiling, it is too late to raise the issue now, the court ruled. The justices found that attorneys in New Jersey were questioning the racial basis of traffic stops as far back as 10 years ago. If it was to be an issue, the court ruled, Glock should have raised it earlier.
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