The Vermont Supreme Court on Friday threw out the conviction of an African American man who said the traffic stop that led to his 10-year prison sentence was the result of racial profiling.
Shamel Alexander, a first-time offender whom Seven Days wrote about in November, was found with 11 grams of heroin — $1,400 worth — after police pulled over a taxi cab he took from New York to Bennington in 2013.
Despite Alexander’s lack of a record, a supportive family and a finding by prison officials that he was a low risk to reoffend, Bennington Superior Court Judge Nancy Corsones sentenced him to 10 years. During the sentencing hearing, Corsones warned of the dangers of drug dealers from “Brooklyn and Bed-Stuy.” One Supreme Court justice described that rhetoric as potential racial “dog-whistle code words” during oral arguments in November.
Alexander’s attorneys argued that police had no basis for interrogating Alexander, now 27, after they pulled over the cab. Police justified the stop by saying an informant told them a large African American man named “Sizzle” was coming to the area to sell drugs. (Alexander was not “Sizzle.”) They also said the fact that Alexander was arriving via taxi from New York was suspicious.
The Supreme Court unanimously sided with Alexander.
“Though heroin and crack cocaine dealers from out of state may arrive in Bennington by taxicab or bus, so do out-of-state visitors coming to Vermont to ski, hike, shop, view the foliage, attend school, engage in legitimate business activities or enjoy a quiet getaway,” Associate Justice Beth Robinson wrote in the opinion. “The act of traveling by taxi or bus from Albany to Bennington is not only entirely innocent in and of itself, but is common for law-abiding citizens.”
An undercover cop who had observed Alexander in the back seat of the cab notified an on-duty police officer that the cab “would probably be a good traffic stop, if [you] could find him doing something wrong,” and added that there was an “African American male” inside, according to court documents.
“The description of Sizzle on which the police officers’ suspicion of defendant was based was so broad and vague as to sweep in any large black male getting off a bus at the station in downtown Bennington, or arriving in Bennington via taxi, and thus too general and vague to exclude a large number of presumably innocent individuals,” Robinson wrote.
Alexander was being held in a privately run prison in Baldwin, Mich., where the Vermont Department of Corrections houses 350 long-term inmates. He could remain behind bars pending a new trial, or the case could be dismissed. A hearing will likely be set in Bennington Superior Court in the coming weeks to decide what happens next.
Black people constitute 1.2 percent of Vermont’s population but nearly 11 percent of Vermont’s inmate population, according to the Department of Corrections.
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Shamel Alexander … was found with 11 grams of heroin .
… after being stopped for riding in a cab while black.
Thank you . That explains the 11% .
This is ridiculous. The guy was a drug dealer. The police are not the ones who called him Sizzle. That was his street name from the informant. If you know anyone in Vermont in law enforcement, be it police detectives, sheriffs, prosecutors, etc., it is an inconvenient truth that a huge number of the drug dealers are unfortunately from out-of-state, frequently the Bronx, Brooklyn, Bridgeport, Boston, Hartford, and Springfield, Mass. And unfortunately a huge number of them happen to be African-American. Obviously there are plenty of white criminals in Vermont as well. People are wrong to view people through the prism of race. Giant majority of all American citizens, African-Americans of course included, are outstanding, upstanding citizens.
But arresting & prosecuting criminals has to be allowed, regardless of their race. And this guy was a criminal (again, regardless of his race). Are the police not allowed to use the information they get from informants anymore? What is the informant supposed to do, say, I know someone, somewhere, who may come to deal drugs, but I can’t tell you his name (because apparently that is racist) and I can’t tell you where he lives or where he’s coming from (because apparently that is racist) and I can’t tell you what he or she looks like (because apparently that is racist). Great, how are the police supposed to do their jobs then? Perhaps it is also sexist now for the informant to provide gender? This is the kind of decision that one would expect from the same Supreme Court that has severely weakened and undermined our public schools through their well-meaning but (predictably) disastrously implemented Brigham schools funding decision.
But are you also overlooking what the police said? They messed this case up.
I am a big proponent to getting criminal’s off the street period.
Racial profiling is real. Like police targeting certain groups. Its like if your wife looks for dirt on you e.g. through your phone, under your bed, in your sock drawer she will find something to argue about.
Let’s look at an article “White people are more likely to deal drugs, but black people are more likely to get arrested for it”. There are enough stats to support the hypothesis to make it a fact nation wide.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/30/white-people-are-more-likely-to-deal-drugs-but-black-people-are-more-likely-to-get-arrested-for-it/
This isn’t news to me. 11 grams is not even a story. You know what is news – identifying the gatekeeper(s) who push these drugs into the system. You know why we can’t find them because they are linked to high officials that are protected. They have the complication for the protection.
Capitalism reigns and a few people are laughing at the top, sadly at the cost of impressionable and disenfranchised minds (all colors incl). Its easier for these men to resort to crime than a library or social program to play to their strengths.
Eleven grams of heroin “street cost” is $2200, NOT the $1200 erroneously reported in this article. 11 grams is enough heroin to satisfy the “appetite” of 15 HEAVY user addicts for one day. I wonder how many addicts died of overdoses after this dealer was released gratis this “politically correct” decision. Oh well. I guess we should thank the Vermont Supreme Court for inadvertently helping to reduce heroin addiction in Vermont by increasing the supply and killing users.