TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/041789/04178900.017

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 4KB | 65 lines

LAW, Page 52

Judging a Book by Its Cover

Drug-courier profiles get a favorable nod from the court


    When Andrew Sokolow approached a United Airlines counter in
Hawaii five years ago to begin a flight to Miami, he aroused
immediate suspicion. First he looked and acted nervous. Then he
plunked down $2,100 from a bulging wad of $20 bills to buy
round-trip tickets for himself and a companion. He and his friend
did not check their luggage but chose to carry it on board. And,
as investigators discovered, Sokolow used an assumed name and
stayed in Miami only 48 hours. In short, his actions matched those
in the behavior profiles used by the Drug Enforcement
Administration to spot would-be drug traffickers. When he returned
to Honolulu, DEA agents arrested Sokolow and searched his bags,
which contained 1,063 grams of cocaine.

    Last week, by a vote of 7 to 2, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld
Sokolow's detention on drug charges, in an opinion that granted
federal agents broad discretion to use "drug-courier profiles" to
question and search travelers at airports. Writing for the court,
Chief Justice William Rehnquist conceded that Sokolow's behavior
could have been "consistent with innocent travel." But "taken
together," his actions elicited "reasonable suspicion." Concluded
Rehnquist: "The fact that these factors may be set forth in a
`profile' does not somehow detract from their evidentiary
significance." Dissenting Justice Thurgood Marshall saw things
quite differently. An agent's "reflexive reliance" on a profile,
he wrote, is likely to subject "innocent individuals to unwarranted
police harassment." Drug-enforcement agencies, including the U.S.
Customs Service, insist that drug profiles are meant only to inform
and advise agents and that actual arrests depend on the individual
professional judgments of officers. Officials deny the documents
are stereotypical portraits of disfavored groups. "They're more of
a mental checklist," says Harry Myers, chief of DEA's criminal-law
section. Others are not so sure. "After 23 years in customs law,
you notice that inspectors look for certain things," says Los
Angeles attorney Leonard Fertman. "If you're coming from Central
America without a camera or luggage and you have a beard, you may
spend more time being questioned than another person."

    Beyond providing guidance to agents, drug profiles also catalog
the latest nationwide arrest trends. They are constantly updated
to keep up with the fertile imaginations of smugglers. Techniques
have ranged from hiding drugs in objects -- like suitcases, plaques
and aerosol cans -- to concealing them on the person. "I once had
an innocent-looking Canadian couple in their 60s come back from a
Jamaica holiday wearing body wraps containing 10 lbs. of hashish,"
recalls Miami Customs supervisory inspector Robert Hessler. Some
couriers have been found with contraband stuffed in body orifices,
others with cocaine-filled condoms in their stomachs. "Nothing is
beyond what people will do," says Los Angeles Customs director John
Heinrich, "even putting drugs in a baby's diaper and carrying the
child through."

    Faced with such tactics and a surge in air travel,
drug-enforcement agencies have beefed up their cloak-and-dagger
operations. They have sent out "rovers," undercover agents dressed
in anything from blazing Bermuda shorts to sleazy T shirts, to hang
around airports. They have also trained friendly-looking dogs, like
cairn terriers and cocker spaniels, to sniff out suspects by
amiably sitting down beside them. In fact, it was a
narcotics-sniffing dog that helped clip Andrew Sokolow's wings
after he was detained in Honolulu. The canine cop, Donker, found
the drug courier's stash hidden in his trendy Louis Vuitton travel
bag.