By John Stevenson
The Herald-Sun (Durham, N.C.)
March 27, 2001
(Durham, NC) - A drunken-driving suspect with a blood-alcohol level more than twice the legal limit got off the hook Monday because former Police Officer Stanley Earl Harris lost important paperwork.
Superior Court Judge Orlando F. Hudson ordered last week that defense lawyers must get an “alcohol influence report” Harris completed in January 1999 after he arrested Carl Lee Mason for driving while impaired.
But prosecutor Brian Beasley conceded Monday that he was unable to comply with Hudson’s order because Harris, who now works for the Durham County Sheriff’s Department, could not find the so-called “AIR” report. Nor could the report be located in police files.
So Hudson dismissed the DWI case.
“I don’t know if the report was thrown away or lost,” Beasley told The Herald-Sun. “Nothing intentional was done. At least, nothing intentional was done by the district attorney’s office.”
AIR reports contain extensive information about a suspect who has been arrested for DWI - including details about any odor of alcohol, whether speech is slurred and whether eyes are glassy. The results of field sobriety tests, such as the finger-to-nose test, also are included.
Harris could not be reached for comment Monday about the missing AIR report.
In December, jurors in civil court rejected allegations that Harris unlawfully stopped a citizen’s truck and stole $ 2,200 from the driver in 1999. But even though Harris was cleared of civil claims in that case, police investigators upheld allegations that he engaged in conduct unbecoming an officer and mishandled evidence: some gambling tickets seized from the truck driver.
Harris got the choice of resigning from the Police Department or being fired after the 1999 incident, although he later was offered his job back. He resigned and took a new job as a sheriff’s deputy.
Harris’ professionalism also was called into question in connection with a December 1997 search he conducted on a drug suspect. Hudson ruled in 1999 that the search was unlawful, and that evidence Harris seized from the suspect must be thrown out of court.
As a result, drug charges against the suspect were dismissed.
In the case dismissed Monday, Mason had registered a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.19 after his arrest two years ago. The legal standard for impaired driving in North Carolina is 0.08.
Mason was convicted of DWI in District Court and appealed to Superior Court. His case was ready for trial when Hudson dismissed it Monday.
Court records indicate that Mason had received at least two previous convictions for DWI, one in 1991 and another in 1992. In addition, a DWI charge against him was dismissed in 1994.
Public Defender Bob Brown, who now represents Mason, said Monday that the lost AIR report was not the only problem with the latest DWI case against Mason.
In addition, two other reports completed by Harris contained contradictory information, according to Brown.
The first report indicated that Harris had stopped Mason on Pettigrew Street because Mason was not wearing a seatbelt and was “weaving badly,” Brown said. But a second report, dated the same day, indicated that Mason was stopped because he was thought to be driving a stolen vehicle.
“It didn’t make any sense,” Brown said. “What [Harris] said happened didn’t happen.”
According to Brown, Harris never even saw Mason driving but instead pulled into Mason’s driveway and arrested Mason there. If anyone was operating Mason’s truck at the time, it was a repairman who had just fixed the vehicle and was returning it to Mason’s house, Brown said.
Brown added that Mason’s 0.19 blood-alcohol concentration could be explained by the fact that Mason had been partying heavily - but not driving - shortly before his arrest.
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