By Matt Katz
The Philadelphia Inquirer
CAMDEN, NJ — The American Civil Liberties Union has sued the Camden County prosecutor and state attorney general, saying they failed to properly oversee the Camden Police Department and a group of allegedly rogue officers.
The Police Department and the five officers, three of whom pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges in the last few months, also were sued. The other two officers are under investigation.
The suit is one of about 30 since prosecutors threw out 185 drug cases last winter. The cases were tossed after federal investigators determined the officers had made bogus arrests, planted evidence, traded drugs for information from prostitutes, and lied in court over several years.
The ACLU filed the federal suit on behalf of Joel Barnes, 28, who spent 14 months in prison and a halfway house after the five officers arrested him and allegedly planted PCP-laced marijuana on him in August 2008.
The ACLU is seeking unspecified monetary damages for Barnes and “systemic reforms” of the management of the Police Department to prevent similar problems, attorney Alexander Shalom said.
“We’re eager to engage in a conversation with law enforcement about the changes that can be done,” he said.
Among the issues, the ACLU said, is a system that rewards officers for the number of drug arrests they make, fills jails with nonviolent drug offenders, and allows officers to avoid the scrutiny of Internal Affairs. The ACLU also says Camden and other New Jersey police departments do not monitor arrests and police reports to look for possible illegality.
After Barnes’ conviction was vacated, he was not released right away from the halfway house because the arrest, although bogus, violated his probation for a previous drug-possession charge. It took his attorneys four months to clear that up.
“There’s lots of collateral consequences for criminal convictions,” Shalom said.
Barnes said he was inside a friend’s house in August 2008 when two of the officers entered the home without a search warrant. They handcuffed Barnes and held him in a police van while searching for evidence, he said, demanding he tell them where the drugs were stashed. Barnes said he had no knowledge of drugs in the house.
One officer tried to offer Barnes a deal, according to the suit: “If you don’t start talking, my pen is going to do the talking.”
Barnes was then arrested for possession. He said he had pleaded guilty because he hadn’t thought he would have a chance to beat the case in front of a jury. Even his mother, a Camden teacher, didn’t believe he was innocent, he said.
“Everything was stacked against me,” he said.
The ACLU is suing the attorney general and county prosecutor because their offices had a supervisory role over the Camden police at the time, not because of their prosecution of Barnes.
The Camden County Prosecutor’s Office said it had not yet seen the suit, but would have follow-up conversations with the ACLU about its concerns.
The Attorney General’s Office and Police Department had no comment.
“I’m hoping this doesn’t happen to anyone else,” Barnes said. “I’m hoping they pay attention to the conduct of the officers.”
Copyright 2010 Philadelphia Newspapers, LLC