Accused drug dealers win right to query police leaders

Lawyers defending a group of accused drug dealers by arguing that they were unfairly targeted by Seattle police can move ahead with their plans to question senior department commanders. The defendants were arrested between Jan. 1, 1999, and May 1, 2001, and charged with delivering a controlled substance. All were nabbed through a standard police ruse of setting up drug buys with suspected dealers, then arresting them when they delivered the drugs. The case had been held up since March 2003, when lawyers for the police department and the city appealed a ruling by King County Superior Court Judge Richard Jones. Lawyers for the six defendants argued that Seattle police drug enforcement policies are racially biased because the choice of target locations is arbitrary and the practice of focusing on street sales is not proven to meet any law enforcement goals. But to make their case, the lawyers had to define the group of people police should be targeting in order to show that their clients were discriminated against. They argued that the target group should include all people suspected of dealing drugs in Seattle.  The defense attorneys cited as an example drug deals done in private, which, they argued, police avoid enforcing, with the result being "a lot of white people deliver drugs who are not getting arrested," according to the court's ruling. [more]