In Drug Case Hinging on Officers’ Believability, Suspect Wins

In the annals of the drug war, People vs. Roger Lee Frazier was a routine prosecution for possession of methamphetamine--except for trial testimony suggesting that the speed in Frazier’s pocket came from Huntington Beach police.

What seemed like a cut-and-dried case against Frazier fell apart in May after the defense presented evidence to back a theory that officers placed the powerful stimulant on Frazier in a misguided attempt to run the federal parolee out of town.

Among other things, a security guard testified that he saw an officer put a baggie of white material in one of Frazier’s pockets and immediately pull it out during a search. The guard said the officer first went to a patrol car for about 10 seconds and when he returned he had the baggie in his hand.

Other evidence, including drug tests, suggested that Frazier never smoked marijuana the day he was arrested, directly contradicting police testimony that officers smelled a “very strong odor of burnt marijuana” on his breath and clothes.

The prosecutor described the case as a “credibility contest” between Frazier and police, but when it was over, most of the Superior Court jury was not convinced the officers were telling the truth.

After hearing the evidence, jurors vacillated between voting 9 to 3 and 10 to 2 to acquit Frazier. A mistrial was declared, and the case was dismissed. Perhaps most disturbing is that some jurors thought police might have tried to frame Frazier.

“We discussed the framing issue,” said juror Lorna Adkins. “Some felt there were some shady things and strange things going on with the police, but there were two who felt the police would not have done that. I personally felt the prosecution was not persuasive. There was some doubt there.”

Police maintain that Frazier, 28, was lawfully arrested and doubt there was any evidence to suggest that drugs were planted as the defense contended. They pointed out that no complaints or lawsuits alleging police misconduct have been filed in the case.

Lt. Ed McErlain, a Huntington police spokesman, said the department encourages the public to report incidents of wrongdoing by police and that if Frazier had filed a complaint, it would have been fully investigated.

“The fact that it was not reported by him to us would suggest it was an effort to try to disguise what really happened and mitigate the arrest,” McErlain said.

Frazier, who is a service manager for an off-road-vehicle company and has a family of seven, said he was broke after the case was dismissed and decided against pursuing a civil rights lawsuit.

“I lost everything in this,” Frazier said. “I lost my house. I almost lost my job. My kids lost trust in the police. My wife went nuts. I’m living on the last level before the gutter. The whole thing put me so far behind.”

Frazier was arrested at 3 a.m. on March 28, 1989, in the carport area of the Huntington West Apartments, where he was removing a distributor cap and coil wire to keep his souped-up Volkswagen from being stolen.

Officer James C. Muller pulled his patrol car into the parking area drawn by what he said was the sound of a car motor. He detained Frazier while an apartment security guard, David Rodriguez, explained that Frazier was a tenant and that he regularly dismantled his car.

Muller said he became concerned for his safety and searched Frazier for weapons after smelling marijuana on Frazier’s breath and clothes. During the search, police reports state, Muller discovered two sandwich-size Baggies containing 15 grams of methamphetamine.

The officer, who was later joined at the scene by Officer Charles Conlosh, said he removed one of the plastic bags, but left the other in Frazier’s pocket because there was no reason to remove it until arrival at the police station. He also noted that Frazier said, “Oh, man, I don’t know what this stuff is, it’s my brother’s jacket.”

Besides the security guard’s testimony, the police version of events was challenged by Frazier’s own denials from the witness stand and the testimony of his federal parole officer, David Sano.

The evidence showed that Frazier did not act or look intoxicated when arrested and that no signs of marijuana use, such as roach clips, ashes or the substance itself were ever found by police. Sano, a veteran parole officer who has rarely testified on behalf of a parolee, said thorough narcotics testing shortly after Frazier was booked revealed no trace of drugs in his system.

Sano told the jury that Frazier, who had been convicted earlier of aiding and abetting a bank robbery, was honest and trying to put his life back together since his release from prison. He noted that police leaving a baggie of drugs on a suspect during an arrest was highly irregular.

The evidence also indicated that in the weeks before Frazier’s arrest, Huntington Beach police had pulled Frazier over several times in his car. They wrote no tickets, but Frazier and his 11-year-old daughter testified that police put guns to Frazier’s head and said they did not like him in their town.

“We all believe the police officer is the person you trust and seek refuge and safety from,” said Deputy Public Defender Allyn Jaffrey, Frazier’s lawyer. “We tell our kids, ‘That’s a policeman, he’s a good man.’ But then I proved they were lying. I felt uncomfortable saying the words, ‘They lied.’ It was a very traumatic case for me.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Michelle Lyman, the prosecutor, challenged the testimony of the security guard, saying he lied on his job application about two convictions he had in 1977. She said Rodriguez’s testimony only implied the drugs were planted and did not actually state that.

In the end, Lyman said, she felt “uncomfortable with the case.”

“The defendant was adamant,” she said. “But the officers were adamant as well. I believe the word of my officers and my police reports. But only God knows what happened.”

Frazier, who has moved to Westminster, said he has not been stopped by police since the case was dismissed.