Selective Prosecution Case Ends : Courts: Last of 17 defendants accepts 20-year term in return for dropping constitutional challenge. They claimed blacks and Latinos were targeted in drug cases in greater numbers than whites.

A 30-month battle by defendants to prove that blacks and Latinos were illegally targeted under a federal law that provides stiff penalties for dealing drugs near schools ended Friday, just as the climactic hearing on the issue was set to begin.

Drug Enforcement Administration chief Robert C. Bonner Jr. was flying to Los Angeles to testify when the last of 17 defendants to raise the charge of “selective prosecution” gave up the fight.

Kerman E. Roberts agreed to plead guilty to drug trafficking charges and accept a 20-year prison sentence in return for dropping the constitutional challenge.

If Roberts, a 27-year-old South-Central black man with prior drug convictions, had pursued the case, he faced the possibility of a sentence ranging from 30 years to life.

Federal prosecutors said the fact that all five remaining defendants pleaded guilty this week “vindicated” the U.S. attorney’s office from charges of engaging in a discriminatory enforcement program.

“Race and ethnicity (were) never a factor” in choosing who was prosecuted, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Steven G. Madison. “There’s no evidence of discriminatory intent,” he said.

Madison said the government’s decision to agree to sentences ranging from 28 months to 20 years was not influenced by the allegations of discrimination. He said that the deals the defendants agreed to this week “are the same offers we’ve had on the table for a year.”

Defense lawyers sharply disagreed on every point. Carol Klauschie, Roberts’ attorney, said her client and the other four who pleaded guilty this week were offered “sweet deals at the last minute. . . . The government took this hearing very seriously.”

She and several other defense lawyers said they were frustrated at being unable to put the government’s tactics on trial, but said their clients felt that the possibility of longer sentences was too great.

“The clients are the ones to decide how much time they’re willing to risk,” said Denise Meyer, deputy federal public defender. “The fact that the issue is still there bugs me. Racism is a reality in the community we live in.”

Had Friday’s hearing proceeded, Bonner and numerous police officials would have had to explain why so many minorities and so few whites were prosecuted under the federal schoolyard law in Los Angeles federal court.

Court records showed that 89 of 93 people prosecuted in the Los Angeles area were black or Latino. Bonner was the U.S. attorney here when the cases were filed. Defense lawyers had charged that the government had engaged in a “patently discriminatory enforcement program.”

It is extremely difficult to establish such a claim. A defendant must prove that other people in similar circumstances have not been prosecuted for the same conduct and that the government’s selection of a defendant was based on impermissible grounds such as race or religion.

At a November, 1989, hearing some judges said they were puzzled that there were virtually no cases involving white defendants because it was common knowledge that there was considerable drug dealing in some white neighborhoods and in some schools with predominantly white student bodies.

Nonetheless, three of five federal court judges rejected the selective prosecution allegations in 1989.

This year, two federal judges ordered that a hearing be held on the charges. This came after defense lawyers introduced documents indicating that the U.S. attorney’s office spurned the opportunity to prosecute whites accused of similar crimes, including seven people arrested in a June, 1989, drug sweep by the Los Angeles Police Department.

The controversy stemmed from cases filed under a 1986 federal law that mandates extra penalties for persons caught dealing drugs within 1,000 yards of a school or within 100 feet of a playground or video arcade.

The “schoolyard law” mandates a one-year minimum sentence and a doubled maximum sentence.

The schoolyard program was launched here in December, 1987, when Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner said he would lend a deputy district attorney, Susan Bryant-Deason, to prosecute cases in federal court under the new program.

There were two sets of sweeps in 1988 and 1989 at so-called drug “hot spots” designated by the Los Angeles Police Department. Bryant-Deason decided which people would be prosecuted in federal court, under criteria determined by Bonner.

The cases she rejected were referred to the district attorney’s office for possible state prosecution. These were critical decisions because, in some instances, a defendant could have received 20 years in federal court on the same offense he would have gotten six months for in state court.

The constitutional challenge was lodged in July, 1989, shortly after the second major sweep. The federal schoolyard program was halted here not long after that and very few cases have been filed using that statute since then, defense lawyer Klauschie said. “We hope this challenge had an impact.”

Madison countered that passage of a state schoolyard law, which mandates enhanced penalties for crack cocaine sellers, reduced the need for a federal program.

He also said the U.S. attorney’s office continues to file cases under the statute when warranted.

But defense lawyer John Crouchley noted that one of the major drug sweeps that led to federal schoolyard prosecutions was conducted in June, 1989--six months after the state law went into effect.

Bryant-Deason said the program achieved a 96% conviction rate in federal court. “This was a very successful program,” she said. “We set out to create drug-free zones around schools. Hopefully, we’ve helped alleviate the problem of drugs around schools.”