N.J. Speaker Refuses to Impeach Judge

In a decision that roiled the state’s political landscape, Assembly Speaker Jack Collins on Thursday refused to authorize the impeachment of a state Supreme Court justice accused of misleading state officials about the extent of racial profiling on the New Jersey Turnpike.

But Collins, echoing other top lawmakers, called on Supreme Court Justice Peter G. Verniero to resign, saying the intensity of opposition to Verniero among minority and other groups--plus months of negative publicity--have compromised his ability to act impartially on New Jersey’s highest court.

“The allegations that have been set forth against Justice Verniero are extremely serious,” Collins said. If Verniero does not resign, Collins added, the state Senate might then refer his conduct to local prosecutors, who could resolve the issue “more fairly” in a court of law.

The controversy grew out of then-state Atty. Gen. Verniero’s testimony during his 1999 Supreme Court confirmation hearings that he had only recently become aware of the intensifying dispute over racial profiling in New Jersey. Minorities have long charged that state troopers pull them over and search them solely on the basis of race.

Despite Verniero’s testimony, some lawmakers say newly released state documents show that Verniero had knowledge of the practice as early as 1996, even as he insisted it was not taking place. Spurred by Verniero’s appearance before the Senate’s Judiciary Committee last month, during which he failed to recall such evidence in response to more than 150 questions, both Democrats and Republicans have been calling for his impeachment.

Verniero, who has steadily denied any wrongdoing, issued a brief statement through his attorney saying he will not resign. He reiterated that he plans “to continue to devote himself to his duties.”

On Thursday, Democrats denounced Collins’ decision not to launch an impeachment effort as an attempt to sweep the explosive issue under the rug.

Under New Jersey law, the speaker has the sole political authority to decide whether to proceed with impeachment. With his action, opponents said, Collins had spared his fellow Republicans the spectacle of a nasty public battle in the GOP-controlled Legislature. But they predicted that the question of why state troopers search a disproportionately large number of minority drivers on the New Jersey Turnpike would be a key issue in state elections later this year.

“For the sake of the state’s minority community . . . and the integrity of the Supreme Court, every member of the Assembly deserved an opportunity to weigh in on the Verniero matter,” said Assembly Democratic leader Joseph V. Doria.

“This is a cop-out,” said Henry Rose, an activist representing Blacks for Social Justice. “Civil rights are now dead in New Jersey.”

The issue has riveted the state capital, along with the travails of acting Gov. Donald DiFrancesco, who announced this week that he would not seek election to a full term, after media reports that he solicited a personal loan from a friend who is a major state contractor and accepted money from the state’s largest home builder to settle a personal debt.

Racial profiling has been a searing issue in New Jersey for five years, ever since reports began surfacing that more than 60% of the motorists stopped and searched by state troopers along the turnpike were minorities. As attorney general, Verniero repeatedly said police were cracking down on drug trafficking and other crimes without regard to race.

But on the eve of his Supreme Court confirmation hearing in 1999, Verniero said that profiling was a “real, not imagined” concern, and called for its end.

Verniero told the Judiciary Committee that his new perception of the issue was “crystallized” by an April 1998 incident on the turnpike, when two white state troopers fired 11 shots at three unarmed black and Latino men in a van. The incident, which focused national attention on New Jersey’s state troopers, fueled a U.S. Justice Department investigation and a flurry of lawsuits by other motorists who said they had been pulled over and searched by state police on the highway primarily because of their race.

Earlier this year, New Jersey officials authorized a $13-million settlement of the lawsuit filed by the three shooting victims. The state is prosecuting the officers who fired at them, and officials say they have been taking major steps to eradicate the racial profiling problem.

But state Atty. Gen. John J. Farmer told legislators this month that black drivers still are more likely to be searched than whites.