We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

N.D. ILLINOIS SLAMS STASH HOUSE STINGS, BUT DOES NOT DISMISS CASES

We have reported ad nauseam about the battle over whether stash house stings – where federal agents convince unwitting defendants to rob nonexistent stash houses of nonexistent drugs, all so they can arrest them – are designed to target minorities.

Last December, we told you that the issue had come to a head in an unprecedented three-day hearing in Chicago before a panel of nine U.S. district judges.

Each of the judges on the panel was presiding over one or more of 12 separate stash-house cases, with the liberty of 43 defendants at stake. The judges  simultaneously heard expert testimony about the stings after lawyers for all 43 defendants moved for the stash-house charges to be tossed on grounds of racial bias. The testimony focused on dueling experts who reached starkly different conclusions about the racial breakdown of targets in the stash house cases. 

In a decision last week, the chief federal judge in the Northern District of Illinois issued the first of at least nine decisions on the issue, finding that the controversial drug stash house stings run by the ATF have an ugly racial component and should be discontinued. However, Chief U.S. District Judge Ruben Castillo  stopped short of dismissing charges against eight defendants, finding that the evidence fell short of proving the stings unfairly targeted blacks and Hispanics.

“These… cases have served to undermine legitimate law enforcement efforts in this country,”  Judge  Castillo said from the bench. “It is time for these false stash house cases to end and be relegated to the dark corridors of our past… Fortunately for the government, the question before this court is not whether the practices used in these sting operations are honorable or fair.”

The remaining judges are expected to issue opinions of their own in coming weeks, and any significant differences among the rulings are expected to lead to appeals.

How the 13 Chicago-area cases are decided is being watched across the country, where hundreds of similar stings have been used over the past two decades. While judges in other districts have criticized the operations for inventing crime and targeting vulnerable people, Judge Castillo’s ruling was the first to call them out on the issue of race.

United States v. Brown, Case No. 12-cr-632 (N.D.Ill. Mar. 12, 2018)

– Thomas L. Root