Defense attorneys in a drug-smuggling case being argued in federal court in Raleigh have raised two pre-trial arguments based on old but valid laws rarely cited in criminal cases.
One argument is based on an 1878 law that prohibits the U. S. military from being involved in civilian law enforcement. The other is based on the Third Amendment of the U. S. constitution, which prohibits peacetime quartering of soldiers in a citizen’s house without the citizen’s consent.
The case involves the arrest of 13 persons in Craven County on charges to import marijuana. The arrests were made by the Coast Guard and other law enforcement officials.
"This case has issues in it that must go to the U. S. Supreme Court - issues that are fundamental to the judicial system," said Edwin Marger of Atlanta, part of the 10-man defense team called by some, "the F. Lee Bailey of Atlanta."
Marger’s colleagues include John Stokes, former U. S. attorney from Atlanta; Steven Bernholtz, Norman Kellum and David Voerman, prominent North Carolina defense attorneys; Barry Nakell, a criminal law specialist at the University of North Carolina; and James G. Jenkins, Bruce Morris, Reber Boult and Robert Fierer, all of Atlanta.
In various legal motions, the attorneys have branded the government's actions in the case as "outrageous."
Herman Gaskins, the U. S. attorney prosecuting the case, has listened calmly to the arguments, clearly amused at some of the. He has contended that the government had acted properly in securing the arrests of the 13 defendants and said in one interview, "I do not apologize for our zeal (in drug cases). I recognize we have to stay within the Constitution, and I feel we have done so."
The 13 defendants were arrested Feb. 5 in Craven County on charges of conspiracy to import 24 tons of marijuana into the country and importation of the drug.
The U. S. Coast Guard, citing a federal statute, boarded the Lady Ellen, a shrimp boat, near the Dominican Republic Jan. 26 and found marijuana. The Coast Guard took the three-man crew off the boat, sailed the Lady Ellen to North Carolina and had the crew get back on the boat to contact the people on shoer who were to meet it.
Meanwhile, the government said, federal officials were told the Lady Ellen was going to land.
Seven of the defendants were arrested as they unloaded the boat, three others were arrested in a small house on Back Creek, near the Craven-Carteret county line. The other three were arrested near the house, lawyers said.
A pre-trial hearing on defense motions to suppress evidence has been going on for three weeks before U. S. Magistrate Logan D. Howell and will continue today. Howell will make a recommendation on the motions to U. S. District Judge Franklin T. Dupree Jr., who eventually will rule on the motions before any trial begins.
The defense attorneys have asserted that the Coast Guard had acted illegally on boarding the Lady Ellen, contending that the federal law authorizing such boardings was unconstitutional.
But in an unusual argument, Marger has charged that the U. S. Navy had illegally helped the Coast Guard in its effort to stop drug smuggling from South America to the United States.
Marger has contended that a Navy intelligence unit called NOSIC, with headquarters in Suitland, Md., had used electronic tracking equipment to help the Coast Guard, which is a civilian agency except during war, stop boats.
The attorneys said this is a violation of a federal law prohibiting the use of the military in civilian law enforcement.