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February 29, 2008

Update: Opening statements in smoke-shop trial / Photo

Journal photo / Bob Thayer
John Brown, center, a defendant in the smoke-shop case, talks with his defense lawyers during the opening of the trial today.

Opening statements began this morning in the trial of seven Narragansett Indians accused of several misdemeanors after a 2003 state police raid on the tribe's newly opened smoke shop turned violent.

The prosecution took about an hour to lay out its case against the defendants, using up to 10 photos taken the day of their arrests. Prosecutor Pamela Chin says they will help prove the state’s case that the police were “just doing their job,” executing what she called a court authorized search warrant on the shop, which was selling tobacco products tax free.

The defense team put on a lengthy argument this morning in which lawyer William P. Devereaux alleged that what happened on the Narragansett land was not so much an execution of a search warrant, but "a raid."

Devereaux said that the state, rather than execute a search warrant, chose a means of confrontation in trying to shut down the tribe's plan to sell untaxed cigarettes. He said the state chose confrontation over going to court to seek an injunction.

Fellow defense lawyer Kevin Bristow went further in his allegations, saying that the governor of the state of Rhode Island wanted to "do the maximum economic harm to the Narragansett Indians" by ordering that the raid take place when a shipment of cigarettes were being delivered.

Bristow said the state chose not to get a federal warrant to stop the selling of cigarettes, or to simply ban customers from entering the shop. And Bristow said the defense would produce the state police major in charge of the operation, who will testify that never in his 25 years on the state police had he been ordered directly by the governor to execute a search warrant.

And finally, Bristow said the attorney general, who is the chief law enforcement officer of the state, "had nothing to do with the execution of the search warrant."

-- Journal staff writer Tom Mooney

Posted by Brandie Jefferson  at 4:04 PM | Permalink

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