Pubdate: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 Source: Star-Ledger (NJ) Copyright: 2000 Newark Morning Ledger Co. Contact: 1 Star-Ledger Plaza, Newark, N.J., 07102-1200 Website: http://www.nj.com/starledger/ Forum: http://www.nj.com/forums/ Author: Jennifer Golson DRUG DEFENDANTS FACE NEW OBSTACLE ON STREET Timothy Tidwell may simply have been standing on a Plainfield street one hot spring afternoon, but to police, he was breaking the law. Tidwell, 24, was allegedly standing too close to a West Fourth Street corner where he had been arrested on April 29 and charged with dealing drugs. Under a new law authorities throughout the state are just beginning to enforce, a judge issued a restraining order barring him from returning to that area. But police said he was there again, on May 9, so he was arrested again. This time, police said, Tidwell didn't have any drugs on him, but that didn't matter. The Piscataway man became one of the first people to be charged with violating the Drug Offender Restraining Act, aimed at breaking up open-air drug markets that plague some communities. Too often, suspected drug dealers out on bail return within days or hours to the street corner where they conduct their illegal trade, said Assistant Attorney General Ron Susswein, deputy director of the state Division of Criminal Justice. "It sends a message that makes us look powerless," Susswein said. "That we're unable to protect these neighborhoods." But defense lawyers and civil-rights advocates say the new law gives police and judges too much power to tell people where they can and cannot go. "We think it's a very unreasonable and excessive law that has serious constitutional flaws," said Lenora Lapidus, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey. "Being on a street or on a stoop is not, in and of itself, a crime. They should not be banished from a particular part of town." Judges already had discretion to impose restrictions on a defendant's movements as a condition of bail, said Barry Albin, immediate past president of the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey. But those constraints were usually meant to protect victims or ensure that a defendant would show up for court, he said. "I am in no way giving my sanction to these types of pretrial restraints, which often I think go much too far," Albin said. "It may very well be that this Drug Offender Restraining Act violates due process rights." While guidelines for using the new law are being circulated throughout the state, police and prosecutors in Union County are in the forefront of using the new tool, Susswein said. County Prosecutor Thomas Manahan organized training sessions for police in Elizabeth and Plainfield and at the county police academy. Prosecutors elsewhere in the state, including Morris County, are starting to become accustomed to the new law, said Prosecutor John B. Dangler. "We're in the process right now of setting up how we will instruct the local police departments," said Dangler, who is also president of the County Prosecutor's Association of New Jersey. But if the law is intended to end the revolving door that brings drug suspects in and out of jail, it seemed to give it another spin in Tidwell's case. After his re-arrest, Tidwell was taken to the Union County Jail in Elizabeth and then released May 15 on $2,500 bail. He is expected to appear in state Superior Court, Union County, on July 13. Plainfield Police Chief Edward Santiago said the re-release of suspects picked up for violating the restraining orders doesn't surprise him. Still, he said he believes the new law will be an effective weapon in the ongoing war on drugs. "We knew that this restraining order was not without bail," Santiago said. "We knew that he (Tidwell) would be coming back out. But we also anticipate that he will think twice about going back to that spot. "He would have been there (at that corner) a lot longer without the law," Santiago said, adding that trying to re-arrest a person on a new drug charge takes more manpower. "We would have to set up surveillance again, which is a lot more time-consuming to do." In another Plainfield case, an arrest under the restraining act led to a new round of drug charges for Markeil Nelson. Police spotted him May 24 leaning against a car on Franklin Place -- too close to East Sixth Street, where he had been arrested May 9 on a charge of dealing drugs. A judge had issued a restraining order barring him from coming within 200 feet of that street. Officers found suspected heroin in his pockets, and now the 18-year-old Plainfield man faces more drug-distribution counts as well as a charge of violating the restraining order. He's being held in the Union County jail on $20,000 bail. At least five people have been accused of violating their restraining orders in Plainfield alone, Santiago said, but the repeats might slow down soon. This month, officers will start going door to door to residents and business owners in the affected areas, circulating fliers with photos of suspects barred from certain areas and asking neighborhood residents to call police if they spot them. "If they truly want their neighborhoods free of drug dealers, please call. We'll make the arrest," Santiago said. New Jersey is the first state to enact such a law. It is similar to model legislation drafted by the National Alliance for Model State Drug Laws, executive director Sherry Green said. "It's very similar in many respects to what many states do with domestic violence cases," where a judge orders a defendant to stay away from a victim, Green said. Violation of the law may result in contempt charges or revocation of bail, probation or parole. James Kervick, public defender for Union County, said his office does not have enough staff to attend defendants' initial court appearances and objects to the restraining orders. But, he said, "We of course will challenge vigorously any alleged violations of these restraining orders, particularly the ones that are over-restrictive to our client's freedom of movement." - --- MAP posted-by: Allan Wilkinson