FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A Florida prosecutor says he will seek to overturn as many as 2,600 convictions of people who bought crack cocaine manufactured by the Broward County Sheriff’s Office for sting operations between 1988 and 1990.
The Florida Supreme Court ruled in 1993 that people could not be charged in cases where the sheriff’s office made the crack cocaine and undercover officers then sold it to buyers who were arrested and charged.
Broward County State’s Attorney Harold F. Pryor said Friday that as his office was reviewing old documents, prosecutors realized that many people may still have criminal charges or convictions on their records from the sting operation.
“It is never too late to do what is right,” Pryor said in a statement.
It’s just one example of how the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s and early 1990s led to harsh police practices and harsh criminal penalties.
Some people may have been convicted of serious crimes for purchasing drugs within 300 meters of a school. At the time, a conviction under that law required that the suspects be sentenced to at least three years in prison.
“They arrested people not for selling, but for buying,” Ed Hoeg, a lawyer, told the newspaper Fort Lauderdale Sun Watcher. At the time, Hoeg was a public defender representing Leon Williams, whose appeal led to the Supreme Court banning the practice.
“They had detention officers posing as dealers,” Hoeg said. “They sold it, and these poor, addicted people bought it. And they were selling it within 1,000 feet of schools, so the penalties would be greater.”
The sheriff’s office said at the time that it started making crack because it didn’t have enough of the seized drug to use in its sting operations and because it later didn’t have to test for the cocaine content of crack, made by a chemist at the sheriff’s office. .
“We find that the conduct of law enforcement officers here was so egregious as to violate Florida’s Due Process Clause,” the state Supreme Court said. wrote in the decision.
Pryor said he notified Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony that Pryor would ask judges to vacate the convictions. Pryor said Tony supports the plan. Some defendants may also be able to seal or expunge the documents, the prosecutor said.
The review will take “a significant amount of time,” Pryor said. He said his office will contact people who may have been affected.