WKNO TRANSCRIPT
CHRISTOPHER BLANK (Host): Are Memphis police overcharging motorists caught with marijuana? That was a question posed after a recent look at local law enforcement data by the Institute for Public Service Reporting. With us to talk about the findings is journalist Marc Perrusquia. Thanks for joining us!
MARC PERRUSQUIA: Thank you for having me, Christopher.
BLANK: So Mark, marijuana possession is still illegal in the state of Tennessee, and you know, given recent crackdowns on things like fake tags or tinted windows, driving with marijuana is probably not the wisest thing to do in Shelby County. But what does overcharging look like?
PERRUSQUIA: It is illegal. That's true. But you know, of course, the perception of marijuana nationally and in Tennessee has changed light years in recent years. There's much more acceptance of it. But a lot of this gets down to the simple fact that under the Tennessee law, if you sell less than a half-ounce of marijuana, it's a misdemeanor. If you sell more than a half-ounce That's a felony. The question becomes when you're caught with marijuana itself, what is your intent? They leave that to the police to decide that. And by law, the police have to prove that you had an intent to sell it. They need other indicators.
BLANK: In your reporting, you spoke with District Attorney Steve Mulroy, who says it's not uncommon for police to charge this felony intent, but then those charges get get reduced to misdemeanor later on. Why is that happening?
PERRUSQUIA: It's happening because the legal system is working the way the legal system should work in that the goal should be to find justice. I mean, if they look at the evidence and they see that there is no evidence that they're trying to sell [drugs]. In the situations that we looked at, all of the charges were dropped. They just vacated them. And sometimes hours after the individual was arrested. Sometimes months later, too. But you don't want to get arrested, especially in Shelby County. You do not want to spend a night in the jail here. So the question really becomes, what is the appropriate level of justice out on the street? In some cases, it seems to be poor training or supervision. Those are certainly issues that were raised by the Justice Department when they reviewed Memphis' traffic stops after the killing of Tyre Nichols and issued this report December 4th. They found a pattern of illegal traffic traffic stops, searches, arrests, and discrimination against Black citizens in Memphis.
BLANK: Many of these arrests involve odor-related pretexts for a search of a car. Why is this raising some red flags?
PERRUSQUIA: In many cases, they do actually smell marijuana because, as we all know, if you drive around in this town, you're going to smell marijuana at some place at some point. It's very pungent. But in other cases, it might be questionable whether they even did smell marijuana. It's a great excuse. And the Justice Department raised this concern, too, that in some cases, it does seem kind of sketchy that they really smelled marijuana.
BLANK: I would recommend a pair of articles on the Institute's website psrmemphis.org that explains the arguments for and against pre-textual traffic stops. But the cases you look at seem to fall in a kind of discretionary gray area. Are there any groups or advocates looking for a better path forward?
PERRUSQUIA: Well, you know, there are standing groups in Memphis that are doing that. Decarcerate Memphis is one. And all of this is being done in the Black communities. Police will send out these saturation patrols into what they call high crime areas. And so it really does become a question of: is this justice in policing or is this harassment of communities? I mean sometimes it can seem pretty gray.
