One Month in Jail for Soap Possession

Last week Annadel Cruz and Alexander Bernstein
were
released from Lehigh County Prison in Allentown, Pennsylvania,
where they had been detained for a month after being arrested for
possession of soap. A state trooper claimed a field test indicated
that the homemade soap, which he found in the trunk of the car Cruz
was driving, contained cocaine. Laboratory tests showed it was just
soap, which is what Cruz had said all along.

The trooper said he stopped the car on Interstate 78 because
Cruz was driving five miles per hour above the posted speed limit
and “hugging the side of the lane,” as the Allentown Morning
Call put it. Bernstein’s lawyer thinks it is more likely
that the trooper’s suspicions were aroused by the sight of a young
Latina driving a new Mercedes-Benz with out-of-state plates. After
pulling over the car, in which Bernstein was a passenger, the
trooper claimed to smell marijuana, and Cruz confessed she had
smoked pot before leaving New York City. Then the trooper asked if
he could search the car, and Cruz supposedly said yes.

Assuming Cruz really did consent to the search, shouldn’t that
have immediately raised doubts about the accuracy of the trooper’s
field test? If you were carrying two packages of cocaine in your
trunk, would you consent to a search of your car? In any event,
this case is yet another refutation of the old canard that if you
have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear during a police
encounter.

Field tests for drugs are notoriously
unreliable, mistaking common
products such as soap, deodorant, billiard chalk, tea, breath
mints, soy milk, and chocolate for illicit substances. Yet police
across the country continue to use these kits as a basis for
locking people up. Bail for Cruz and Bernstein was set at $250,000
and $500,000, respectively. “After this,” says Cruz’s lawyer,
“everyone should pause about jumping to conclusions when a field
test is said to be positive by law enforcement. There are people
going to jail on high bail amounts based upon these field
tests.”