Originally Posted - December 23, 2006

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SCHENECTADY---Six years ago this week, a young black mother of two sons, entered Casey's Bar in Schenectady with some friends for a Christmas Party.

She hasn't been home since.

A short time later, she was under arrest, charged with the stabbing of a bar patron, a known alcoholic and drug user, who had been drinking at the bar for more than 12 hours that day and had engaged in racially motivated harassment of the young mother, repeatedly calling her the "N" word and attempting to block her passage when she tried to leave the bar.

Was it self defense, extreme emotional disturbance, were there mitigating circumstances? Was there a rush to judgment in the Tanika Dickson case by the Schenectady Police Department and district attorney's office whose only thought may have been to seek to avenge the death of a white police officer's brother by overzealously prosecuting a black defendant?

Are blacks treated differently in the criminal justice system than whites?

Would the case have been handled differently if the defendant was white…..if the victim wasn't related to a police officer?

At Christmas, 1999, one of the most egregious cases of racial discrimination and injustice in the Capital District area, occurred in Schenectady involving the district attorney's office of Robert Carney and the Schenectady Police Department.

David Gallup, brother of Glenville police officer William Gallup, had been drinking for nearly 12 hours at the Schenectady bar on Dec. 20, 1999, when 22-year-old Tanika Dickson entered the bar with her friends.

Gallup, who was white, had a week earlier reportedly been fired from an area Wal-Mart for having made racial slurs to fellow employee, was a self-admitted racist and according to his own brother, had a history of alcohol-related arrests.

Dickson had no prior record.

According to witnesses, Gallup made several racial epithets and insults to Dickson over the course of an hour and as Dickson prepared to leave the bar to go home, Gallup reportedly followed her to the doorway and blocked her path.

Dickson says she has no recollection of what happened next but witnesses say as Gallup advanced towards her, she produced a small pocket knife, apparently in an attempt to defend herself against what she perceived as a threat of harm by Gallup.

Gallup was stabbed in the neck and died later that morning. Dickson was charged with second degree murder and a virtually unprecedented plea deal was made less than 12 hours after the incident, before any significant investigation of the incident had occurred.

Although Dickson signed a statement which said the prosecution might agree to a charge of manslaughter, instead Dickson was charged with second degree murder and given an indeterminate sentence of 15 years to life.

For the past six years, Dickson has been incarcerated at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility.

A review of cases in the Capital District area indicates a racial disparity, a bias and discrimination in the charging and prosecution of black defendants.

A white Wilton man was sentenced to two to four years in prison after admitting to shooting a Stillwater man to death and pleading guilty to criminally negligent homicide.

When a white Schenectady woman was accused in 2005 of stabbing her live-in boyfriend to death, she was charged with first degree manslaughter.

Richard Travis of Johnson was sentenced to four to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to criminally negligent homicide in the death of his mother after he slapped her aside the head and then stuffed her body in a Rubbermaid garbage can in the basement for two years.

In Johnstown in March, 2001, after Thomas Newton Jr. admitted killing his friend with a knife following an argument about cooking sausages over a campfire, Newton was charged with second degree manslaughter and received a sentence of 3 1/3 to 10 years in prison in exchange for a guilty plea. With credit for time served, Newton was eligible for parole after serving 2 ½ years of the sentence. Even if he had been convicted at jury trial, his sentence would have been 5 to 15 years.

But on Dec. 20, 1999, when 22-year-old Dickson stabbed Gallup, 36, the brother of a Glenville police officer after a prolonged verbal altercation initiated and perpetuated by Gallup, she was charged with second degree murder, depraved indifference murder.

Dickson, with no prior criminal record, was immediately jailed in lieu of $100,000 bail. The white Schenectady woman charged with killing a man, who had history of alcohol abuse and had a criminal record, had her bail set at $20,000 and was later released.

The difference in the disparity of charges brought by police in these cases and the handling of the cases is black and white.

It's racial discrimination and bias.

The suspects and victims were white in the first four cases cited.

In the Dickson case, not only does it appear that Dickson was more seriously charged because she was black but with a virtually unprecedented plea bargain deal being completed less than 12 hours after the incident, it appears the Schenectady Police Department and Schenectady County District Attorney's office may have also rushed to judgment with the only thought to avenge the death of a white police officer's brother----a police officer who had reportedly brought cases before the sentencing judge, Schenectady County Court Judge Michael Eidens, raising grave questions about the impartiality of the judge.

Dickson is currently serving an indeterminate sentence of 15 years to life in state prison and will not be eligible for parole until 2014.

The North Country Gazette has undertaken an investigation into the Dickson case, one of the most egregious cases of racial discrimination and injustice in the Capital District area and occurring as the result of an "investigation" conducted by the Schenectady Police Department, an agency which has been the subject of an ongoing probe by the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice to determine if department officers engaged in a pattern or practice depriving individuals of their civil rights.

In 2005, following the publication of several articles involving the Dickson case, Cheryl Kates, an attorney affiliated with the American Civil Liberties Union and experienced in prisoners rights, offered to represent Dickson free of charge, initiating efforts to gain Dickson's release from prison in an attempt to vacate her plea and reopen the case. Efforts are now underway to seek executive clemency from the Governor.

Requests to investigate the matter were made to the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice which has the authority to investigate individual complaints alleging discrimination or bias of race, color, national origin, sex and religion by state and local law enforcement agencies that receive financial assistance from the Department of Justice such as the Schenectady Police Department.

Some 50 years after the late Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus, the U.S. has made significant strides towards ensuring equal treatment under the law for all except in one critical area---criminal justice---where racial inequality is growing instead of diminishing. Criminal laws, while facially neutral, are being enforced in a manner that is pervasively biased and unjust.

Unequal treatment of minorities characterizes every stage of the process. Blacks and Hispanic Americans are being victimized by disproportionate targeting and unfair treatment by police; by racially skewed charging and plea bargaining decisions by prosecutors, by discriminatory sentencing practices and by the failure of judges, elected officials and other criminal justice policy makers to redress the inequities.

Prosecutors have virtually unbridled discretion to enter into an agreement by which the defendant will plead guilty in exchange for the dismissal of certain charges or a reduced sentence and once again the exercise of discretion is characterized by racially disparate results.

According to the "Report of The New York State Judicial Commission on Minorities", in interracial crimes where the victim of the crime is white and the perpetrator is black, research has shown that prosecutors are more likely to upgrade the charges brought against the defendant such as what occurred in the Dickson case.

Black defendants, such as Dickson, therefore face more serous charges, more vigorous prosecution and more severe sentences that white offenders, according to the study commissioned by the NY Court of Appeals.

Additional evidence of disparate treatment in the sentencing phase of the criminal process was uncovered by the Commission in its surveys of both judges and litigators. Overall, 44% of the litigators surveyed reported that white defendants are "often/very often" less likely to receive a prison sentence than black defendants, while only 29% of the respondents stated that this "never/rarely" happens.

Comments offered by the litigators questioned on the subject for the study include one white lawyer saying "I have seen blacks, convicted of petit larceny and Class A misdemeanors get a full year in jail but a white get off with probation".

Similarly, a black lawyer commented that "minority criminal defendants are, without qualification, being treated differently than non-minorities, particularly at sentencing".

Findings of the NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) show that the criminal justice system does treat blacks and Hispanics more harshly than whites in some instances.

The DCJS study confirmed racial disparities in two settings: the imposition of fines versus jail time in misdemeanor cases and the chances of incarceration in felony cases.

The DCJS finding of disparate treatment of minorities in different regions of the state confirmed the results of earlier studies. In a 1980 study of some 11,000 defendants eligible for probation, race had only a negligible effect on decision to incarcerate in New York City , but a substantial effect in suburban and "upstate" jurisdictions such as the Capital District.

A study of disparate treatment under the state's indeterminate sentencing policy, conducted by the NYS Committee on Sentencing Guidelines, discovered significant differences in sentencing depending upon the race, gender and age of the defendant.

In New York State , as of January, 2004, 51% of the state prison population and 91% of the New York City prison population was African-American.

In February, 2002, blacks comprised only 15.9% of the state's total population but they made up 54.3% of the state's incarcerated population.

In 2000, whites made up about 16% of the state's prisoners even though in that year, New York State was 62% white.

Organizations such as Human Rights Watch and the New York State Bar Association have spoken out against the situation and have pointed to certain factors that have led to the predicament.

The most strikingly apparent cause is that New York State has used the incarceration of black drug offenders to justify a massive increase in the construction of prisons, yet another form of pork barrel spending.

From 1988 to 1998, New York increased its yearly spending on prisons by $761 million.

The 38 prisons opened in New York State since 1982 have all been in mainly white areas represented by Republican state senators. These prisons employ almost 30,000 people and receive over $1.1 billion annually to cover operating expenses.

In a 2002 U.S. District Court decision from the Southern District of New York, it was held that the New York Penal Law charges of reckless manslaughter and depraved indifference are identical and constitutes a potential for abuse leading to a claim of discrimination, therefore an equal protection claim is available if there is a showing of actual racial or other discrimination based upon a suspect classification.

"Depraved indifference murder is indistinguishable from the crime of reckless manslaughter….and creates the potential for unconstitutional variances in the charges prosecutors can lodge and sentences that may be imposed for essentially the same conduct", the federal court held.

Although reckless manslaughter carries a minimum punishment of only a year in prison, depraved indifference murder as Dickson was charged under carries a minimum punishment of 15 years in prison.

The federal court held that the "NY Court of Appeals conflated the two statutory crimes is a matter of considerable concern, that the New York case law has merged this offense with the less serious charge of manslaughter second raises a serious issue of equal protection and a strong possibility of prosecutorial discrimination against minorities or unpopular defendants".

Dickson already had three strikes against her when she was charged by the Schenectady County district attorney's office-----she was black, she was involved in an interracial incident and the victim was the brother of a white police officer.

In July, 2004, in a decision by the Second Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, the court held that the NY Court of Appeals "has so blurred the distinction between the two crimes (depraved indifference murder and manslaughter) that the due process clause of the Federal Constitution is offended because selective enforcement and arbitrary and irrational jury verdicts result".

Had Dickson been charged with second degree manslaughter, the minimum sentence is 3 ½ to 15 years. The minimum sentence for second degree murder is 15 years to life. The Court of Appeals has held that the charges are identical.

Despite all the mitigating circumstances in the case, Dickson has served six years. Under state Penal Law, a person is guilty of criminally negligent homicide, a Class E felony when, with criminal negligence, he causes the death of another person. The sentence for criminal negligent homicide is 1 1/3 years to four years.

Second degree manslaughter is a Class C felony for which the sentence is 3 ½ to 15 years while first degree manslaughter is a Class B felony with a sentence of 5 to 25 years in state prison.

Penal Law says a person is guilty of manslaughter second degree when he recklessly causes the death of another person while a person is guilty of first degree manslaughter when with intent to cause serious physical injury to another person, he causes the death of such a person or a third person under circumstances which do not constitute murder because he acts under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance.

The fact that a homicide was committed under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance such as was evincive in the Dickson case constitutes a mitigating circumstance reducing murder to manslaughter first degree.

Murder in the second degree, PL 125.25(2) under which Dickson was charged and convicted alleges that the defendant, acting under circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life, recklessly engages in conduct. The maximum penalty for second degree murder is 25 years to life.

The Penal Law provides that a person acts recklessly when he is aware of and consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that such result will occur.

While the Penal Law precludes evidence of intoxication as a defense, the courts have held that a person can be so intoxicated to be incapable of consciously being indifferent to the risks his conduct entailed.

In Dickson's case, she admits to having been drinking Heineken beer and shots of Hennessey cognac since the prior afternoon, a period of six or seven hours, a statement supported by witnesses but there is reportedly no record of either her blood alcohol content or that of Gallup's at the time of the incident. Additionally, Dickson says she has no recollection of the incident after Gallup allegedly tried to block her exit from the bar and she acted to protect herself but there are no indications that she was highly intoxicated. There are as to Gallup's extreme intoxication.

The courts have held that a defendant in a high state of intoxication does not possess the mental culpability required for a charge of depraved indifference murder to be lodged so the heightened recklessness required for depraved indifference murder is not present.

However, according to the police and court records, Dickson's attorneys did not pursue that line of defense for Dickson and in fact, according to the court records, did little other than filing the standard motions on her behalf.

Although the Schenectady County public defender's office later filed an appeal with the state Appellate Division on behalf of Dickson on grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel, the appeal was denied.

According to the bartender and bar patrons, David Gallup had been drinking at Casey's Bar since 1 p.m. December 19, 1999, when Dickson entered the bar with her friends about 1:30 a.m., more than 12 hours later.

Despite his highly intoxicated state, Gallup was still being served by the bartender.

Gallup had weeks earlier been fired from the Rotterdam Wal-Mart for having made racial slurs to a fellow employee and according to his brother and police records, had a long history of harassment, domestic violence and alcohol-related arrests. According to a statement given to police, Gallup told one bar patron that he was a "racist".

Robert Carney, Schenectady County district attorney, refused to reply to Freedom of Information Law requests submitted by The North Country Gazette to obtain the reports and records in the Tanika Dickson case although state law requires him to do so and various individuals have reported seeing the Dickson file sitting on a desk in the district attorney's office since the newspaper's FOIL request although the case had been closed for five years.

The Schenectady Police Department, although imposing a delay, was cooperative in providing copies of case records.

According to Dickson and supported by numerous witnesses, Gallup engaged in name calling with Dickson and her friends, hurling racial epithets and insults over the course of an hour and half and as Dickson prepared to leave the bar to go home about 3 a.m. as the bar was closing, Gallup reportedly followed her to the doorway and blocked her path.

Dickson says she has no recollection of what happened next but police say as Gallup advanced towards her, she produced a knife, apparently in an attempt to defend herself against what she perceived to be a threat of harm by Gallup.

Dickson says that Gallup had been moved to the other end of the bar near the Becker St. exit by the bouncer, Arthur "Skip" Daley, after Gallup had initiated a verbal altercation with Dickson, staring at her and calling her a "nigger bitch" but that the bartender had continued to serve Gallup even in his highly intoxicated condition.

Dickson says that after Gallup had been moved and was given more alcohol by the bartender, she told her cousin, Stacy Cridelle, that she was not staying in the bar but going home.

Cridelle gave Dickson the straight knife which had a wooden handle and a two inch blade to carry on her way home after Dickson had indicated she was going to walk home at 3 a.m. through the crime-infested area of Hamilton Hill.

Dickson says she asked the bartender to be let out of the secondary exit away from Gallup but was told no. She says as she proceeded to the Becker St. exit, Gallup got off his stool and stood in her way.

According to Dickson, Paul DeLorenzo, the attorney hired by her family to defend her, told her that it would not be favorable to have Cridelle testify for her due to outstanding warrants that she had at the time.

According to the police reports and court records, Cridelle, also black, was never interviewed and no statement was taken.

Gallup was stabbed in the left side of the neck and according to the autopsy report prepared by noted pathologist Dr. Barbara Wolf, Gallup died of two stab wounds which severed the carotid artery.

Dickson was arrested by former Lt. Michael Hamilton less than an hour after the incident as she exited from a nearby Dunkin Donuts. He returned her to the bar and conducted a highly prejudicial "show up" in which he asked bar patrons to identify Dickson.

According to the witness statements, while a handful of witnesses identified Dickson as having been present at the bar as a patron, virtually no one had actually witnessed the entire incident and could not positively identify Dickson as the assailant. In fact, one witness said she thought Gallup had been shot.

Hamilton was convicted in January, 2002 in U.S. District Court on federal charges for aiding the operation of a crack house in 2000 by tipping off a drug informant that her Schenectady home was under police surveillance. He was released from federal prison this past summer.

Hamilton 's involvement in the case would alone seemingly serve as cause as a basis to reopen and review the case.

The North Country Gazette has also learned that Hamilton at one time lived next door in a Guilderland town house complex to Schenectady police officer Kenneth Hill who had been fired from the police department for using a racial slur, characterizing a black man as a monkey. An arbitrator had reversed the decision and ordered Hill reinstated.

Hill is currently serving a state prison term of two to six years for pleading guilty to felony weapons charge as the result of an off-duty incident in Hamilton Hill when it was alleged he gave a stolen .357 handgun to a drug dealer while allegedly snorting coke at the dealer's residence.

Hill had been a staunch supporter of Hamilton and three other officers from the department who were convicted of federal offenses involving drugs.

Despite numerous witness statements attesting to the verbal assault of Gallup on Dickson and the presence of an extreme emotional disturbance by Dickson as a result of Gallup's racial slurs and actions towards her, Dickson was charged immediately with second degree murder known as depraved indifference murder, a Class A-1 felony where no intent is alleged but rather reckless conduct.

At the time, of the 162 officers in the Schenectady police department, only two were black, according to police department records.

The stabbing had occurred at 3:06 a.m. on December, 20, 1999, and less than 12 hours later, at 2:45 p.m., a deal had already been reached with only a cursory investigation having been conducted by the Schenectady Police Department.

Dickson, still allegedly under the influence of alcohol and in a highly emotional state, had agreed to sign a statement which was part of an agreement reached between attorneys hired by her family to represent her, Paul DeLorenzo and John Polster, and the district attorney's office through DA Robert Carney and assistant district attorney Al Chapleau.

Polster, a long time friend of the late Peter Porco, a law clerk in the Appellate Division, state Supreme Court, is the attorney who was in the hallway outside the interrogation room at the Bethlehem Police Department seeking to represent Porco's son, Christopher who was eventually tried and convicted for the November 2004 axe murder of his father and brutal assault on his mother. Christopher Porco is serving 50 years to life.

The deal provided that if Dickson gave a statement confessing to stabbing Gallup that upon a plea of guilty to second degree murder, she would be sentenced to no more than 15 years to life and the "People may consider allowing me to enter a plea of guilty to manslaughter in the first degree in full satisfaction of any charges arising from the incident discussed in this statement".

Dickson said she was under extreme duress at that time and only signed the confession because she thought she would be allowed to plea to the reduced charge of manslaughter.

But, once the People got their deal in writing, there was never any discussion of a reduced charge, Dickson said and because of that and what she says was the failure of her attorneys to properly advise her of the consequences of signing the confession, she believes that she should be allowed to withdraw her plea.

Dickson said she had been out earlier in the evening with her sister-in-law and had gone to Aquarius at State and Frank Streets where they had had a drink. She went home, made some phone calls and then left to meet her cousin, Cridelle. She said they arrived at Casey's at about 1:30 a.m. entering by the Becker St. entrance, sat down at the bar and ordered.

She saw Christine Hoyt enter the bar and Hoyt sat down next to her. As she talked with Hoyt, Dickson said she felt the man across from her, Gallup, staring at her. At that time, Gallup was sitting near the McClellan Street entrance of the bar.

"I asked him, 'how you doing'. He didn't say anything. I said 'why you looking at me like that? You want to buy me a drink?' He made a body motion like yea, right. Then I said, 'why, cause I'm black?' He didn't answer. He just stared at me. I continued to hold conversation with Chris and was playing the computer game. I happened to look up and saw him still staring at me. I asked him again, 'why are you looking at me like that. You want to buy me a drink?' He replied, 'hell, no'. I asked him again, 'why, because I'm black?'

"Then Chris grabbed my arm", Dickson continued, "and said he just lost his job at Wal-Mart over some racial issues. I asked Chris if he was racist".

She said she went to sing karaoke and then played the computer game again. When she sat down, she said she noticed the man was still staring at her and she asked him why. She said he blew her a kiss, then heard him say "nigger bitch". She said she told him not to call her that again.

Dickson said the bar's owner told her not to "mind him, he's been here since 1 p.m. He asked Gallup to move to the other end of the bar near the Becker St. door and called last call as it was nearly 3 a.m.

She told Cridelle that she was walking home and Cridelle handed her a knife with a wooden handle and told her to take the knife for protection.

She said the bartender wouldn't let her out the McClellan St. exit, the closest exit to where she had been sitting, so she had to go to the Becker St. exit near where Gallup was sitting.

"As I got near the door, the man who had been staring at me blocked my path", Dickson told police in her statement. "I couldn't go around him because there was a pole there. He called me a nigger bitch again. I don't remember what happened. I didn't know what I was doing. I blacked out. I stabbed him more than one time, I'm not sure how many times".

Dickson said that Gallup advanced towards her and she believed he was about to attack her. She raised her right hand which held the knife to defend herself against his advancements. Dr. Wolf said he was stabbed three times in the face and neck with two of the wounds severing his carotid artery.

Dickson said she ran out the Becker St. entrance and went to her cousin's house. She then went to Dunkin Donuts on State and Kelton and as she exited the store, Lt. Hamilton stopped her, placed her in his car and returned her to the bar for a show up.

Gallup was pronounced dead on arrival at Ellis Hospital.

Schenectady police obtained statements from various patrons who had been at Casey's. However, those statements contain conflicting and inconsistent statements with most admitting that they had not seen the actual incident happen.

According to a statement given to police by Kenneth Reckenstire, a friend of Gallup 's, he had been standing next to Gallup at the bar. He said that a black girl, sitting with others four stools away from Gallup , had asked Gallup to buy her a beer. Gallup had said "those fucking niggers, always trying to play off somebody".

Christine Hoyt, an employee at the Rotterdam Wal-Mart where Gallup had been employed had entered the bar and had sat down between Dickson and Gallup at the bar, telling Dickson that she knew Gallup . She said that Gallup had told her that he had just gotten fired from Wal-Mart because he "was a racist".

Hoyt told police that Gallup had made racial remarks toward Dickson, calling her a "nigger".

Virtually all the patrons interviewed agreed that Gallup was highly intoxicated and had initiated the verbal altercation with Dickson.

Daley, the bouncer, told police the "white guy was arguing with the black girl…..calling her a nigger". He said he moved the guy to the Becker St. end of the bar.

"The guy was pretty drunk", Daly said, "he'd been in the bar since 1 p.m.". Daley said he was downstairs when the stabbing occurred and when he came back upstairs, the black girls were gone.

Dickson's mother, Virginia, is highly critical of the legal representation provided her daughter by Polster and DeLorenzo. She says that Polster, a former assistant district attorney, told her he didn't know how to handle such a case because it was so "high profile" and he didn't want to go forward with it.

Polster, who had claimed to be Dickson's attorney throughout the pre-sentence phase of the case, was not present at her sentencing and according to reports, left DeLorenzo's office soon after the Dickson case concluded.

The racial overtones of the case exploded at a proceeding just days before the sentencing with members of Gallup 's family engaging in racial epithets in a confrontation with Dickson's family both inside and outside the courtroom, causing the sentencing hearing to be adjourned.

"There isn't any way we're going to permit racism, racist thoughts or racist expressions or racist slurs to be said by anybody in this courtroom", Judge Eidens told the courtroom spectators at the sentencing after he threatened to remove disruptive spectators from the courtroom and find them in contempt, fine them up to $1,000 or jail them for 30 days.

'This is a serious matter here today", Eidens said at the Sept. 22, 2000, sentencing. "I intend to take it seriously and if somebody here in this courtroom thinks that this is an opportunity for them to misbehave and act out of anger or fear or retribution or racism, they've got the wrong idea. That's not going to occur".

Eidens said that because it was a plea bargained matter in which both the People and defense had consented to a disposition and the court had approved it that he had no discretion to deviate from the "plea-bargained for, agreed-upon sentence".

But Eidens did have discretion as he did not have to approve the deal.

No member of Gallup's family spoke at the sentencing, declining to make a victim's impact statement.

Mrs. Dickson says that Polster told her they could not investigate the crime scene as Dickson's attorneys because the bar owner had "kicked them out".

Although state law requires that in cases where the defendant is incarcerated on a felony charge, the person must be indicted within 45 days of the arrest or be released from jail pending indictment.

But in the Dickson case, the matter was not presented to the Grand Jury until March 2, 2000, over 70 days after the incident. She says that when the family had pressed Polster to move for Dickson's release from jail after the 45 days had passed, he refused saying that he didn't want to do it because the judge would get mad.

From 1989 until 1994, Eidens was the former town justice for the Town of Glenville where Gallup 's brother, William was a police officer and who had presented cases before Eidens.

William Gallup, then a 10-year member of the Glenville Police Department, said his brother had a drinking problem and frequented bars in the predominantly African-American Hamilton Hill area. He said his brother had worked at a Wal-Mart until three weeks previous and had been arrested for incidents related to drinking, usually refusing to leave a bar.

Police reports show that Gallup had a history of arrests for harassment and criminal contempt as well as disorderly conduct and possession of drug paraphernalia.

When questioned why police had never explored the racist aspect of the case, Det. Lt. Jack Falvo said it was irrelevant as far as they were concerned. He knew there was a girl present at the bar who had worked at Wal-Mart but he didn't know her association with the victim or suspect.

In several racial incidents in Saratoga County , district attorney James Murphy III strongly condemned any racist actions regardless of the circumstances.

"Regardless of a person's alleged criminal conduct, there is no excuse for, or no justification for racism. Anytime you begin to blur a line regarding racism, you've reached an immoral ground", Murphy said.

Dickson was indicted for depraved indifference murder and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree.

Eidens refused to allow Dickson's attorneys to review the Grand Jury minutes to determine the sufficiency of the evidence presented to obtain the indictment and denied a motion for a Huntley hearing, a suppression proceeding to challenge the voluntary nature of the statement given less than 12 hours after the incident. He also denied defense's request for additional discovery material, a potential constitutional rights violation and denied the defense request for a bill of particulars, claiming it had already been provided.

Despite the signed confession of Dec. 20, 1999, given in the presence of and consent of her attorneys, Dickson pleaded not guilty at her arraignment on March 6, 2000. She eventually pleaded guilty to the agreement as signed in September, 2000.

Even though Eidens had granted a defense motion for a Wade hearing at which the identification evidence and procedure would have been challenged, at the last moment Polster waived the suppression hearing challenging whether the show up procedure that Hamilton used was overly suggestive and violative of Dickson's rights. If the procedure had been ruled unconstitutional and improper, any statement taken from Dickson would have been a violation of her Fourth Amendment rights and inadmissible.

Was the plea voluntary?

Not according to the statement made at sentencing by Dickson and that by itself may be grounds enough to vacate the plea and reopen the case.

"It wasn't intentional what happened that night", Dickson told Eidens, "It was a tragic accident. It was a combination of alcohol and emotions and distress, I believe on both parties, and I just ask that you have mercy on me and to just look at the whole situation, not just go forth with this plea because for the simple fact of a person's family members being part of the system. I ask that you look at me as an equal individual".

Eidens did not respond to Dickson's statement, immediately sentencing her to 15 years to life. 12-23-06

© 2006 North Country Gazette