Privacy issue
raised in drug case

By Debra Barayuga
Star-Bulletin

A woman arrested on drug charges contends that a videotape of her on a Chinatown sidewalk should be tossed out of court.

Shannon Lea Richmond said the videotape of her wielding a drug pipe violates her constitutional right to privacy.

The arrest was made during a video-monitoring program established last year in Downtown-Chinatown to help curb illegal activities, mostly drug trafficking and prostitution.

"It's such a highly intrusive mechanism police are using," said deputy public defender Lee Hayakawa.

Hayakawa filed the motion in Circuit Court. Richmond is charged with possession of drug paraphernalia and dangerous drugs.

The camera was located about 120 feet from where Richmond was sitting on a sidewalk fronting a club on North Hotel Street on Jan. 17. Zooming in on Richmond made it appear as though she was only five or six feet away from the camera, Hayakawa said.

Richmond was looking around and moving her hand in an up-down motion as though she was cleaning or scraping a pipe, officer Kristin Killam testified yesterday. When she zoomed the camera in on Richmond, she was able to confirm the object was a pipe.

Fourteen video surveillance cameras were set up in high crime areas expressly for law enforcement purposes, said Deputy Prosecutor Mark Nugent. The state says Richmond was in a public area and in public view of the cameras.

In a similar case last year, a Circuit Court judge found that videotaped evidence did not violate a man's constitutional rights but did not allow the tape as evidence because there were no laws authorizing it.

City prosecutors have since appealed the court's decision.

The City Council passed an ordinance last October that tried to balance the public's right to privacy and the police's efforts to enforce the law.

The cameras cannot videotape homes, businesses or cars, Nugent said. Public streets, sidewalks and any area owned by the city or private entities that are open to the public can be monitored.

Anyone who conducts illegal activity on a public sidewalk has no expectation of privacy, based on the ordinance, said police Capt. Paul Epstein who oversees the video monitoring program.