By JIMMY LAWTON

WADDINGTON -- The May tasering of Jessica Cooke by a U.S. Border Patrol officer raised awareness of the fine line between constitutional rights and the exceptions deemed permissible by the Supreme Court.

But it’s not the first time St. Lawrence County border agents have faced legal trouble for questionable practices.

In January 2012, agent Brandon Carrier allegedly conducted an illegal search in the DeKalb area that led to the suppression of evidence in trial involving a Mohawk woman who was busted with 23 pounds of marijuana.

Both incidents involved allegations of racial profiling and searches that appear to be illegal, based on documents obtained by North Country This Week.

The United States Custom’s and Border Patrol also received a legal administrative complaint in 2013 for a Heuvelton incident, after a woman of Mexican descent was allegedly arrested and held for hours following an allegedly illegal traffic stop involving undocumented farmworkers in 2011.

Attorney Alexis Karteron of the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) says both cases, as well as the Cooke incident, are something North Country residents should be concerned about.

“People near the border are subjected to a lot of surveillance when they are going about their daily lives,” she said. “There is a lot to be concerned about and it’s something (the NYCLU) are paying attention to.”

Corene M. Deer

On January 18, 2012, Corene M. Deer, was stopped and busted with 23 pounds of marijuana, but the evidence that was to be used to charge her was suppressed from the trial after a judge deemed the agent made an illegal stop.

According to the document, Agent Brandon Carrier testified that a white SUV drove by slowly and he believed this was slower than some of the other vehicles in that area. The driver had both hands on the steering wheel and was pushed back in the seat, obstructing his view. He stated his opinion that most drivers had either one hand on the wheel or appeared more relaxed if they had two hands on the wheel.

“At this point, he pulled out to follow the vehicle and caught up behind her in his marked car close enough to read the license plate. This was in a rural area, which was dark. He indicated that he had accelerated to come up behind the vehicle. As he was approaching the SUV, he noted that it swerved once distinctly to the left and then corrected. On cross-examination, he admitted he could not recall whether it had been left, then right or right, then left. It did not cross any lines in the road,” the document says.

According to court papers, Carrier then ran a radio check to determine whether the car was stolen. Carrier testified he was informed the vehicle was registered to Corene Deer of Rooseveltown. Carrier said he was aware that some of Rooseveltown was on the Akewesasne Mohawk Reservation and that Deer was a common Mohawk name.

Carrier said he was advised in the radio run that Corene Deer was a known smuggler. However there was no proof regarding the source of the statement in the radio run, the document says.

Despite the lack of reasonable suspicion, Carrier continued to follow the SUV and noticed that it went between 50 and 60 miles per hour.

When the two vehicles came up behind another vehicle, which was moving slowly, the SUV slowed down, drove behind it and did not pass. The SUV followed at 35 mph and when the road split into two lanes, the SUV and the third vehicle went to the right to the slow lane to permit the Border Patrol Vehicle to pass.

Carrier passed the two vehicles and proceeded into the Village of Gouverneur, where he parked in a well-lit parking lot facing on coming traffic and shined his lights directly into oncoming vehicles, the document says.

Carrier said he observed an elderly person in the slow moving vehicle enter the village and the SUV enter behind it, having not passed. He observed a driver and passenger in the SUV and testified that they stared straight ahead as they passed him and did not look at him.

Carrier said he saw no registration sticker on the front windshield of the vehicle. He continued with his testimony by stating that he drew up beside the SUV as it drove through Gouverneur and the two persons in the SUV looked away from him. This would have been toward the stores and restaurants in that village. The two women in a car did not look at the two males who had driven up next to them at night and stared at them. He observed they were speaking at the time.

After the two cars left Gouverneur, Agent Carrier activated his lights and stopped the SUV. He approached the driver’s side of the vehicle and observed the driver was holding the registration, the sticker and her license.

“Here the most that can be said in support of reasonable suspicion is that Agent Carrier thought it was odd or suspicious that the driver was holding the steering wheel with both hands and her arms extended, and that she slowed the car’s speed under circumstances which the officer found surprising,” the judge said in her findings.

“A vehicle stop must be valid at its inception: it cannot be bootstrapped into reasonable suspicion by mounting concerns over diverging explanations from the vehicle occupants as to their intended destination. Notwithstanding the radio information Carrier received from his check with the Swanton Sector control, he did not have particularized suspicion that this vehicle had violated vehicle and traffic law or that the occupants were engaged in a crime.”

“This was mere speculation and guesswork on his part. His candid testimony that the occupants looked like Mohawks and that one had what Carrier believed is a Mohawk name, and that the car was listed for an address near the Mohawk Indian reservation bordered on improper racial profiling,” she said in her conclusion.

“The factors about which Carrier testified did not collectively, even under a totality of circumstances analysis, rise to the level of reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. Nor were those factors sufficient to meet the even more rigorous requirements for a permissible suspicionless patrol stop, because there was no testimony about established procedures for such stops or that such procedures were followed in this case.”

Lucia Rogers

In March 2013, the NYCLU challenged what it called an unlawful arrest of Lucia Rogers, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Mexican descent, who was pulled over, arrested and detained for several hours by border patrol agents even though she apparently committed no crime. While the complaint was eventually dropped, Karteron, who was associated with case, says it was not because the NYCLU believes Roger’s rights weren’t violated.

“Because of attorney-client privilege we can’t talk about the specifics of why it was dropped,” she said. “We do think she was stopped because of racial profiling.”

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol offered the following comment regarding the case.

"While CBP does not discuss specific cases, any administrative claims under the Federal Tort Claim Act follow policy and procedures within the guidelines of the law, and adhere to strict timelines. Cases are closed if the appeal or claim filings are not received within the allotted timeframes by those who have initially filed the FTCA claim."

In a document issued by the Benjamin Cardozo Law School and the NYCLU, an administrative complaint “pursuant to the Federal Torts Claims Act” was issued to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency on behalf of Rogers.

The claim says that on Dec. 28, 2011, Rogers was driving toward the U.S.-Canada border near Heuvelton, while transporting two Latino farmworkers to dentist appointments, when she was stopped by a CBP employee referred to as Agent Crawford for a “citizenship check-up.”

At the time, Rogers apparently worked for a regional health care network, providing transportation and interpretation services to Spanish-speaking farmworkers who need medical treatment or consultation.

The complaint says that “without any basis,” Rogers was charged and taken into custody where she was detained for several hours.

“She was observing all traffic laws when she passed a Border Patrol agent who was parked on the roadside. The agent started pursuing Ms. Rogers, following her for one to three minutes before pulling her over. When the agent approached her driver’s side window, he told Lucy that he was conducting a ‘citizenship checkup’ and asked her and her passengers whether they were U.S. citizens,” an article regarding the incident published by the NYCLU says.

“Ms. Rogers provided the agent with her New York State drivers’ license. Because the two farmworkers traveling with Lucy were unable to immediately provide proof of their immigration status, Lucy was arrested and searched, under the suspicion that she was trafficking undocumented immigrants in an attempt to escape inspection upon entry into the country.”

However, the NYCLU says Rogers was not aware that her passengers were undocumented, because she is not in the practice of inquiring about the immigration status of her clients.

Rogers was then apparently handcuffed and detained in the back of a CBP patrol car for about an hour and was later taken to the U.S. Border Patrol station at Ogdensburg where she was searched, interrogated and placed in a cell for several hours.

The document alleges that Rogers was denied a phone call and states that agents lied to her husband when he asked if she was in custody.

Border Patrol agents allegedly confiscated her car’s GPS device and are accused of coercing Rogers into allowing them to keep and search it, the document says. Rogers spent more than three hours in custody, but was never charged with any crime. The Border Patrol retained possession of her GPS device for more than seven months before allowing her to retrieve it, despite multiple attempts made by Rogers to retrieve it, the document says.

The administrative complaint says Rogers now feels fear and panic when she passes a CBP vehicle.

“Now Ms. Rogers avoids the road where she was detained, knowing that even though she was not breaking the law in anyway, CBP agents in that area act with impunity and may stop her simply because of the color of her skin.”

The filing requested $210,000 in damages. It is unknown if she received any money.

Jessica Cooke

The U.S. Border Patrol is apparently still investigating the May 7 incident involving the use of a Taser on an Ogdensburg woman at a checkpoint in Waddington.

Jessica Cooke, 21, said she was pulled in for a secondary inspection after agents said she appeared nervous at the checkpoint. Cooke said she refused a search of her trunk and was asked to wait for a K-9 Unit to arrive.

A conversation with agents escalated and Cooke was tackled and Tased after she resisted an agent who had grabbed her after she refused to comply with a request for her to move.

The names of agents involved have not been released.

“Due to the privacy act and that this incident is under investigation, I am unable to release the names of anyone involved in this incident,” an emailed response from the agency said.

The scuffle was caught on video and Cooke has since hired Ameer Benno, of Benno & Associates P.C, to file a suit against the Swanton Sector agents.

Details on the alleged suit are unavailable as Cooke has directed questions to her attorney who has not been available for comment. The U.S. Border Patrol said there are no updates regarding the investigation, which is still ungoing.