Woman alleging civil rights were violated wins her case

An African American woman who said two white detectives violated her civil rights by forcing her from her Southwest Philadelphia home and improperly arresting her on disorderly conduct charges in March was found not guilty Tuesday.

Nicol Newman, 48, a social worker, wept after a Municipal Court judge granted her lawyer's request for an acquittal before he could call a single witness in the 25-minute nonjury trial.

Even as he pronounced Newman not guilty, Judge William A. Meehan implied that she could have been convicted of another crime. After he announced his ruling, he looked at Newman and said, "They charged you with the wrong one."

Newman and her lawyer, Michael Coard, had contended that her treatment at the hands of the police was akin to indignities experienced by African Americans at the hands of white police officers across the nation.

"At a certain point, we've got to stand up to cops," Coard said to Newman and her supporters - including members of the local chapter of Black Lives Matter - outside the courtroom.

Minister Rodney Muhammad, president of the Philadelphia chapter of the NAACP, who was on hand for the trial, echoed Coard's statement.

"This verdict says the police have to be a lot more careful with citizens," he said. What happened to Newman "is the kind of humiliation people go through every day."

On March 9, two detectives went to Newman's house to arrest her son John on theft charges.

Because her son was not home and police did not have a search warrant, Newman did not allow the detectives inside.

During testimony Tuesday, Detective Timothy McCool of Southwest Detectives said he knocked on Newman's door in an effort to arrest her son.

He said Newman told him he needed a search warrant. He said the arrest warrant was sufficient basis to conduct a search.

Newman began yelling and braced herself in the doorway by blocking it with her body and her right arm, McCool said.

"She's yelling at me and a small crowd was gathering" outside the house, the detective said.

McCool then placed a handcuff on Newman's right hand as she stood in the doorway, and eventually led her away.

Conducting a brief cross-examination, Coard asked McCool whether the entire event occurred "while she was in her house."

McCool said, "Correct."

Coard was attempting to show, he later explained, that the arrest was improper because a person cannot properly be charged with disorderly conduct in her own home and not in public.

Coard immediately asked Meehan for a judgment of acquittal. Meehan granted it, and the trial abruptly ended.

Afterward, Coard said that while Meehan had implied Newman could have been charged with a different crime, he was at a loss as to which one.

A spokesman for the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office declined to discuss the case, other than to say that prosecutors respected the judge's decision.

Newman, for her part, was relieved.

"I'm still angry," she said. "I don't like fights and I don't pick fights."

Gesturing toward Coard, she said with tears in her eyes: "Thank God for him."

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