On March 27, 1973, the Dead had a day off between gigs at the Baltimore Civic Center and the Springfield Civic Center in Massachusetts. Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter decided to make the trip together by car. With Jerry behind the wheel of a rented late model Chevrolet, New Jersey State Trooper Richard Procahino pulled the duo over for doing 71 in a 60 mph zone.
When Jerry opened his briefcase to get his license, the trooper clearly spied a bag of weed. Trooper Procahino then searched the case and the rest of the vehicle, finding cocaine and LSD. And, despite Jerry being, as the trooper later remarked, “such a nice guy, we hated to bust him,” Procahino did just that.
With nothing on him, Hunter escaped arrest and started making calls to spring Jerry. Eventually, Hunter got in touch with New Jersey promoter John Scher. Scher pulled the two thousand dollars for bail from the safe of the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, which Scher had bought a little over a year earlier. And with that, Jerry made it to the next show. But Jerry still needed to come back to New Jersey, for the trial, which was scheduled for July 30.
So, two days after the legendary show at Watkins Glen, Jerry was at the Cumberland County Courthouse, signing autographs and making friends with court officials. And after his attorney presented an affidavit from a psychologist attesting that Jerry was “a good family man and a creative individual” and not an addict, the court gave Jerry a one-year suspended sentence. Ten minutes after the hearing began, Jerry was free to go. And he once again made his way up the Jersey Turnpike to a Roosevelt Stadium show the following night.
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