Friday, April 7, 2006

Drug War Weapons I have a guest post (in collaboration with Hypatia) over at Glenn Greenwald's Unqualified Offerings: Using the Drug 'War' to Expand Government Power. Check it out. Welcome Glenn Greenwald readers. Naturally, the post just got up today, and already I have more news to add regarding seizure and no-knock searches... Via TalkLeft comes the outrageous story of prosecutors and ATF agents attempting to seize the gold-capped teeth of a couple of drug defendants being held in jail. The agents had gotten a warrant and were on their way to taking the defendants to a dentist before the defense attorneys found out and were able to get a judge to intervene. "I've been doing this for over 30 years and I have never heard of anything like this," said Richard Troberman, past president of the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and an expert on forfeiture law. "It sounds like Nazi Germany when they were removing the gold teeth from the bodies, but at least then they waited until they were dead." Jeralyn at TalkLeft has read the court papers and reacts. The warrant did not authorize the defendants to be removed from the FDC and transported to a dentist. This must have been done by the agents executing the warrant, on their own. No one has explained yet how these defendants were removed from the FDC. An agent can't simply take someone out without proper authorization. This is a mystery.[...] To make this even worse, I'm told by someone with knowledge about the case that at least one of the defendants had the grill placed in his mouth years ago when he was in the Navy, long before he was ever involved in drug trafficking. Radley Balko has, as usual, an outstanding article about no-knock searches. In this particular article, he analyzes the case of Hudon vs. Michigan, which is being considered at the Supreme Court. At issue is whether or not police who used an illegal "no-knock" raid to enter a defendant's home can use the drugs they seized inside against the defendant at trial. This will have some important Fourth Amendment impact. If the Supreme Court rules that drugs seized during an illegal no-knock raid can be admissible, then we'll never be safe in our homes. As it is, legal no-knock searches are authorized. for the flimsiest of excuses. What we really need is a tightening of the definition of exigent circumstances for no-knock searches. 10:10:40 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Goose Creek $1.2 million settlement Via Dare Generation Diary. Great news. There's a settlement in the Goose Creek High School drug raid. A federal judge gave preliminary approval Tuesday to a $1.2 million plan to settle lawsuits filed over a high school drug sweep where police drew their guns. Surveillance videotapes captured the 2003 raid, in which officers ordered students to lie on the floor and used a dog to search them. Police found no drugs and no arrests were made, but the raid provoked marches and the resignation of the school's principal. Fifty-nine students and their families sued the Goose Creek police and the Berkeley County School District, claiming their constitutional rights were violated. Here's some background on the raid, and you can watch actual video footage here A random drug search with dogs and guns drawn and students forced to lie on the floor, racial overtones to the areas searched, and a whole lot more. This was one of the most outrageous things I've ever seen. And it came about because the drug war keeps leading people to believe that they have the right to do anything to American citizens in the name of the war on drugs. The principal and police at Goose Creek forgot that their students were human beings and Americans with rights. If it takes a lawsuit to remind them of that fact, then so be it. And just maybe some other schools will be reminded. 12:02:52 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []