If you call them "spy satellites" instead of "GPS", requiring a government warrant to use them against private citizens seems more obvious. (Illustration: Garmin.com)

In a rare victory for fans of the Fourth Amendment, the Supreme Court unanimously decided today that the police need to have a search warrant before they can place a GPS device on your car to track your movements, even if your car is parked on public property when the device is attached.  The Obama Administration had argued that GPS devices are common tools of law enforcement and not unlike “beepers” that the court had allowed warrantless use of in a 1983 decision called United States v. Knotts.  Surprisingly, even though the case in question involved a cocaine trafficker alleged to have moved 97 kilos and $850,000, the justices decided the Obama Administration’s position was wrong.

In this case (decision here) a nightclub owner named Jones was suspected of running cocaine.  District of Columbia police ran surveillance on Jones and based on evidence, applied and received a warrant to place a GPS tracking device on Jones’ Jeep Grand Cherokee.  The limit on that warrant was to place the device within ten days while the Jeep was parked in DC.  Cops, however, placed the GPS on Jones’ Jeep on day 11 and while it was in nearby Maryland, not DC.

At trial, Jones moved to have the GPS data ruled inadmissable.  The District Court, in large part, disagreed, ruling:

“‘[a] person traveling in an automobile on public thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements from one place to another.’ ” Ibid. (quoting United States v. Knotts, 460 U. S. 276, 281 (1983)).

The Court of Appeals disagreed, saying the warrantless GPS tracking was a 4th Amendment violation.  The Supreme Court agreed.

What I found surprising in the unanimous opinion, authored by Justice Scalia of all people, is that the court used the exact logic I used in 2010 when describing a horrible 2010 9th Circuit Court ruling in the case of Oregon’s Juan Pineda-Romero that approved the use of a warrantless GPS device placed on the man’s car while it was parked on his private property.  In a fantasy time-machine scenario where I try to explain the 9th Circuit ruling to the Founding Fathers, I wrote:

It’s hard to explain, but imagine that everywhere you went, there was a government clerk going with you, cataloging every location you visit and every route you took to get there and every time of the day you went.  Then imagine the government clerk never sleeps and is invisible and you can’t possibly detect him in any way.  And that the government can assign that clerk to you without your knowledge and without a court determining that there’s a reasonable chance you’re breaking the law.

So imagine my glee when I read Justice Scalia’s footnote #3:

JUSTICE ALITO’s concurrence (hereinafter concurrence) doubts the wisdom of our approach because “it is almost impossible to think of late-18th-century situations that are analogous to what took place inthis case.”… But in fact it posits a situation that is not far afield—a constable’s concealing himself in the target’s coach in order to track its movements…. There is no doubt that the information gained by that trespassory activity would be the product of an unlawful search—whether that information consisted of the conversations occurring in the coach, or of the destinations to which the coach traveled.

Before…

Click here to view the embedded video.

With apologies to Keith Olbermann…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Earlier this week, the US Supreme Court ruled that all cops need to break down a citizen’s door is the smell of burning marijuana and the sound of somebody moving.

Following that ruling, news broke yesterday of the Indiana Supreme Court ruling 3-2 in Barnes v. Indiana that even if they don’t have that tenuous legal standing to break down your door, even if the police intrusion into your home is 100% illegal, citizens have no right to resist the intrusion.

(Front Page Mag) The case involved a domestic dispute and the Court ruled 3-2 that police can force their way into a person’s home without a warrant if they deem such entry is necessary. Writing for the majority, Justice Steven David said that “a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. We also find that allowing resistance unnecessarily escalates the level of violence and therefore the risk of injuries to all parties involved without preventing the arrest.”

While noting that the right to resist unlawful police action “existed for over three hundred years” and possibly as far back as the “Magna Carta in 1215,” the Court cited numerous precedents, one of which was the contention that, in the 1920s, “legal scholarship began criticizing the [Fourth Amendment] as valuing individual liberty over physical security of the officers,” noting that such resistance in earlier times “did not involve the serious dangers it presents today.” The Supreme Court contended that the Appeals Court was wrong when “it ultimately focused on the heightened expectation of privacy in one‘s home” instead of those dangers. Furthermore, the Court ruled that the defendant had other legal remedies to address the officer’s unlawfulness, including “bail.. prompt arraignment and determination of probable cause..the exclusionary rule…police department internal review and disciplinary procedure…and civil remedies.”

After the cops break down your door in the middle of the night on the hunch you might be a criminal, with no warrant, probable cause, or knocking, you can ask the police department to internally review the situation – certainly they will be fair and unbiased.  After the cops illegally enter your home and shoot your dog as it instinctually defends its territory, the police’s internal review can issue disciplinary procedures against the dog killer, like administrative leave without pay.  Once you’ve been rousted from your slumber and your family terrorized, your wife can try to arrange a 3am bail bond paid by the enormous bankroll you keep on hand as the 4am shift supervisor at an IHOP.  After you’ve not been able to afford bail and lost your job waiting around in a cell all weekend for that prompt arraignment to determine probable cause, your public defender can use the exclusionary rule to squelch any evidence found in the illegal search, assuming they actually found something illegal.  Finally, after you’ve been freed to your new life of unemployment and homelessness, you can pursue a civil remedy by suing the cops who violated your rights, because plenty of lawyers will work for you for free.

At least two justices dissented, recognizing that the 4th Amendment doesn’t have an “unless people might get hurt” clause:

Justices Brent Dickson and Robert Rucker dissented from the decision, with Dickson stating that “the wholesale abrogation of the historic right of a person to reasonably resist unlawful police entry into his dwelling is unwarranted and unnecessarily broad,” insisting that the Court could have taken “a more narrow approach, construing the right to resist unlawful police entry, which extends only to reasonable resistance, by deeming unreasonable a person’s resistance to police entry in the course of investigating reports of domestic violence.” Justice Rucker who called the decision a “breathtaking” erosion of the Fourth Amendment, contended there is is “simply no reason to abrogate the common law right of a citizen to resist the unlawful police entry into his or her home.”

Here’s what the majority in this case and the majority in the Kentucky v. King case fail to consider: many of us live in places where police may not be the only ones who want to break down our doors and terrorize us.  Some of us live in neighborhoods where you don’t bother calling 911 after dark because they won’t come.  It’s bad enough that I can’t seem to train my dog to bark aggressively at thugs breaking down the door but sit obediently for cops doing the same.  Now we both have to sit obediently when anyone breaks down the door claiming to be police.  How do I know in that split second waking up to a ruckus in my home at 3am that the black clad flashlight-pointing men are actual police breaking in legally, actual police breaking in illegally, or smart thugs who yell “police” when they are breaking in illegally so I won’t fight back?

While some police departments in Indiana have asserted this won’t at all change how they go about their investigations, there is one Indiana Sheriff Don Hartman Sr. who can’t wait to begin random door-to-door searches.

(Mike Church Show) CROWN POINT, Ind. – According to Newton County Sheriff, Don Hartman Sr., random house to house searches are now possible and could be helpful following the Barnes v. STATE of INDIANA Supreme Court ruling issued on May 12^th, 2011. When asked three separate times due to the astounding callousness as it relates to trampling the inherent natural rights of Americans, he emphatically indicated that he would use random house to house checks, adding he felt people will welcome random searches if it means capturing a criminal.

Speaking under the condition of anonymity, a local city Police Chief with 30 years experience in law enforcement directly contradicted the Newton County Sheriff’s blatant disregard for privacy & liberty, stating that as an American first, such an action is unconscionable and that his allegiance is to the Indiana and federal Constitutions respectively. However, he also concurred that the ruling does now allow for police to randomly search homes should a department be under order by state or federal officials or under a department’s own accord.

Most people have only a hazy understanding of their civil rights and maybe only a few can even bullet-point them as “Free Speech!”, “Freedom of Religion!”, and “Right to Bear Arms!”.  But one of those bullet points nearly every American will feel in his gut, even if it’s not an exact summary of the 4th Amendment, is “A Man’s Home is His Castle”.  But now, this Indiana ruling disarms the parapets.  The Supreme Court ruling lowers the drawbridge and invites in the king’s constables.  Earlier rulings about drug-sniffing dogs and infra-red scanning technologies tear down the castle walls.  Rulings on GPS tracking technology and drug testing place the king’s agents in supervisory positions over us 24 hours a day, surveilling and recording our every movement and consumption.  A man’s home is no more than his fish bowl.

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1. MillerCoors employee, medical marijuana patient, denied unemployment benefits because of positive drug test for marijuana
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• 4th Amendment R.I.P. – Recent SCOTUS Decisions

(Nanaimo Daily News) VANCOUVER – Len Gratto says there’s no way he is paying a $5,200 fine to Mission, B.C., for growing cucumbers in his basement.

How is it that our Canadian cucumber cultivating friends are being fined for growing a legal plant in their basements?  Because our neighbors to the north have adopted “grow op bylaws” to combat the conversion of residential properties into marijuana grow houses.  These laws make me very happy we still have enough of our 4th Amendment here in America that we don’t have mandatory inspections by the electric company.

In a move that could potentially alter the landscape of drug enforcement in B.C., the B.C. Civil Liberties Association says it will join the battle against Mission, widening the focus into a region-wide challenge to “home grow-op bylaws.”

Grow-op bylaw programs, which are based on provincial legislation, allow municipal inspectors to enter homes with abnormally high hydro[-electric] usage – about 93 kilowatts per day or more – and look for evidence of illegal marijuana grow-ops for public safety reasons.

Inspectors don’t have to find grow-ops, but if they find residual evidence, such as high mould readings, they levy search fees and order repairs. If homeowners don’t comply, homes are tagged under the bylaw and effectively condemned as unsafe, and unsellable.

According to proponents, the bylaws have been phenomenally successful in driving pot production out of B.C.’s Lower Mainland.

Well, sure, if you allow inspectors to run roughshod through people’s homes you’re going to drive out grow houses.  The problem is that you also impact a lot of innocent people like the cucumber grower.  The report explain how there were 362 searches but only 177 of those found to be breaking the law.  More than half of those cases, then, involved someone who simply used a lot of electricity.  Those people have to deal with the embarrassment of being searched and the whispers of neighbors.

Oh, the lengths to which governments will go to avoid taking the simple and sensible step of legalization of cannabis…

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Wow!  I just received a fax from McGraw Hill, the people who make college textbooks, among other publishing.  They happened on a piece I wrote for The Oregon Herald on 4/20/2005 (just two weeks before I met Madeline Martinez and started my career in marijuana law reform) entitled “Drug Testing Does No Good” and are asking my permission to reprint it in a college textbook entitled “Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Management” that will be published in August.  Yours truly even receives a fee!  For something I wrote and forgot about four years ago!  (Ain’t the intertubes wonderful?)

Here it is for your reading pleasure…

Recently, an RV manufacturing plant in Goshen, Indiana, made headlines because they had drug tested all 120 of their employees and found that nearly a third of them tested positive for some illicit substance.

What caused the company to drug test all of their employees? Was there a rash of accidents? Had productivity dropped significantly? Were there increasing incidents of absenteeism and illness? Did a supervisor notice any drug use occurring at the plant, or notice an employee obviously under the influence of drugs?

No. The only reason the plant spent the time, effort, and money to test their employees was due to a police tip that there was a drug problem at the plant. In other words, there was no reason for the company to believe they had a drug problem.

You would think that running a manufacturing plant with one third of your employees working under the influence would lead to some obvious problems. You’d be right. The problem is that a positive drug test does not indicate that a person is under the influence of drugs. It only indicates that a person has done drugs in the past.

The methods of drug testing have evolved over the past decade. Once, businesses, schools, and government could only test a person’s urine. These tests are so easily defeated that the tests only detect whether you’re too dumb to fool the test. But new methods of testing the blood, saliva, and hair have made fooling a drug test much harder.

With the urine test, evidence of past use of cocaine, amphetamines, and other hard drugs can be detected for up to 48 hours after use. Thus, a worker testing positive for these drugs could have ingested these substances on a Friday evening and be completely sober for work on Monday. Likewise, a person seeking a new job need only abstain from these substances for three days.

Ironically, the one drug with the lowest potential for abuse and harm, marijuana, remains detectable in a person’s urine for 14 to 45 days. It is odd to consider that for two employees passing a urine test, one may have been abstaining from smoking pot all of last month while the other may have been smoking crack all of last month up until three days ago.

The newer testing does a better job of detecting drug use; some tests can indicate the use of any illicit substance for up to three months prior to the test. However, all that means is that problem drug users who wish to go straight and re-enter the workforce have a longer wait before they can apply for work. Without gainful employment, how much harder is it for a recovering addict to stay sober?

There must be a good reason for American businesses spending up to $1 billion dollars per year on drug testing. One of the usual reasons for this expenditure is workforce productivity.

However, when independent researchers analyzed the statistics on drug testing and productivity, they found some surprising results. According to The Committee on Drug Use in the Workplace (CDUW) assembled by the government’s own National Institute of Drug Abuse, “The empirical results suggest that drug testing programs do not succeed in improving productivity. Surprisingly, companies adopting drug testing programs are found to exhibit lower levels of productivity than their counterparts that do not.”

How could a company actually lose productivity by drug testing workers? CDUW suggests four possible reasons:

1) Drug testing is expensive. Tests cost around $50 per worker. A congressional committee estimated that the cost of each positive result in government testing was $77,000 because the positive rate was only 0.5%. Then there’s the costs of administration, medical review, follow-up tests for positive results, treatment or discipline for the worker, or searching, hiring, and training a new worker.

2) Drug testing lowers employee morale. An overwhelming majority of workers find drug testing to be an invasion of privacy. They consider drug testing unfair when it is only detecting prior use, not current impairment. They find it profoundly unfair that these tests do not consider the abuse of alcohol, which is a more significant factor in workplace safety and productivity. The lowered morale causes employees to show less loyalty to a company, not work as hard, and good workers may seek other jobs with non-drug testing firms.

3) Drug use may actually increase productivity for some people. The CDUW found that moderate use of drugs or alcohol had either a positive effect or no effect on worker productivity. Numerous studies have found that moderate marijuana use actually increased productivity. Furthermore, marijuana users who are treating pain, cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, arthritis, migraines, or even depression are much more productive than they would be without treatment.

4) Drug testing may lead marijuana smokers (by far the largest segment of the drug using population) to using harder drugs. Since most workplaces still choose the cheaper urine testing over the other tests, marijuana smokers may instead use harder drugs or alcohol, all of which are flushed quickly from the system. Marijuana’s low addictiveness allows a casual user to remain healthy and productive, while the high addictiveness of the harder drugs make it more likely for the person to slip from casual use to the severe abuse that causes the illness, absenteeism, safety risks, and low productivity the drug tests were meant to alleviate in the first place.

Another excuse offered for drug testing is workplace safety. We don’t want to have drug-impaired workers operating heavy machinery, public transportation, or any other industry where safety is of paramount concern. Of course, this reasoning falls flat when we recall that drug testing does not detect impairment. But perhaps one could assume that someone who has used drugs in the past may be more likely to use them on the job and endanger fellow employees and the public.

Unfortunately, the data do not support that assumption. Many companies have used some form of impairment testing, a system that does not test for drugs, but rather hand-eye coordination, concentration, and reaction times. Those companies that have used these systems have found that severe fatigue and illness, not drug or alcohol use, are the most common causes of workplace accidents.

One added advantage of these tests is that they do reduce the level of workplace accidents. Workers are much more accepting of impairment tests, as they do not violate privacy and are perceived to be fairer than drug testing. Plus, the impairment tests are much cheaper to administer and they actually detect the problem that drug testing does not — worker impairment.

The final nail in the coffin of any workplace drug testing argument is the fact that casual drug users (once per week or less) are just as likely to find employment and hold down a job as their non-drug using counterparts. Our drug testing regime has not kept casual drug users out of the workplace at all, and those users are not adversely affecting productivity, safety, or their own career goals.

Businesses and government aren’t the only entities routinely testing for drugs. Our schools are now testing our children for evidence of illicit drug use. In a series of controversial rulings, the Supreme Court has steadily added to the number of our children being drug tested.

First they allowed students to be tested for cause; if a student was suspected of using or possessing drugs on campus, he or she could be tested. Next they ruled that students involved with extracurricular athletics could be tested randomly, citing the need for safety in potentially dangerous sports activities.

Most recently, the justices have decided that students in any extracurricular activity, from band to chess club, could be tested randomly. Justice Clarence Thomas expressed the opinion of the slim 5-4 majority stating that children involved in after-school activities voluntarily give up some of their rights to privacy.

Many of the same issues of safety and productivity are raised in support of drug testing students, and they are met with the same evidence found in the workplace: no significant differences in accidents or performance are found between schools that drug test and those that do not, nor between students who pass drug tests and those who fail.

However, with the student population there are other arguments that are stated: we need to send a message to students that drug use will not be tolerated and we need to provide incentives for students stop using drugs.

This argument also falls flat when confronted with the evidence. A federally-funded study in 2003 of over 76,000 students in almost 900 schools found no correlation between drug testing and student drug use. Kids were just as likely to use drugs at the drug testing schools as the non-drug testing schools.

Moreover, just as workplace drug testing has the unintended consequence of lowering morale and productivity, school drug testing has its unintended consequences. Kids who might be falling in with the wrong crowd are discouraged from joining the after-school sports or clubs that would provide a healthier environment. Kids already enrolled in extra-curricular activities must sacrifice their privacy and discover that their word and their achievements are not trusted.

Of course, like workplace drug testing, there’s the added expense of operating such a program, a cost that weighs heavily against chronically insufficient school budgets. The cost of one positive drug test result could have bought new instruments for the band, computers for the classroom, or equipment for the team.

Further compounding the futility of all drug testing is the fact that there is no perfect drug test. Every test gives a significant amount of false-positives and false-negatives. Many common over-the-counter medications can show up as an illicit drug. Cold tablets containing pseudoephedrine may be detected as amphetamines (speed). Cold remedies with dextromethorphan can register positive for opiates (heroin). Naproxen/ibuprofen-based pain relievers give positives for cannabis (marijuana). Nasal sprays sometimes indicate for MDMA (ecstasy).

Even some common foods can cause a failed drug test. Poppy seeds that you ingest from muffins or bagels can register as heroin. Large amounts of riboflavin (vitamin B-2) and perfectly legal (and incredibly healthy) hemp seed oil can register as marijuana.

Then of course there are many prescription drugs that can lead to a false positive. Amoxicillin, the antibiotic most prescribed for those allergic to penicillin, can show up as cocaine. Many asthma medications register as ecstasy or amphetamines. Even in the absence of these pharmaceuticals, some medical conditions can register a false positive. Kidney infection, liver disease, and diabetes can all lead to false positives for cocaine, ecstasy, opiates, or amphetamines.

Worst of all, you may fail a drug test through no fault of your own. A small fraction of people excrete larger amounts of certain enzymes in their urine that may produce a false positive. One researcher hypothesizes that the higher levels of melanin (the pigment producing cell) found in darker-skinned people may lead to positives for marijuana, because melanin and THC metabolites share a similar molecular structure.

For every false positive there is a person who has suffered the indignity of the accusation, the suspicion of family, co-workers, and friends, the threat of job loss or school suspension, and the burden of proving themselves innocent of a crime they did not commit. For every false negative there is the time, money, and effort wasted failing to discover someone who is actually using drugs.

But beyond the obvious futility and waste involved, there is one superseding argument against drug testing: it is un-American.

Our Founding Fathers laid out our basic liberties in the Bill of Rights. Drug testing violates at least two of our most sacred liberties.

Our 5th Amendment lays out two basic legal concepts: that we cannot be compelled to testify against ourselves and that we are innocent until proven guilty. Drug testing assumes that you are guilty until your body proves you to be innocent. Being compelled to provide urine, hair, saliva, or blood is a testimony against yourself. The Founders were clearly against compelling the citizenry toward self-incrimination; they had seen the results of tyrants using these techniques throughout history. It’s a shame our courts haven’t been as wise.

Our 4th Amendment is the basis for our right to privacy and freedom from government investigations and seizures without warrant and probable cause. Drug testing is certainly an invasion of privacy; it’s hard to imagine how a stranger watching you urinate isn’t an invasion of privacy. If there is no probable cause to believe you have committed a crime, there is no good reason to seize your bodily fluids.

Sadly, courts have decided that going to work or school is a voluntary activity, that you exchange some of your expectation to privacy in getting a job or an education, and that employers and educators are not the police or government. It’s hard for me to imagine how work or education is truly voluntary; I guess that homelessness and ignorance are a viable choice in their minds; a choice I think would lead to more drug abuse, not less.

For many people, there is no choice but to swallow their pride, surrender their rights, face the embarrassment, risk the false positive, and take the drug test. Almost half of all employers perform some sort of drug testing. The farther down the socio-economic scale, the more likely a worker will face a pre-employment drug test. Around 36% of financial, business, and professional services test their new hires, compared to more than three-fourths of manufacturing and more than 60% of wholesale, retail, and other services. Yet rates of illicit drug use remain fairly constant among all segments of society.

The cash-strapped schools are less likely to be testing for drugs. In 2003, some 19% of schools had drug testing for cause, only 5% tested student-athletes, and only 4% tested participants in all extra-curricular activities. But for the student at these schools, unlike the worker, attendance is compulsory and there aren’t many other options available. Their choices are to either avoid all extracurricular activities (which can be determining factors in college selection and future career) or suffer the same risks and indignities as their parents in the workforce.

Drug testing is but one of the many failures in our government’s war on casual drug users, and its failure to achieve its stated goals is one of the easiest to prove. Fortunately, many companies are coming to recognize this fact — rates of workplace and school drug testing have declined steadily since 1990. But there remains a federal government with a strong inclination toward abrogating the rights of citizens to look “tough on crime”, and many industries that stand to gain from increased drug testing.

Personally, I just try to imagine what possible argument could have convinced hemp farmers Thomas Jefferson and George Washington to pee in a cup in order to get a job.

A UF student was arrested Monday and charged with six drug–related felonies after officials found marijuana, crack cocaine and prescription drugs in his possession. At about 11 p.m., an Alachua County Sheriff’s officer saw David Janson, 23, standing on the corner near 4500 S.W. 91st St. According to the ASO arrest report, when Janson saw the ASO officer, he showed signs of nervousness by walking away and looking over his shoulder to see if he was being followed.

When the officer approached Janson, he found a multicolored glass pipe in his front pocket, which Janson admitted to recently smoking marijuana out of, the report stated. Janson told the officer that he had prescription medication, marijuana and other narcotics in his apartment.

After Janson signed a Voluntary Consent to Search Form, the officer searched his apartment and found marijuana, a straw, cocaine and prescription pills. He was charged with five misdemeanors and six felonies.

“Wait, officers, I’m not through!  I also cheated on my taxes from 2005-2007!  When I was 15 I sneaked into an R-rated movie!  Yesterday, I shoplifted a Zagnut bar from the Piggly Wiggly!  I also ripped off all the tags on my pillows and mattresses, in violation of federal law!  Isn’t there anything else you can charge me with?”

OK, to start with, standing on the corner alone at night isn’t a crime.  Don’t be nervous.  People who aren’t committing crimes aren’t nervous around police officers.  They look at them driving by.  Sometimes they wave.

Still, the cop might stop to talk to you.  You don’t have to answer his questions and at any time you can say, Am I being officially detained? Because I need to be going now. If he insists on keeping you there, then you have a right to ask, Can you tell me why I’m being detained? His answer could be useful to your lawyer later.

But if he does detain you (let your lawyer worry about whether he had the right to), he does have the right to pat you down to make sure you’re not armed. A glass pipe in your pocket will definitely feel suspicious… and that moment, right there, when that cop’s hand touches your pipe through your clothing is the moment when you steadfastly observe your right to remain silent and immediately ask to speak with your attorney (you know, the one from the NORML Legal Committee* whose name, phone number, and address you have written down and keep in your wallet or purse at all times?)

“Empty your pockets!”  I’m sorry, officer, but I do not consent to any searches and I wish to speak with my attorney. If he’s going to arrest you and search through your pockets, fine, just don’t resist or say anything.

“You been smokin’ outta this pipe?”  I’m sorry, officer, but I can’t answer any questions until my attorney is present.

Had David Janson just done that, he’d be looking at misdemeanor paraphernalia possession, and at most would’ve led to 1 year, $1,000 fine, and 6 months – 2 years driver’s license suspension.  Did Janson become convinced that admitting to marijuana smoking from the pipe, admitting to possession of marijuana, cocaine, and pharmaceuticals back home and allowing the police to go in and find them, that was somehow going to make them say, “Hey, kid, sorry about the pipe thing.  At least you were honest.  We’ll just take these drugs away and leave you be.  Have a nice day!”

I know it’s tough.  Police are well-trained to fool you into giving up your legal rights and making a prosecutor’s job easy.  Check out the Busted video from FlexYourRights.org for helpful training on how to deal with police encounters.

*My lawyer (if’n I ever need one) is John Lucy IV, the proprietor of Law420.com.  He has the most genius business card in the world.  Front side: your rights, back side: his contact info.  Except it’s not a business card, it’s a printed Bic lighter.  What stoner is ever going to be without his lighter?  We call ‘em “Lucy Lighters” in Portland and give them out at all our meetings.  Note to NORML Chapters: what a great way to advertise!

John also says, “The more you say, the more you pay.”  If you get arrested, STFU.  Nothing you can say to a cop will make things any better and anything you say will probably make your situation worse.  Your lawyer can say things to a judge that will make things better, but not if you’ve given the prosecutor better things to say to the judge.

For many years, the Supreme Court has permitted police to search the passenger compartment of a vehicle any time an occupant of the car is arrested. These so-called “searches incident to arrest” were authorized in New York v. Belton (1981) based in large part on concerns about officer safety, namely that the suspect might dive for a weapon hidden in the car. As a result, police have grown accustomed to searching vehicles for “safety reasons” even after the suspect has been taken into custody. This doesn’t protect officers, but it certainly encourages police to make more arrests so they can do more searches.

Well, that’s finally going to change. The Supreme Court ruled today in Arizona v. Gant that vehicle searches following an arrest are legal only if the suspect has access to the vehicle or if officers reasonably believe the vehicle contains evidence related to that arrest. In other words, police are now required to have an actual reason to justify the vehicle search, instead of being allowed to do it automatically. This decision restores some much needed logic and common sense to the way many warrantless vehicle searches are analyzed under the 4th Amendment.

This is a huge decision for curbing the “fishing expeditions” by law enforcement who pull over “suspects” (likely to be of darken complexion in nice cars or youngsters sporting Grateful Dead stickers on their VW bus) on minor traffic violations as a pretext for searching the car for marijuana or drugs.  Police will still be able to search with probable cause, certainly the smell of marijuana or it lying inside the car “in plain view” will get your car looked at.  There is still no protection from the unscientific use and mis-use of K-9 units to manufacture a probable cause.  But I can bet there are some NORML Legal Committee defense lawyers who are very excited about this ruling today.

I found this portion of the oral arguments at the SCOTUS Wiki:

Justices Souter, Kennedy, Scalia, Ginsburg and Stevens all were openly incredulous of the claim that officer safety could justify the rule. And Justice Scalia scoffed at the idea that there was any need to preserve evidence that might be found in the car in the case of an arrest for a traffic violation. “Evidence of what?” he asked. When Yang suggested that the search might turn up evidence of a more serious crime, Scalia asked in disbelief “you avowedly say that once you arrest somebody you can rummage around for evidence of a different crime”?

Justice Kennedy invited both the State and the Assistant Solicitor General to identify some new justification and seemed mildly frustrated when neither counsel accepted the invitation. Speaking to Yang, he said “It seems to me there are good reasons for searching that car. It’s — it’s movable. That’s the old vehicle exception. It can have contraband in it. It can be stolen. It can be taken for joy rides. But you don’t seem to make any of those arguments. You just want to keep coming back to officer safety and on that point I think your case is very weak.”

Justice Scalia similarly asked both sides whether there was any historical – as opposed to pragmatic – justification for the rule. “If you stopped Thomas Jefferson’s carriage to arrest Thomas Jefferson and you pulled him off to the side of the road, could you – could you then go and search his carriage?” No one seemed to know.

I’d ask Justice Scalia how he’d explain to Thomas Jefferson the need to harass a citizen for possessing hemp in the first place.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Don’t forget these Border Patrol thugs are now conducting operations within 100 miles of the border.  This is how our government is going to protect us from the scourge of Mexican trafficking of marijuana that Americans want to smoke and cheap labor that Americans want to hire.  Is this how President Obama plans to “crack down” on drug use in America?