A few words about Officer Ron Jones.

Public defender Bob Evans — Maye’s attorney — tells me he’d known Jones for a long time, and that Jones was a good guy, and a well-meaning cop. I’ve seen no evidence to the contrary.

But I do think it’s possible to question the thoroughness and accuracy of Jones’ investigation without calling Jones’ character into question. Indeed, that’s what we’re doing. The problem here is the policy. There’s far too much discretion given to cops, courts, and prosecutors in drug cases, discretion that comes at the expense of the rights of the accused. Warrants are handed out on flimsy evidence. Volatile raids on nonviolent offenders are commonplace.

I think Jones erred in applying for a warrant on Maye’s home. And I think the judge erred in giving it to him. But search warrants are given for similarly lackluster cases every day, all across the country. I think the team Jones was a part of erred in breaking down Maye’s door. And I think Jones erred in storming Maye’s bedroom. I also regret that we can’t ask Jones how much corroborating investigation he did of Maye before applying for the warrant.

But no one is questioning Officer Jones’ honor, valor, or character. No one is suggesting he lied, or that he’s corrupt. My guess is that he was doing the job he was trained to do, and did nothing too far out of line with what cops routinely do while investigating drug cases.

The problem lies with what has now become routine. Jones’ job is to abide by the rules while looking for people who break the law. Our job is to make sure the laws are just, and that the rules sufficiently safeguard our civil liberties.

To that end, we need to start asking serious questions about the way we enforce drug laws in this country. Breaking down the doors of civilians with no criminal record in the middle of the night, essentially inviting confrontation, doesn’t seem like the best way to enforce the law. And of course, as a libertarian, I have a problem with the laws themselves. Seems to me there are better ways we could be using law enforcement resources than to set them out to hunt down nonviolent marijuana dealers.

In any case, I wanted to stress that we shouldn’t be thinking of Officer Jones as a villain. We should be thinking of him as a victim. And I guess my position would be that the fact that we have one dead victim as a result of the flawed raid on December 26, 2001 is more than enough.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 14th, 2005 at 3:14 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Cory Maye. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.