A longtime reader writes:

Last night, my sister’s boyfriend was pulled over. They searched him and found a small amount of marijuana on him. Going through his wallet, they thenf ound a picture of my sister and her kids. The officer called the department of human services on my sister… who was NOT with him at the time, nor were her kids.

They came to talk to her today and they are forcing her to take a drug test.

The thing is… she would definitely fail.

Is this even legal to do? Guilt by association? I am not sure whom she can talk to, and she most assuredly cannot afford a lawyer.

I don’t know the answer. They certainly have no criminal case against her. But I’m not sure about the law when it comes to protective services agencies. I suspect they’re permitted to take measures police investigating possible criminal charges can’t. Still, you’d think they’d need more to go on than a photo in the wallet of someone arrested for a small amount of marijuana.

The person who sent the email gave me permission to throw it out for general discussion. So have at it.

Arthur Tesler is the only officer involved in the Atlanta drug raid that killed 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston to fight the charges against him. The testimony to so far come out of his trial really only confirms what we knew about the narcotics division at Atlanta PD from the federal investigation into Johnston’s death, but it’s still pretty striking stuff:

A former Atlanta police officer testified Thursday that narcotics officers routinely lied under oath when seeking search warrants, a practice that led to police killing a 92-year-old woman.

Former Detective Gregg Junnier told a Fulton County jury that detectives would tell judges that they had verified their informants had bought cocaine from dealers by searching them for drugs before the buy took place.

"I have never seen anyone searched before they go into the house, I’ve never seen that done, even though officers always swear to it," Junnier said. "It’s done that way in 90 percent of the warrants that are written."

But it wasn’t just lies to get the warrant to search Kathryn Johnston’s home that made Junnier uneasy, he said. He had an inkling something was wrong when he and Officer Jason R. Smith were leading the narcotics team to the front door. He said the northwest Atlanta house differed from the informant’s description.

"I said, ‘Man, this doesn’t look right,’ and he said, ‘I know,’ " Junnier testified. " ‘I said what do you want to do.’ He said, ‘Hit it.’"

A minute later, Johnston was lying on her floor, dying.

[...]

He said the chance to seize a kilo (2.2 pounds) of cocaine also drove the officers, who normally made arrests for much smaller amounts.

In the raid, police fired 39 shots. Junnier was shot in the face, chest and leg. Two other officers were also wounded. Investigators determined Johnston had fired one round from a revolver; the officers were shot in their own crossfire.

Junnier described entering Johnston’s house: "She was still alive. She was gasping for air. I heard … the order to cuff her."

Later that day, he said, the cover-up began.

It would be pretty näive to think these kinds of shortcuts only happen in Atlanta.

Here’s the interview I did for reason.tv hashing out some of the broader issues of the case.

About a month ago I got a call from a reporter for the Arkansas Times inquiring about my research into paramilitary drug raids. He’d been reporting on a raid in North Little Rock involving a 40-year-old man named Tracy Ingle. When he told me the story over the phone, I was floored, even given all the abuses and mistakes I’ve reported and read about over the last few years. What makes the case especially egregious is not that the police may have gotten the wrong home, that they shot a man, or that they were covering it up or going silent. We’ve seen all that before. What’s mind-blowing about this one is that they’ve continued abusing the poor guy, even after it should have been clear for some time now that they made a mistake.

From the outset, it should be noted that Tracy Ingle has had some trouble with the law in the past, though nothing violent, and nothing drug-related. He has had a couple of DWI’s, and a citation for failing to appear in court. He apparently also agreed to do some repair work on a friend’s car that later turned out to be stolen.

That said, what’s happened to him over the last few months is pretty outrageous.

Here’s the Arkansas Times piece, which I’d encourage you to read in full. And here’s a follow-up interview with North Little Rock Police Chief Danny Bradley about SWAT tactics.

I’ve since spoken again to the reporter and to Tracy Ingle’s sister, Tiffney Forrester, who herself is a former sheriff’s deputy. I’ve also had a chance to review the warrants and return sheets (pdf).

The North Little Rock Police Department wouldn’t discuss the case with me.

Here’s a quick rundown:

• On January 7, 2008 a paramilitary police unit in North Little Rock, Arkansas conducted a drug raid on Tracy Ingle’s home. Ingle says he had fallen asleep for several hours, and was asleep when the raid happened. He awoke when the police took a battering ram to his door. Another team of officers approached form the outside of the house, and shattered the window to his bedroom.

• When he awoke, Ingle says he thought his home was being invaded by armed robbers. He reached for a broken gun, a pretty clear indication that he had no intention of killing anyone, but rather was trying to scare away the intruders. When he grabbed the gun, an officer inside the house fired his weapon. The bullet hit Ingle just above the knee, shattered his thigh bone, and nearly severed his lower leg. When the outside officers heard the shot, they opened up on Ingle, hitting him four more times. According to Ingle’s sister, one bullet still rests just above Ingle’s heart, and can’t be removed.

• Ingle was taken to the hospital, and spent a week-and-a-half in intensive care. He was then removed from intensive care—still in his hospital pajamas—and taken to the North Little Rock police department, where he was questioned for five hours. He was not told he was suspected of a crime, and his family wasn’t allowed to speak with him. After the interrogation, he was arrested and transferred to the county jail.

• Ingle spent the next four days in jail. He says he was never given his pain medication or his antibiotics. Though hospital nurses told him to change his bandages and clean his wounds every 4-6 hours, Ingle told the Arkansas Times that jail officials changed them only twice in four days. Ingle’s wounds became infected during the time he was in jail.

• Police found no illegal drugs in Ingle’s home. They did find a scale, which Ingle’s sister tells me she was an extra she was given when she worked at a medical testing facility for use in her jewelry-making hobby. They also found a bunch of small plastic bags. Again, Ingle’s sister says these were part of her business. "I was leaving the country for a while, and I stored a lot of my stuff at his house," she told me. "The scales and bags were mine, and are both common things to have for anyone who makes jewelry." Police also found the broken gun and a broken police scanner.

• From those items, the police charged Ingle with running a drug enterprise. They also charged him with assault, for pointing his broken gun at the police officers who had just barged into his home. The judge set Ingle’s bail at $250,000, explaining that it had to be set high because Ingle had engaged in a shootout with police—never mind that Ingle didn’t fire a shot. Ingle was able to sell his car to pay a bail bondsman. But with no car, his injuries render him basically immobile.  He had to walk two miles on crutches and an infected leg to his hearing last week.

• The police obtained a no-knock warrant for Ingle’s home about three weeks prior to the raid. The warrant itself (pdf) reads like boilerplate, with no specific references to Ingle (other than his address), or why he specifically posed a risk to police safety, or of disposing of drugs before coming to answer the door. It mentions no controlled buys. It doesn’t even mention an informant. In fact, someone scratched out "crack cocaine" and hand-wrote in "methamphetamine" on the type-written warrant, suggesting a cut, plug, and paste job. The Supreme Court has ruled that police must show case-specific evidence of exigent circumstances in order to be issued a no-knock warrant. The mere fact that it’s a drug case isn’t enough. The warrant for Ingle’s home contains no such specific information.

Many times, information specific to the investigation is contained in the affidavit the investigating officer files for the search warrant, not in the warrant itself. Forrester says she has called the North Little Rock Police Department more than 20 times in an effort to obtain a copy of the affidavits. She says they at first refused to return her phone calls. When she was finally able to speak with a lieutenant, he became angry when she told she had contacted the media. She then says he told her to "dream on" when she asked for copies of the affidavits.

• According to Forrester, Ingle’s neighbor had a direct line of sight into the bedroom, and saw the entire raid. His account initially matched Ingle’s. But that changed. "We have a witness, a next door neighbor that saw the entire incident," Forrester told me. "He came forward on his own to give a statement to the family. Police never questioned him until a month or so after the shooting, at my insistence. They kept this neighbor in his home, and questioned him for at least four hours, refusing to let the man’s wife come home, of for other people to see him. When the police finished intimidating the man, they told him specifically that ‘he did not see what he thought he saw.’ The neighbor is now afraid to talk to the media." I have not yet been able to speak with the neighbor.

• Ingle’s family was able to put up $1,000 to retain an attorney, but can’t afford the extra $6,000 the attorney has asked to represent Ingle. Ingle is therefore still looking for representation. He has no health insurance, and no money to pay for medication, or to continue treatment of his injuries.

• Last week, after the Arkansas Times article appeared, the judge in the case issued a gag order, preventing Ingle and any future attorney he may have from talking to the media about what happened to him. This is puzzling. Before today there had been exactly two articles about this case—not exactly a media circus. It’s hard to understand why a gag order was necessary. It’s only real purpose is to prevent more people from learning about what’s increasingly looking like a railroading. And it’s only effect is to lend more support to the possibility that it is, in fact, a cover-up and railroading.

As noted, the police aren’t talking. And the prosecutor is now bound by the gag order. Perhaps there’s some piece of information damning to Ingle I’m not yet aware of—though it’s hard to imagine what that might be.

Barring that, what’s happening to Tracy Ingle is pretty outrageous.

UPDATE: The Arkansas Times reports that the gag order in Ingle’s case was withdrawn late yesterday. I don’t know that this will make the police or prosecutors any more likely to talk about the case, but if I have time this afternoon, I’ll try again to give them a call.

Timothy Garon, the man denied a liver transplant because he smoked medical marijuana prescribed by a doctor to deal with nausea and appetite loss, has died.

In Florida:

More than one hundred Miami-Dade police officers, along with federal and state agents, raided homes that grow marijuana in a two-day operation. An Opa-Locka family on Friday asked one law enforcement agency, the DEA, for an apology since it wrongly targeted their home, and to repair the physical damage done inside.

Noel Llorente and his wife Isabel, at their attorney’s office in North Miami Beach, said they would not be filing a lawsuit, but at the very least would like an apology and repair damage done when agents believed their home was growing marijuana.

It was called “Operation D-Day”, and there were more than 50 grow houses across the county involved.

The operation lasted two days; officers arrested 49 people and confiscated more than 2,000 marijuana plants along with 1,700 pounds of marijuana which had a street value of nearly $7-million.

They also confiscated 8 firearms, a bullet proof vest and $113,600 in cash.

“Operation D-Day?” You’re sending civilian police officers out to bust up nonviolent pot growers, and you name it after the military invasion at Normandy? Might that have some, just some affect on the mentality of the officers sent out on these raids?

Police groups justify door-busting paramilitary tactics by pointing out that drug dealers are violent and armed to the teeth. How does that jibe with finding just eight firearms in 50 homes?

Thanks to Kishnevi for the link.

In San Diego, a woman is pulled from her family and two kids, extradited to Michigan, and will likely spend the next nine years of her life in prison because 32 years ago she escaped from prison. She had been convicted of drug distribution. There’s no evidence she’s committed any crimes since she escaped. In fact, it looks as if she started her life anew, and had put things back together. I’d be pleasantly surprised if authorities showed her any mercy.

Meanwhile, there are now early reports that “D.C. Madam” Deborah Jeane Palfrey has committed suicide. She was facing 55 years in prison for the crime of matching consenting high-end prostitutes up with the consenting rich, powerful men who wanted to have sex with them. Moral crusader and Palfrey client David Vitter remains a member in good standing of the United States Senate.

A drug raid in Columbus, Ohio last night resulted in two wounded police officers.

The man who shot them is being charged with attempted murder. Thing is, he’s a city employee–a code inspector. Details are still sketchy, but the articles says witnesses heard police ordering other officers to break in windows, then gunshots–nothing yet about an announcement. Also, the article neglects to say if any drugs were actually found. Several people are being held, but only the shooter has so far been charged, and he’s only being charged with the shootings. It’s been my experience that police are usually very quick to announce if they’ve found any drugs, particularly in raids that don’t end well.

More to come, I’m sure. And perhaps new details will show the charges against this guy are justified. Right now, it’s setting off some red flags.

More: They’ve since updated the story to say that drugs were found in the home, though they haven’t said what type or in what quantity.

New York City, home to admitted pot smoker (and pot enjoyer) Mayor Michael Bloomberg leads the world in marijuana arrests. Over 370,000 in the last decade for the lowest possible level marijuana offense. More than half were black, despite the fact that just 25 percent of the city is black, and that according to survey data, a higher percentage of white people actually use the drug.

The New York City ACLU says the discrepancy comes from the fact that minorities are much more likely than whites to be stopped and frisked. The end result is a much higher percentage of blacks than whites with a pot-related arrest record–and all that comes with that (including the loss of ever getting federal loans to go to college)–even though white people are more likely to actually use the drug.

More here.

Fish tank, meth lab—whatever.

Brooklyn Park police were looking for a meth lab, but they found a fish tank and the chemicals needed to maintain it.

And a few hours later, when the city sent a contractor to fix the door the police had smashed open Monday afternoon, it was obvious the city was trying to fix a mistake.

It happened while Kathy Adams was sleeping.

"And the next thing I know, a police officer is trying to get me out bed," she said.

And what thorough investigative work precipitated this raid?

Roehl said the drug task force was acting on a tip from a subcontractor for CenterPoint Energy, who had been in the home Friday to install a hot water heater.

"He got hit with a chemical smell that he said made him light headed, feel kind of nauseous," Roehl said.

The smell was vinegar, and maybe pickling lime, which were clearly marked in a bathroom Mr. Adams uses to mix chemicals for his salt water fish tank.

"I said, ‘I call it his laboratory for his fish tanks,’ " Mrs. Adams said, recalling her conversation with the CenterPoint technician. "I’m looking at the fish tank talking to this guy."

Police say there was no extended investigation, just an interview with the subcontractor.

Still, no one did anything wrong.

"From a cursory view, it doesn’t look like our officers did anything wrong," said Capt. Greg Roehl.

[...]

"Everything this person told us turned out to be true, with the exception of what the purpose of the lab was," Roehl said.

[...]

Police say the detective who asked for the search warrant is an 8 ½-year veteran, but he just started working in the drug task force.

CenterPoint energy maintains the home was "unsafe" and it would have "irresponsible" for the subcontractor not to report it.

Cato’s Ilya Shapiro writes:

Much as I hate to rain on my colleague Juan Carlos Hidalgo’s understandable happiness at the decriminalization of personal consumption/possession of small amounts of drugs, this doesn’t exactly represent a ray of hope in Argentina’s otherwise gloomy policy mix. Not because I believe in the War on Drugs – I can’t imagine anybody at Cato does – but because it was a court that reached this decision instead of a policymaking body.

Imagine the outcry if the U.S. Supreme Court simply decreed a policy it didn’t like to be unconstitutional – I know, with Justices Stevens and Kennedy at the apogee of their powers, it’s not a far stretch. Better yet, recall the poison the Court injected into our legal and political systems when it short-circuited the political process by inventing a right to abortion in Roe v. Wade (again, I’m not saying anything about the underlying policy arguments).

So it is here: Instead of having the Argentine Congress change the law, the nation’s Supreme Court (by a vote of 4-3) simply decreed that criminalizing drug use is unconstitutional. Reports are still sketchy, but this sounds like precisely the kind of judicial fiat developing (or any) countries need to avoid if they want to strengthen the rule of law.

I don’t know what the Argentine Constitution says about drug use, and it appears that Shapiro doesn’t, either. Wikipedia says, “Section 19 says that private actions of men that don’t harm the public order or another man can not be judjed by authorities,” which to me would certainly seem applicable to recreational drug use.

In any case, Shapiro’s more general point misunderstands a pretty basic tenet of libertarianism (or, if you prefer, classical liberalism, rights theory, liberalism, John Locke, and the Founding Fathers): That we have certain rights that government cannot properly legislate away through the political process. I’d argue that what you decide to put into your own body would certainly be one of those rights.

Fact is, we’d be a hell of a lot better off if the U.S. Supreme Court declared more of what federal government tries to do unconstitutional, because 90 percent of what the government does actually is. Shapiro takes a jab at Justice Stevens, but in fact, he and Stevens are pretty much on the same page, here. It was Stevens, in his opinion in Raich, who said that instead of striking down the way the Justice Department has been enforcing the Controlled Substances Act (or, better yet, striking down the blatantly unconstitutional Act in the first place), supporters of medical marijuana should work to get the laws changed through the democratic process.

When it comes to protecting our fundamental freedoms, we want activist judges. I want them striking down every law that doesn’t have an explicit justification in the U.S. Constitution. Which is to say most federal laws.

Shapiro’s invocation of Roe is a bit different because there’s an arguable case to be made that with abortion, there are competing rights at stake.

But not so with drug use. Is Shapiro really arguing that there’s no fundamental right to recreational or medical drug use–that this is something that should be left to the political process? If so, what other rights–enumerated and unenumerated–does Shapiro feel are negotiable? What’s sacred, and what’s otherwise subject to the whims of politicians and regulators?

Argentina has decriminalized the consumption of illicit drugs. That seems like good news.

And Alaska’s appeals court says it will no longer tolerate “implicitly coercive” searches during traffic stops. That’s good news, too.

Both places, by the way, are marvelous vacation destinations.

Sean Mullins’ ode to the 92-year-old woman killed in a botched drug raid came out a few weeks ago. And it’s good! Well, the music is good. The lyrics wander around a bit, and don’t really tell what actually happened. But hey, it’s a good pop song about a botched drug raid. I’m not going to complain. I can’t find it online anywhere, but you can download it from Amazon for a buck.

Here’s a short interview Mullins gave to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I’d beg to differ with him on one point. Mullins says this kind of thing only happens in “certain neighborhoods.” It’s probably true that low-income people get the brunt of it. But there are plenty of examples of botched raids on college students, middle-class homes, and, occasionally, even millionaires.

In Memphis this week, it was a "terrorism sweep" that failed to catch any terrorists. In Akron, police embarked on a citywide "gun sweep" that didn’t turn up any guns.

But like the authorities in Memphis, they did find plenty of other ways to stay busy:

Authorities arrested 72 people in the third night of a Gun Violence Reduction Sweep on Friday night and Saturday morning, Akron police Lt. Rick Edwards said.

Edwards said 115 charges were filed. Of those charges, five were felonies, 35 were misdemeanors and 75 warranted arrests for people with outstanding warrants, Edwards said. Of the warranted arrests, seven were felonies and 68 were misdemeanors.

Authorities also issued 88 traffic citations, including four for operating a vehicle under the influence.

During the sweep, authorities also conducted bar checks at the Bank Lounge at 1078 Kenmore Blvd., where patrons were arrested on drug charges, and at the Boulevard Lounge at 995 Kenmore Blvd., where liquor violations were issued against the liquor permit holder and several patrons were charged with drug offenses, Edwards said.

During the citywide sweep, officers confiscated 5.2 grams of crack cocaine, one-tenth of a gram of powdered cocaine, 13.1 grams of marijuana, 9 Oxycodone pills and 19 Percocet pills, Edwards said.

No guns were confiscated during the Friday-Saturday action, Edwards said.

These allegedly-regulatory "alcohol inspections" of bars that include searching patrons for drugs are becoming increasingly common.

A couple of rare Fourth Amendment victories. And both related to the drug war.

A Florida state’s attorney says just because he rules a police shooting “justified” doesn’t mean he isn’t concerned about them. He then cites the textbook drug war outrage case of Isaac Singletary. Well, as long as he is “concerned.” When he pardoned Richard Paey, Florida Gov. Crist too expressed “concern” about Florida’s draconian drug laws. Months later he’s under consideration for McCain’s VP slot, and all is hunky-dory.

ABC News has a longish piece on Luther and Meredith Ricks, the Lima, Ohio couple from whom the federal government is trying to seize $400,000.

The piece quotes one-time Agitator guest blogger Bryan Westhoff, whose Chicago firm is representing Ricks pro bono, and the always terrific Institute for Justice. If I may boast a bit, both first learned of the case through the site you’re reading.

The United Arab Emirates has figured out how to win the drug war:

A father-of-three who was found with a microscopic speck of cannabis stuck to the bottom of one of his shoes has been sentenced to four years in a Dubai prison.

Keith Brown, a council youth development officer, was travelling through the United Arab Emirates on his way back to England when he was stopped as he walked through Dubai’s main airport.

A search by customs officials uncovered a speck of cannabis weighing just 0.003g - so small it would be invisible to the naked eye and weighing less than a grain of sugar - on the tread of one of his shoes.

[...]

One man has even been jailed for possession of three poppy seeds left over from a bread roll he ate at Heathrow Airport. Painkiller codeine is also banned.

If suspicious of a traveller, customs officials can use high-tech equipment to uncover even the slightest trace of drugs.

Mr Brown was detained and arrested in September last year and has been held in a cell with three other men in the city prison ever since.

This week the youth worker, who has two young children and a partner at home in Smethwick, West Midlands, was sentenced to four years in prison.

A 25-year-old Briton who was found with a similar speck in one pocket as he arrived on holiday has been awaiting sentence since November.

Meanwhile a Big Brother TV executive has so far been held without charge for five days after being arrested for possessing the health supplement melatonin.

The authorities claim to have discovered 0.01g of hashish in his luggage.

MORE:  Looks like this particular drug offender has since been released.

This letter to the editor of Eureka, California’s Times Standard ought to keep you busy all morning.

It’s for the fish!