Drug WarRant

A couple of days ago, I talked about the judge who kicked off a juror for questioning the law.
Well, Thomas R. Eddlem was the juror that got kicked off and who ended up sparking a 40 page justification by the judge. Eddlem gives his story here and here.

“bullet” Kingsley Guy: Drug policy has failed

Is the push to legalize marijuana in Florida for medical use a legitimate attempt to eliminate pain and suffering, or a thinly-veiled effort by unreconstructed hippies to legally get high?
I don’t know, and frankly, don’t care.
It’s time to shift the debate from side issues like medical marijuana, and instead look at decriminalizing all recreational drugs. The nation must face the fact that the war on drugs has been a dismal failure causing far more damage than it has mitigated, and it just isn’t worth the price.

“bullet” So how’s that drug war going? I haven’t been talking about Mexico much recently. Too depressing
“bullet” Sound familiar? Transform:

My conclusion – the Daily Mail is not responsible for closing down the debate on drugs and drug policy š politicians are. It is their cowardice, opportunism and careerism that they prioritise over telling the truth about the failure of prohibition and the need bring the drugs trade within the law and the ambit of state regulation. And that applies not just to Labour and the Conservatives. The Lib Dems have hidden their far more enlightened drug policy so deep as to render it effectively invisible, for (misplaced) fear of taking flak from political opponents.

“bullet” Dildos and the Ninth Amendment by Ed Brayton, guest blogging at The Agitator. Definitely relevant to drug policy.
“bullet” The Phoenix gives us their 16 greatest stoner movies
“bullet” Daniel McQuade has an amusing take-down of the ‘digital drugs’ scare nonsense.
“bullet” Norm Stamper on the high costs of the drug war

Every time we have a drug war shooting of innocent people (or even of those whose only fault is to break drug laws), we inevitably hear the litany of apologists for these unconscionable drug war tactics blaming the death on the intended recipient of the raid.
In the Calvo case, Prince George’s County police blamed the drug ring who never approached the mayor’s house (and probably never would have) for the bloody scene of dead dogs and terrified family.
In the Tarika Wilson case, we heard time and time again that Anthony Terry (the boyfriend) was responsible for her death, despite the fact that he was in cuffs watching the dogs get shot well before police shot Tarika to death and maimed her son. Or worse, they blamed Tarika for being a “n***er crack whore” who deserved what she and her children got for letting a drug dealer live with her.
Anthony Terry is having a hard time understanding how he is at fault.

The boyfriend of a Lima woman shot and killed by a police officer during a drug raid says he doesn’t understand why police waited until he was at her house to go after him.
Anthony Terry was the target of the raid. He says officers could have him arrested on the street instead of waiting until he was inside the house with his girlfriend and her children.

Good question. Why didn’t they?

Police say doing that would have put officers at risk and jeopardized their investigation.

Can someone explain this to me? Does that make sense to anyone with a brain?
Further exploration in the Toledo Blade…

By executing a no-knock warrant at night, they said, they are able to take the occupants by surprise, detain the suspects, and secure the house with the least risk of injury.

Um… no.
And police even knew that Terry was small fish:

Terry, [Lima Police Chief Greg Garlock] said, was “not a major player, but I think he’s connected to the major players and certainly has an ongoing history in the drug trade in our community. That type of offender in many cases is where we’ve been successful moving up the chain.”

And that, apparently, justifies setting up a situation where mothers and children can be shot. After all, they can always blame the drug dealer.
Can you imagine this in any other aspect of enforcement?
What if police decided to shoot out the tires of cars exceeding the speed limit, for example? And if a car ended up overturning and killing the mother and maiming her child, they could just say it was her fault for riding with someone who drove over 55. She had it coming.

Via Tim Lynch at Cato blog comes the story of a juror in a cocaine case.
Shortly after deliberations began, the jury sent a note to the judge saying that one of the jurors was concerned about the legitimacy of the law in question. When the judge questioned him, the juror explained (this from the 40 page explanation (pdf) by Judge D.J. Young to justify his own actions):

My question was where, if, . . . as every schoolboy knows, the highest law in the land is the United States Constitution, and if [C]ongress had to go to amend the [C]onstitution in, actually it was ratified in 1919, the 18th Amendment, in order to have the power to ban not interstate commerce but mere possession, where is [Congress‰ authority to ban mere possession of drugs] in the [C]onstitution[?]
Congress is empowered by Article I, in a list of about 17 specific empowerments, I‰m unaware, and it was never made clear to me, where [banning mere possession of drugs] is
authorized in the Constitution.

The judge explained that the juror needed to follow the instructions as to the law provided by the court and apply it to the case. When the juror continued to have difficulty, the judge replaced him.
The defendant was then promptly convicted.
Is this a legitimate reason to remove a juror? Because of his view that drug laws are not constitutional? The judge went on for pages and pages as to why it was important not to have someone like him on a jury.
Here’s the part that made me laugh out loud:

If Taken Seriously, Jury Nullification Threatens to Undermine the Democratic Process and the Rule of Law
If it were taken seriously by mainstream Americans, jury nullification would threaten to unravel the fabric of our democracy. The impropriety of nullification emanates from the notion that ours is ‹a government of laws and not of men.Š … This means simply that no
citizen is above the law, and none is free to make his own law.

And the judge then goes off the deep end.

The notion that nullification will change the law is drivel. Those who would characterize it as a noble form of civil disobedience are deeply delusional.

The judge needs some lessons on the sickness in our democratic process already extant that nullification could potentially cure.

Coming to your town soon…

Officers armed with military rifles have been stopping and questioning passers-by in a neighborhood plagued by violence that’s been under a 24-hour curfew for a week.
On Tuesday, the Helena-West Helena City Council voted 9-0 to allow police to expand that program into any area of the city, despite a warning from a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas that the police stops were unconstitutional. […]
“Now if somebody wants to sue us, they have an option to sue, but I’m fairly certain that a judge will see it the way the way the citizens see it here,” Mayor James Valley said. “The citizens deserve peace, that some infringement on constitutional rights is OK and we have not violated anything as far as the Constitution.” […]
“As far as I’m concerned, at 3 o’clock in the morning, nobody has any business being on the street, except the law,” Councilman Eugene “Red” Johnson said. “Anyone out at 3 o’clock shouldn’t be out on the street, unless you’re going to the hospital.”

So let’s see how this happens in seven easy steps…

1. Prohibition
2. Black-market profits
3. Black-market violence
4. Law enforcement crackdown
5. Violence escalates to protect profits
6. Residents seek protection
7. Police state

Video here
The sad thing is that there are actually people out there who think this is a solution to drug war violence.

For the last three days, I’ve been completely out of touch — no news, no email, no phone, no computer. It was tough. But it was also refreshing.
But now I’m back, and I thought that maybe you guys would have solved it all and the drug war would be over…
Hmmm….
Not quite yet.
But this is interesting —
Julian Critchley, former director of the U.K. Cabinet Office anti-drugs unit, left a remarkable comment on a blog post, noting that on the job he had come to the conclusion that “enforcement and supply-side interventions were largely pointless.”

I think what was truly depressing about my time in UKADCU was that the overwhelming majority of professionals I met, including those from the police, the health service, government and voluntary sectors held the same view : the illegality of drugs causes far more problems for society and the individual than it solves. Yet publicly, all those intelligent, knowledgeable people were forced to repeat the nonsensical mantra that the Government would be ‘tough on drugs’, even though they all knew that the Government’s policy was actually causing harm.
I recall a conversation I had with a No 10 policy advisor about a series of Whitehall-wide announcements in which we were to emphasise the shift of resources to treatment and highlighting successes in prevention and education. She asked me whether we couldn’t arrange for ‘a drugs bust in Brighton’ at the same time, or ‘a boat speeding down the Thames to catch smugglers’. For that advisor, what worked mattered considerably less than what would play well in the Daily Mail. The tragedy of our drugs policy is that it is dictated by tabloid irrationality, and not by reference to evidence.

Critchley is now a teacher:

I find that when presented with the facts, the students I teach are quite capable of considering issues such as this, and reaching rational conclusions even if they started with a blind Daily Mail-esque approach. I find it a shame that no mainstream political party accords the electorate the same respect.

Unfortunately, we so seldom hear the truth when they’re in office.

• Confirmation of the post
• Coverage at Transform
• Danny Kushlick

I’m going to visit my mom for a couple of days out at a lake in Iowa. No wireless, no dial-up, no TV, almost no cell coverage. I’ll definitely be going through withdrawal. (Yes, internet use is much more addictive than, say, marijuana.)
Discuss the drug war without me. I’ll stop by if I find a place to get a fix.

Chief High just doesn’t get it.

In a statement released yesterday, High said: “The Calvo family members were the apparent victims of a local drug ring. I called him to express my sorrow and regret for that and for the loss of the family’s beloved dogs.”
High stopped short of apologizing for the actions of the officers, according to the Associated Press.

Um, no Melvin. The Calvo family members were victims of…you. And ‘regret’ simply isn’t going to cut it.
I don’t know if police Chief Melvin High simply is unable to admit wrong, or if he somehow thinks that admitting it will make the investigation go worse for him and his unit, but the guy is not only dangerous, he’s clueless.
And let’s review again:

• The Calvo’s were victims of a local drug ring to the extent that Cheye Calvo had to lift a 32 pound package and bring it inside.
• The Calvo’s were victims of Prince George’s County police by having their home invaded, their dogs killed, the family terrorized, and no apology.

Oh, wait. I forgot — the police actually delivered the package.

Link

“We have witnessed a frightening law enforcement culture in which the law is disregarded, the rights of innocent occupants are ignored and the rights of innocent animals mean nothing,” Calvo said, surrounded by county elected leaders and friends on the front lawn of his house. “A shadow was cast over our good names. We were harmed by the very people who took an oath to protect us.”
June White Dillard, president of the NAACP’s local chapter, also called for a thorough investigation and said Calvo experienced police action familiar to many young black men in the county.

“bullet” For a scary look at how little things have changed in 38 years, read this amazing OpEd by Gore Vidal on September 26, 1970

Will anything sensible be done? Of course not. The American people are as devoted to the idea of sin and its punishment as they are to making money-and fighting drugs is nearly as big a business as pushing them. Since the combination of sin and money is irresistible (particularly to the professional politician), the situation will only grow worse.

“bullet” Reuters OpEd by Bernd Debusmann: America’s never-ending prohibition. A good piece.
“bullet” Quotable from WindyPundit:

If cops can’t do their job without terrorizing the citizens, then they’re trying to do the wrong job.

“bullet” Florida Prosecutor Refuses to Work With DEA (more fallout in the Rachel Hoffman case).
“bullet” “drcnet”
“bullet” Oh, and today is the Accountability Now/Strange Bedfellows money bomb. Give to let politicians realize that they must be accountable to us and not merely give themselves more authoritarian power.