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AlterNet reports
On April 20, 2012, seven heavily armed Johnson County sheriff's officers conducted an early morning raid on the house of Adlynn and Robert Harte based on vegetative samples found in the couple's trash. It turns out those samples were tea leaves, and officers found a hydroponic tomato garden instead of marijuana.
The Hartes sued the county for $7 million on unlawful search-and-seizure claims, which a federal judge tossed after finding the officers were entitled to qualified immunity.
On [July 25, 2017], however, a three-judge 10th Circuit panel disagreed--and Circuit Judge Carlos Lucero offered a sarcastic summary in the ruling of the mistakes made by the officers.
"Law-abiding tea drinkers and gardeners beware: One visit to a garden store and some loose tea leaves in your trash may subject you to an early morning, SWAT-style raid, complete with battering ram, bulletproof vests, and assault rifles", Lucero wrote. "Perhaps the officers will intentionally conduct the terrifying raid while your children are home, and keep the entire family under armed guard for 2½ hours while concerned residents of your quiet, family-oriented neighborhood wonder what nefarious crime you have committed. This is neither hyperbole nor metaphor--precisely what happened to the Harte family in the case before us on appeal."
[...] The Hartes claim that officers lied about the field test results showing the tea leaves tested positive for THC, the principal ingredient in marijuana. Police failed to photograph the results and did not send the samples to a lab for confirmation, given the pressure to obtain warrants for the April 20 crackdown--facts not lost on [concurring Judge Nancy] Moritz.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MrGuy on Friday July 28 2017, @07:53PM (11 children)
This probably isn't even planting evidence. It's probably cutting corners.
Somebody saw a leaf that looked kinda like a marijuana leaf. Or, at least, close enough for law enforcement work - botany isn't always taught at the police academy.
Then someone in the police department got all excited about finding a marijuana grow and all the accolades they could get for catching bad drug people. Wouldn't it be great? Plus, we've been itching to use the tank!
So they didn't bother doing their homework. They faked a field test (or, more likely, didn't do one and lied about it). They got a judge to sign off on it by making some BS statements about "they could be a MAJOR operation, so who knows what kind of firepower they have in there!"
They didn't need to plant (ha!) any evidence - just rush to judgement and lie about the "little details" like actually doing their homework and establishing actual probable cause.
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Friday July 28 2017, @08:21PM (5 children)
More likely: they did do a field test, but got an inconclusive or false positive result and confirmation bias did the rest. They saw what they wanted to see. They were not looking for evidence, they were looking for justification.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @08:48PM (3 children)
Oh how cute you think the police bothered to do the science part. One loud asshole shot up and said "I busted enough hippies and gang bangers to recognize a pot leaf, you can wait for the results if you want but I'm going there right now to bust some heads! Go go go!!!"
Police officers should be incredibly worried about their public opinion, I now have such a low starting opinion that a cop has to be exceptional to make me view them otherwise. Abuses of power, authority run amock. We need to revoke that authority and severely punish anyone that crosses the line. Every other profession has major consequences for violations, but police are exempted and literally allowed to murder people because they were afraid. Think about it, officers in the US believe they can murder someone if they are afraid. Do you want to be getting a ticket from someone having a really bad day? Maybe latent anger from their ex-wife who left them because domestic abuse is so common with police officers?
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Saturday July 29 2017, @12:11AM (2 children)
If you want to murder your wife, your path is clear. Become a police officer:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/17/us/michelle-oconnell-jeremy-banks.html [nytimes.com]
Blue privilege can transform even a sloppy murder into sweet freedom.
Beating your wife, swiping drugs for personal use, planting drugs to lock someone away, routinely lying on reports to get the outcome you want? Easily achievable with little threat of getting caught.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday July 29 2017, @01:25AM (1 child)
So now, knowing what you wrote is true, think about the kinds of people who want to become cops. Where are the supposed "checks and balances"?
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Saturday July 29 2017, @03:14AM
Here's one:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836 [go.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday July 29 2017, @02:07AM
Still the Circuit Judges should have arbitrarily doubled the 7 Million to 14 Million, plus two million from the judge that decided it was qualified immunity. Judges really have to start being held accountable for their failures.
One wonders why this was being tried in Federal Court when it was a county operation. It suggests judicial malfeasance all up and down the line.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 28 2017, @08:41PM (2 children)
It's profiling - they KNOW this house is a grow house because the dude has long hair and wears black T-shirts, that f'ing THC test must've been wrong and the raid is already scheduled, if we don't do it on time, we might not get funding to keep the tank. It's a GO man, gear up, and in case we don't find anything bring along something from the evidence locker to plant.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday July 29 2017, @12:33AM (1 child)
Except that in this case the family didn't. They knew it was a grow house because they saw discarded leaves in the trash, and that meant the family were growers, and because the family were obviously growers the leaves in the trash were weed and not tea leaves. Simple really.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 29 2017, @02:24AM
Yeah, so I thought I covered the leaves in the trash with the failed THC test, I'm sure there were other "unmentionable" profile points that factored into the decision to go ahead with the raid - cops aren't completely stupid, but they do trust their instincts way more than the law says they are allowed to.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by urza9814 on Friday July 28 2017, @10:23PM
I see no reason to doubt that they *did* do a field test, and it *did* report a positive result.
Those field test kits generally test positive no matter what you put in them. Chocolate bars are positive for THC; Tylenol or plain white sugar both test positive for cocaine; salt or hard candy can get a positive result for meth...and the cops love it, because it gives "justification" to bust anyone they want, because apparently whether or not their tools are actually accurate is irrelevant, and knowingly buying fraudulent test kits is considered acceptable...they could probably bust someone based on a goddamn seance and still have it be upheld in court under "qualified immunity"...
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/marijuana-advocacy/ [thefreethoughtproject.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Arik on Friday July 28 2017, @10:38PM
And this is what you need to remember the next time someone tries to tell you that the cops should be allowed to break the rules. Everyone imagines that you know exactly who the 'bad guy' is but you can't touch him without breaking the rules. People imagine this apocryphal story because Hollywood has been playing it for them constantly for more than 30 years, not because anyone actually knows of it happening in real life. In real life what is much more likely is that they break rules and cut corners and wind up doing damage, possibly quite severe damage, to an innocent bystander, while the 'bad guys' laugh if they notice at all. Hollywood tells that story too, occasionally, but most people have a hard time following that signal behind the much much stronger and more constant signal about breaking the rules to do good.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?