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In Hudson v. Michigan, handed down last Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court carved out yet another "drug war exception" to the Fourth Amendment, which was written to protect Americans from unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons and homes. The Fourth Amendment is an affirmation of the ancient common-law principle that a person's home is his or her castle, that the authorities cannot intrude on it without solid evidence of a crime having been committed or being in progress. The most direct way to enforce this rule would probably be to impose fines or other penalties -- even prison sentences - on police who violate it, but such penalties are not realistic. So about 100 years ago the courts came up with the "exclusionary rule": evidence seized in an illegal search is excluded from any subsequent court case. It's an imperfect rule -- the incentive for a police officer to worry about the final disposition of a case is somewhat indirect -- but it's the best device we've come up with, and it has a long history. The situation is complicated when legislatures pass laws against crimes that are victimless in the very specific sense that there is unlikely to be a complaining victim to go to the police to offer specific and reliable information for an accurate warrant. Drug laws, which prohibit adults from ingesting certain substances, are one example. Neither the buyer nor the seller of drugs is likely to complain to the police, even if a transaction goes sour. To get evidence to prosecute these laws increasingly intrusive methods of getting into otherwise private places and surprising people are necessary. Therefore the constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures must be and has been progressively weakened. Among the methods increasingly employed are undercover operatives and informants, "no-knock" warrants, in which a judge can authorize serving a warrant without the police knocking and announcing, and military-style SWAT team invasions. These tactics can put police at risk if a person is confused and thinks criminals are breaking down his door, and they have led to "wrong-door" raids where innocent citizens have been killed by the police. As Radley Balko, a Cato Institute policy analyst whose writing was cited in Justice Stephen Breyer's eloquent dissent, said, "the state of Michigan acknowledged that it knows of no successful suits or disciplinary action against police who violated search-and-seizure rules. So the only real defense against police abuse was to exclude evidence seized in illegal raids. Today, the Supreme Court removed that defense." Since drug raids are often based on confidential informants whose reliability can be dicey, this decision is likely to lead to more military-style policing and more "wrong-door" raids on innocent people. It is wrong-headed and potentially tragic. |
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We are careful not to duplicate the efforts of other organizations, and as a grassroots coalition of prisoners and social reformers, our resources (time and money) are limited. The vast expertise and scope of the various drug reform organizations will enable you to stay informed on the ever-changing, many-faceted aspects of the movement. Our colleagues in reform also give the latest drug war news. Please check their websites often. |
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