In yet another boneheaded ruling – this time unanimously – the Supreme Court has ruled that mistakes made by dogs in the field don’t count and that police have no interest in going on fishing expeditions in your car.
Wow.
We cannot depend on the Supreme Court for protecting citizens at all when it comes to the drug war. All we can do is make them irrelevant by legalizing drugs.
Jacob Sullum does a fine job of discussing 3 myths that Justice Elena Kagan and the rest of the Court accepted without… thought.
The most important sentence in the Reason article:
As Florida defense attorney Jeff Weiner puts it, the justices “have given law enforcement a green light to do away with the Fourth Amendment merely by uttering the magic words, ‘My dog alerted.'”
Though things here are not much better, this is just another reason I will never cross the medicine line.
Murmurs of Good Folk in high places confirmed to be False Positives. Adding the Blood of stressed Puppies is a really dumb thing to do, but does earn the loud cheers of the Deviant Senile Cackling Witches. Watering the Tree of Liberty really isn’t that complicated. A smoke afterwards can add to the Patriots Pride.
Since these dogs are basically treated as expert witnesses, I look forward to hearing a defense attorney cross examine one:
“Officer Scruffy, when you approached the passenger side of Mr. Smith’s vehicle, you say you detected the odor of marijuana. Are you absolutely certain that it was not, in fact, the odor of the milk bones in Mr. Smith’s glove compartment?”
“Woof, woof!”
“No further questions.”
When the Supreme Court recognized corporations as people and allowed them to finish buying our congress we knew they were either very incompetent or very bought,,this is just another step towards tyranny,,,if I was younger I would be getting a passport and searching for another country,,except there is no country the rich cannot buy.
Sure would enjoy seeing Corporations being treated the same as People. Robbed, Assaulted, Searched, Shot at, Beaten, Bitten, Kicked in Head, Stomped, Zip-Tied, Sprayed, Stress-Positioned, Sleep Deprived, Electro-Shocked, Neglected, Abandoned, Dead, Photographed, Cremated, Sprinkled with Holy Water, Even their hasty squiggly Greed-Spawned Napkin Drawings Cast into InterGalactic Limbo for One Hundred Billion Years.
I don’t get all of the hate for corporations. As a small business owner I have a corporation. Small businesses still employ the majority of people in the country. All of the mmj dispensaries are corporations.
Is there a sick messed up relationship between government and large corporations? Yes. Crony Capitalism is the problem, not corporations.
Whatever you call it,,if you wear the hat you catch the flack and the large corporations are our problem,,should we start typing out large corporations every time so we don’t hurt your feelings or what?
.
.
FWIW I think stlgonzo is spot on with George W. Bush being the poster child of crony capitalism.
Yes clay, I think that we should strive for as much accuracy as is humanly possible in our communications. It isn’t even “large” corporations because there are a significant number of “large” corporations which do considerable good work and help promote our society’s better interests.
A corporation in and of itself is nothing but a pile of legal papers. Put a stack of those papers on a table next to a pile of pot and you’ll have two items that are equally dangerous,which is not at all.
Clay,
I don’t have hurt feelings. I agree with Duncan, we should be as accurate as humanly possible. Making blanket statements like that does nothing to further discourse.
Duncan,
You are right George W. really did kick that shit into high gear.
Any corporation that is not involved in buying legislation to insure their profits shouldn’t mind if allowing them to donate unlimited election funds is overturned,,,and the sooner it happens the better.
Here is some Crony Capitalism for you, by way of The Amazing Kreskin:
“According to a report titled The Economic Impact of Illicit Drug Use on American Society, last published by the Department of Justice in 2011, enforcing illegal drug laws imposes an annual cost on the American criminal justice system of $56 billion; while incarceration of drug offenders imposes an annual cost of $48 billion. This equals an annual cost of $104 billion spent on a two-pronged approach to cease harms caused by drugs.”
Whether you like the guy or not, I have been waiting for someone to latch onto some of these great statistics and comment on them.
http://tinyurl.com/aw7rspq
At Huffington.
It scratches the surface.
Corporations *are* crony capitalism. They are a way for individuals to avoid responsibility and liability for the consequences of their actions.
“As oppressive states have claimed authority over virtually every square inch of the planet, ‘Love it or Leave it’ translates to ‘Submit or Die‘.” -Keith Hamburger
Drug sniffing dogs could be made to detect the odor of treason if they sniffed the crotches of each Supreme Court Justice. Who cares if the dog is correct or not? A quickie impeachment of a federal fool because the dog smells someone’s Bengal cat is more important than due process and the right to privacy, right?
The Supreme Court has been a servant of the Executive Branch since F.D. Roosevelt (the sainted) threatened to increase the number of justices and so they gave him the decision he wanted in Wickard v. Filburn. The whole corrupt framework of the “war on drugs” hangs on this decision, which twisted the Commerce Clause and allowed the federal government to regulate farmers because they might affect interstate commerce! They applied the same “logic” in GOnzales v. Raich, and found a woman who grew cannabis for her own use, on her own property, with no commercial transactions insider her State let alone outside, could be sanctioned by the federal government because her actions MIGHT affect interstate commerce.
Down the rabbit hole. The Supreme COurt is corrupt, like the other branches, and we owe them neither respect nor deference.
when words like may and might become the hooks on which the * Supremes hang their hats (they should hang their heads) the fraud becomes wholly transparent.
OT… my bud and fellow Eugenian Jim Greig will be in DC for the ASA conf, accepting some patient advocate award from them. He’ll also be tromping the halls (well, he’ll actually be rolling thru the halls in his wheeliechair) of DC talking to a few reps and a senator or two. Go get ’em Jim! Somebody give that man a sledgehammer… they have quite a line-up at this gig. One of these years I’ll have to attend one of these shebangs. Now that the kids are grown up twill be easier (note to self – next life, no single parenting).
working up logistics for NORML meeting in Austin this weekend,,my first advocate meeting and I have been a member off and on for 30 years of NORML. I hope I can keep up with my oxygen bottle.
NORML is a corporation.
.
.
divadab, the problems with your theory are:
1) 8 of the 9 Justices that voted unanimously in favor of the decision in Wickard in 1942 were appointed by FDR.
2) FDR’s attempt to stack the Supreme Court was shot down in 1937 with the defeat of the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937 which he proposed. I do think it interesting that a few short months later the very same lawmakers passed the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937.
I agree with your assertion that Wickard has allowed the Federal government to get into all manner of mischief that it had no valid reason to be involved. But it appears to me that Mr. Roosevelt had succeeded in stacking the Court by the time of the Wickard decision, accomplished by de facto rather than de jure means.
Duncan – I’m not a legal scholar (just a humble bookkeeper), but my point was that Roosevelt managed to make the Supremes his servant – and they blinked – hence “A switch in time saves nine”. The specific issue was not Wickard, but by the time Wickard was adjudicated, they gave him what he wanted. WHich in the case of Wickard, was a supply-managed agricultural industry where farmers could only sell their wheat to the government.
It’s always been strange to me how people revere FDR when he laid the foundations for the drug war.
SCOTUS, since FDR, has almost always ruled on the side of government and against the unalienable rights and liberties of We, the People. But it really is We the People’s job to enforce the Constitution on government, not SCOTUS’ and for decades, We, the People, have neglected that job, leaving us where we are, currently.
What? Are they dyslexic? When their Sunday school textbooks said “God is Infallible” Did they read “Dog” and leave it at that??
What version of reality do they live in anyway??
Look, the ‘fix was in’ as recently as Raich. Meaning no one should have been surprised.
The Supremes, with vanishingly few exceptions, have been markedly ‘statist’ since Reagan’s days. The proof of that was the first watering down of habeas corpus laws via the (not-so) ‘civil forfeiture’, and the erasing of the Posse Comitatus lines between LE and the military.
Relying on such as they was foolish; caprice rules the SC, not reason. Again, look to Raich and the absolutely asinine statements such as Scalia made (comparing the WAMM hospice to a ‘hippie commune’) and you wouldn’t have to burn too many brain cells in cogitation as to the outcome.
Every door is closing off, one by one, so that it becomes painfully obvious: full-on re-legalization for everyone of legal age, nation-wide. Nothing else will do.
.
.
Perhaps we need to think about reevaluating our opinion on this subject. Those sniffer dogs today are really frackin’ smart so how can we criticize the ruling? Why recently on CSI:Las Vegas (season 13 episode 5) a crazed, meth addled drug addict purposefully and with malice aforethought did kill a K-9 handler LEO whose sole purpose in life was to uphold truth, justice, & the american way of life by ridding the world of such scum. His dedicated, hardworking, loyal, highly intelligent sniffer dog simply wouldn’t rest until he brought the cop killing slimeball to justice. How in the world can we not trust dogs like that? We may as well just sign over the deed to the United States of America to the drug cartels. Perhaps the government can provide instruction so the citizenry can learn how to shoot up their heroin. There’s not an iota of doubt in my mind that our Country would be on the highway to hell, no doubt at all.
While CSI Nick Stokes did facilitate the manhunt by the dog but ultimately it was the dedicated, hardworking, loyal, etc. sniffer dog which cracked the case. In a heartwarming but totally gratuitous to the script moment in season 13 episode 14 the dog dropped by the crime lab to have lunch with CSI Stokes. Even now that dog’s remembering how Nick helped him hunt down his partner’s killer brings tears to my eyes.
(The standard sarcasm/parody disclaimer applies to the exercise in stupidity above, last sentence excepted. If you need me for anything in the next couple of hours I’ll be over in the corner beating my head against the wall.)
Darn these socks, now my brain hurts.
I would’ve been more of teh awesome if the dope dog humped CSI Stokes’ leg after solving the case.
That’s just plain silly. It’s obvious that Mr. Stokes is a total top.
OT…
Czech President sign MMJ bill
“President Vaclav Klaus signed into law Friday February 15 a bill that legalizes medical marijuana in the Czech Republic. The bill passed the Czech senate with a overwhelming 67-2 vote.”
My stem tea idea is sounding better all the time.
It is good, only quite sleep-inducing. Add a little milk late in the boil and the milkfat will soak up the cannabinoids and make a tasty stem chai!
well that too…
I suspect that anarchist and all-around ne’er do well Clay is going to put his tea into a spray bottle… just a suspicion. One would need a test target, a parking lot, or somewhere dogs of the drug detection kind perform their olfactory duties.
how about the police parking lot,,watch to see if dog alerts and if they search their own car/cars
Search their own cars, now that’s just plain funny. This morning I’m sure glad I’ve adopted a no coffee near the laptop policy!
I was thinking about the last perp transported possibly hiding something they had missed,,but if it was their pov’s then that would be funny as hell,,,come to think of it,,I wonder if the drug dog is ever taken into the pov area and if so,,does he bark the entire time he is close to any on duty officer’s pov,,,you know they got dank.
The Supreme Court, just like America’s criminal justice bureaucracy, has been corrupted by politics and personal greed. Actually, just like America’s entire government.
Any examination, no matter how trivial or minimal, of the actions of our government immediately confirms the worst:
Our public servants are only serving themselves. Not us. We just have to pay for it all.
Our Government = The Real Terrorists.
Elena Kagan, an Obama Liberal, i.e. a conservative
Jack Cole (LEAP) is encouraging folks to enter using legalization as the theme to reduce corruption
Is it possible in traffic stops to refuse consent to dog searches?
No, because the Supreme Court has ruled that a dog sniff is not a search. It is merely sniffing the air outside your car, which is fair game, and then if it detects something, that becomes probable cause for an actual search.
The one thing that the Supreme Court did say in Caballes was that police couldn’t detain someone for an unreasonable amount of time just to get a dog there to sniff.
So, if you suspect they want to have a dog sniff and they don’t have a dog there, the thing to do is to help expedite the traffic stop (ie, don’t prolong through arguing or talking unnecessarily) and ask if you’re free to go.
.
.
I know how to do that. In 1983 I got a ticket for a “rolling” stop sign violation. I committed that heinous act because in pants defecation was imminent. Talk about a sense of urgency! It certainly wasn’t hard to communicate that sense of urgency to the cop. The remarkable thing was that he actually hurried because of it.
P.S. I’ve recently grasped Justice Breyer’s “reasoning” in the Caballes decision. Precedent is like religious dogma to those guys and believe it or not the thinking is an extension of the Kyllo decision. In Kyllo a significant part of the ruling was that FLIR didn’t cut the mustard because it could get people searched for stuff that’s totally legal. That’s why Justice Breyer “reasoned” that a dog was sniffing for something that no one has a right to possess, making it OK. I believe the thinking is that it’s going to cause searches limited to (statutory) criminals in possession of contraband. But no thought of how it’s going to cause the uninvolved to be searched because of the absence of illegal contraband. Example: Businessman travels to a distant city, rents a car that was used to move a load of something on the naughty list yesterday, gets a speeding ticket, then the dog alerts, like that. God forbid he’s got a lot of eumelanin in his skin because of his DNA.
IMO much of the problem is from the herd like compliance of the uninvolved. I’ve noticed that the uninvolved who suffer similar searches appear to be inclined to respond with an unequivocal “thank you sir may I have another?” and then give a present to the oaficer that bent them over. E.g. like we’ve just seen in the recent maple syrup flavored meth story. Say, isn’t it unethical or even illegal for sworn peace officers to accept any kind of gratuity for doing their job? So where the heck is “the LAW is the LAW (blah, blah, blah)†crowd when authorities decide to break the law and violate their Oath? Up in the peanut gallery cheering that lawbreaking like the hypocritical partisan hacks that they are is where. 
”Enjoy the syrup officer, you deserve it!”
Of course if the oaficer was smart he’d have booked the syrup as evidence to avoid even the appearance of impropriety and then sent a sample to the crime lab to make sure it didn’t have anything added to make him uncomfortable, sick or dead. How does he know that the phone snitch wasn’t part of a conspiracy to violate a jack booted thug with poisoned maple syrup? Is there such a thing as maple syrup flavored ex-lax®? Darn it, now I’m suffering from naughty thoughts…must not give cops diarrhea…must not give cops diarrhea…must not [etc.]
OT
Comments open in the New England Journal of Medicine: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMclde1300970?query=featured_home&page=1#t=article
.
.
I’m so gratefully warm and fuzzy for the creation of the TSA that I’m going to drive Linthicum just to have my shoes x-rayed. This one is from the “it’s so reassuring to know that the gubmint is keeping us safe from terrorists that it’s almost like being back inside mom’s uterus” category:
Man admits growing marijuana at Augusta airport
Marlon Cloutier faces at least five years in prison for cultivating pot within the airport property.
That’s what you get when you put non-judges in judges robes. The Supreme Court should be built on experience on the bench. We know that two have no such experience AND, it shows!
.
.
John Jay was the first SCOTUS Chief Justice appointed by George Washington. Justice Jay had no previous judicial experience when he was appointed. But he also sure didn’t have much when he left the Court in 1795 as the Jay Court didn’t have much work, hearing 4 cases but deciding only 3. I didn’t know before this evening that the SCOTUS could blow off a case after considering all arguments of the petitioner and respondent.
Two of the cases were doozers. In Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. (2 Dall.) 419 (1793) the Court ruled by a vote of 4-1 that the concept of sovereign immunity was unconstitutional.
If you’re wondering how the heck we ended up with sovereign immunity that would be because the 11th Amendment was proposed and ratified as a direct result of Chisolm.
**************************************************
I’m sure most of us are familiar with the other remarkable decision of the Jay Court in Georgia v. Brailsford, 3 U.S. 1 (1794). (Apparently Georgia was a very pissy State in the early years of the Union.)
In Brailsford the Court ruled unanimously that in cases where the presiding judge of the Court instructed the jury, in part, that a jury has a right to judge the law as well as the facts (AKA jury nullification is legal.)
Pretty good stuff from a legal dilettante with no judicial experience. Then again he did hang out with the other old white men at the Constitutional Convention so he was probably fairly familiar with the document and the old white men’s intent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Jay#Cases
OT. A new cannabinoid study involving the cannabinoid trans-caryophyllene (TC) protected brain cells in rats from the effects of ischemia (stroke).
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-02/ehs-aoc022113.php
Obliquely off-topic, perhaps: Matt Taibbi once more shows us how fraudulent the DrugWar is, when Mom & Pop weed growers languish in jail, banksters who laundered TRILLIONS of narcodollars go free.
This, while the Supremes cackle over allowing drug dogs to urinate on the Constitution they swore to protect and defend.
Looks like Orwell was right; some animals are ‘more equal’ than others.
It’s the rich what gets the pleasure and the poor what gets the blame…
Sigghh
Let’s make Dogs People too.
Full Employment within a Year.
From Puppy Daycare, Schooling, Feeding, Dental, Pensions, Legal, Psychiatric, Medical, to Geriatric and Burial Services, Everyone Wins. Woof
bark Yip
And a national dog day,,I mean..the first words of the national anthem at any ball game is Jose can you see?
Fido can you see would do.
Unemployment benefits for sniffer dogs when drugs are legalised.
None for their handlers.
So driving around with a car full of stray cats would actually pay off. This reminds me of the old dude I know who loves to drink and drive . . . every second he gets, he’s guzzling whiskey out on some old dirt road and every time he gets a road block or pulled over, he has a pet skunk whom he forces it to spray on him as soon as he knows he’ll have to talk to the cops. “Good God, I don’t give a fuck as to why I pulled you over anymore -you have a good day sir.”
.
.
I had a dog for 17 years. I met him in front of a 7-11 while taking a very long stroll one dark and stony night in 1979. He endeared himself to me when he took a leak on a wire mesh trash can in the parking lot. There was a big, ugly and very scary biker passed out drunk beside the wire mesh trash can on the opposite side and he got it in the face.
Now Throckmorton was a big dog weighing in at about 100 lbs and fully 6 feet tall when he walked on two legs so he pissed like a miniature racehorse. That poor drunken biker revived, stood up with murder in his heart for both dogs that had just disturbed his tranquility and then promptly passed out again. Lucky dog.
My best friend was on this journey and he had a pocket full of jumping jacks. He thought it would be jolly good fun to light one and scare the dog. What he didn’t know was that Throckmorton was queer for gunpowder and would chase those things. He actually caught some, no easy feat. If he were around today I’d have him rented to the TSA as a bomb sniffer dog. Far from being terrified he liked them so much that he joined us on our journey, literally following us to my house. Well except that he was walking point.
When we got to the house I decided to give him a bath. I was stunned when he changed from brown to black. Hey, he was covered in mud from head to toe and I was stoned to the bejeezus.
I got out a baseball, bat and glove and we headed to the local baseball field. It was the crack of dawn by that time. I knew he was my dog when the fuzz pulled up to hassle us and that boy wasn’t scared and I think he was intent on ripping that cops face off if he got too close. I told him to sit down and shut up and to my surprise he did it. A stray dog that had been to obedience school, remarkable.
Why name him Throckmorton Horatio Clarke? Well I had just read an idiotic short story named “How Henry J. Littlefinger Licked The Hippies’ Scheme To Take Over The Country By Tossing Pot In Postage Stamp Glue” written in 1971 by an imbecile named John Keefauver. The story’s antagonist was a hippie caricature named Large Daddy Throckmorton who was the boss of the hippies (yeah right, boss of the hippies.) Also the dog was very much a Marmaduke type. There’s a House of Marmaduke and a House of Throckmorton in the British House of Lords. The Horatio and Clarke names were PFTA because his initials needed to be THC of course.
He was a good dog. He was a very good dog. Everyone called him Throckmorton the smiling dog. He was more of a person than most people I know.
seriously… going into lots of folks homes as I do for work I meet so many great dogs (percentage wise they fare better than hoomons)(today it was Rose, a golden retriever). Such an honorable critter is the dog. Full of love and willing to give it all in your defense. Most of ’em are as smart as hoomons will let them be. Or they can gang up like a pack of feral dogs… but hey we all have our moments…
Oh, the big dog rescued from Afghanistan, Cody, now lives in Texas with 3 young boys (2 of whom aren’t as big as the pup) and word has it he thinks he’s in dog heaven.
Here’s a bit I laid down on my old long-gone-now pup, Lance the Wonder Dog (with photos):
http://morningdonut.blogspot.com/2008/03/dear-friends.html
Lance came to me as an adoptee from a White Mountain Apache fella. When I picked him up the family was very sad, but when he jumped into the cab of my truck and sat down like it was his truck, they knew he was good with it. Rumor had it he was part coyote…
OK, who’s the dog hater? C’mon now, confess!
somebody don’ like puppy dogs Dunc… ok, who taught their cat how to find DWR?
.
.
My dog loved cats. Well he desperately wanted to but the size difference left it unrequited. Well I think it did. One of the house cats did have a very peculiar litter of little mutants which died shortly after birth. They sure didn’t look like kittens. If I didn’t know that it wasn’t physically and genetically impossible I’d have to say it’s a definite maybe. But alien abduction/artificial insemination is more likely. PS the cat was a very willing little wanton trollop and just as frustrated as the dog because it didn’t happen. Gosh, those were the days.
Favor please? Call me anything you want except Dunc. Dunc was my dad, not me. I really do find it quite disturbing.
can I call you late for dinner?
Now Maryland. What are we up to now -seven?
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/02/21/bill-would-legalize-marijuana-in-md/
.
.
Well now I know how some people that to date I’ve found very annoying feel when they say “well don’t get your hopes up. [name of home State] will never re-legalize.” Then again the current Maryland Legislature is lousy with lawyers who have refused to pass a medicinal cannabis patient protection law because they don’t think that it’s really accepted by the medical community. These
peoplelawyers are such narcissists that they didn’t even notice that the bills were sponsored by the one and only Maryland lawmaker with the letters M.D. after his name. So hope is really hard to come by here in The “Free” State.Then again, Maryland has thumbed its nose at Federal law a couple of times in the past:
At least there are some things in life that we can count on. One is that almost all Prohibitionists will be total jenkem huffers until the hour of their death.
Empathy sucks. Unfortunately lack of empathy sucks even worse, and is associated with being a Know Nothing prohibitionist, making a living micromanaging the metabolites in other people’s pee and sometimes with torturing small animals when bored. (the gateway to prohibitionism?). While I think that the possibility of me catching that disease is highly unlikely, there’s still no known cure, not even a 12 step program to help so the risk/reward ratio (r/r:r) says it just isn’t a good bet.
I ran across a weird article today: “Medical marijuana: Voodoo or legitimate therapeutic choice?”
It’s basically a “pro and con” debate of doctors over a hypothetical breast cancer patient in constant pain; the question is, whether she should be prescribed medical cannabis or not, and why. Now, I’m not a medical specialist, but some of the “con”-reasoning (by Robert DuPont, mind you!) seems explicitly circular, eben downright bizarre.
How do you even start to argue with something like this!?
Love how the Grunts at the Front Lines of the Early Wars almost always had a Ciggy in their Mouth.
I’m Content that the Dangers of Smoking Ciggys and Weed Pale in Comparison to Inhaling burning Plastic, Insecticide, amd Tires. Tired of the Shadow Funded-Agenda Bla Bla Bla.
Cannot Imagine the lonely helplessness of someone suffering from some horrible condition and not being permitted to exercise all Treatment Options.
In my Girls Case, PharmaDrugged, Housing-Pimped, Radiation Sterilized, and Neglecto-Manipulated to Near-Suicide, The Whining, Malingering and healthily Wealthy PTB seem pleased that she prefers MJ over Crack Cocaine. A Thirty-Year Parade of Incompetance led to this small Success.
Friends; Freedom is VOODOO.
VOODOO is FUN
Think Compressed Air.