Odds and Ends

“bullet” Grits for Breakfast reports on a police officer’s approach to conducting his job

Investigators found that the sergeant had used drug evidence with the wrong cases, disposed of narcotics evidence and improperly stored evidence envelopes in his desk.
The probe also revealed that Leal could not account for drugs allegedly purchased by a confidential informant and used by Leal as the basis for five search warrants.
During a subsequent polygraph test, Leal admitted that for at least two of those, he had merely cut and pasted information from other warrants and that no drug purchases were ever made, the memo states.
He also admitted to reprinting prior warrants from other cases and changing times, dates and locations to obtain legal permission to search other suspected drug houses, according to the memo.

Hey, why should a cop bother with little things like obeying the law when going after druggies?
It’s the enormity of cases like these that make people lose all respect and trust for law enforcement.
“bullet” An appeals court overturns an 85 year prison sentence for possession of between one and four grams of cocaine. Apparently, not only was the sentence absurdly long, but the court felt the defendant should actually have been in some way in possession of the cocaine in order to be convicted of possession.
“bullet” The Globe and Mail is putting out a four-part series by Margaret Wente trashing harm reduction. Part one is full of bad anecdotes and lacking much in the way of facts, or in understanding the complex issues involved. I’ll be keeping an eye on it — next Saturday she takes on legalization.