Every once in a while a ray of sanity shines through the clouds of ignorance and idiocy that have defined the policies and procedures of our failed War on Druggies.

Exhibit A: a judge in Maryland correctly ruled in U.S. v. Karim L. Mowatt that officers who burst into a man's home and arrested him should have gotten a warrant before forcing entry. The prosecution naturally claimed 'exigent circumstances' prevented the officers from following the Constitution and getting a warrant before bursting into a man's home and arresting him after having received a complaint of loud music and the smell of marijuana emanating from an apartment in what was described as a 'high crime area.'

The fact that officers found a revolver and two assault rifles with ammunition, a body armor vest, a large bag of Ecstasy, substantial amounts of marijuana and $20,000 in cash, is more or less irrelevant. Play by the rules, piggies, the last remnants of the Old Republic has not yet been swept away, and its heartening to see that some of the people in power haven't given up on the rule of law.

In a previous appeal in December, the government had argued that the officers’ requiring Mowatt to open his door did not constitute a search and the evidence was admissible because it was seized with a warrant. This doesn't speak at all to the fact that they found these items after they forced their way into someone's residence - requiring a citizen to allow government agents entry without a warrant and then using evidence gained from that warrantless search is baldly illegal, the Fourth Amendmant specifically speaks to this sort of abuse - I don't know why the Court felt it necessary to find case law precedent to back this ruling up, all you really need to do is open the Constitution.

Last update : 01-02-2008 22:09

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