Too many teenagers and young adults in Loudoun County and across the nation are stopped and asked, "May I search your car for drugs?"
incidentally, this appears to affect disproportionally those who are Hispanic or Black.
You may know the drill but, if not, you should.
State and local police loiter near bars and restaurants and movie theaters late at night, watch who leave, and follow them when they leave.
They let them go through an intersection and stop them for a rolling stop instead of a full stop, or a license plate light that's out.
The persons stopped often insist the alleged violation was false and only a pretext for stopping the vehicle. In other words, the stop was a fishing expedition to see what the police might find.
The driver may be your son or daughter.
The officer asks, "Mind if I search your car for drugs?" He may say, "I smell pot," whether or not he does. The officer is trained to lie to provoke a response. He's encouraged to lie to obtain an admission.
If your son or daughter says, "No, officer, it's late and l want to get home," the police officer says, "what's the matter, you got something to hide?"
The car is usually held by the side of the road while other officers are called to the scene and a K-9 unit is called.
This dog is led around the car and an officer decides the dog "alerted" on the car, meaning the dog suspects drugs are in the car.
You can see what an ensemble of officers and time and resources are involved in a single stop of this kind.
The officers then toss the car, search it, and, if they find nothing. When this happens, we don't get to hear about the "false alert" - that the sniffing dog got it wrong - as the motorist goes on his way, perhaps with a ticket for a broken tail light.
If they find something, they assert they had probable cause, for example, to unearth a joint under the front passenger seat - as indicated by the sniffing canine.
Then they closely question your son or daughter, "tell me is that your pot?"
You may say they should be advising your son or daughter he or she has a right to remain silent.
But, they don't because, most often, they insist, your son or daughter is not in custody.
Miranda says you have to be in custody to be warned. But who thinks, when stopped by the police, with other squad cars on the scene, and police dogs, and officers crawling in your car, searching it, that you are not in custody, and that you are free to go on your way? No one I've ever met!
At the end of this drill, your son or daughter is arrested for possession of some insignificant amount of marijuana.
What's wrong with this picture?
Several years ago, California Governor Arnold "the Terminator" Schwarzenegger sought to terminate misdemeanor marijuana possession prosecutions asking why California spends such resources on an offense that should be an infraction with a fine instead of being treated as a crime.
Only days ago, New York Governor Cuomo asked the State Legislature to decriminalize marijuana possession in his state. He was responding to stop-and-frisk practices by the New York police, asking individuals to empty their pockets and then prosecuting them for misdemeanor possession when they had a joint or any marijuana in their pockets. This is not so different from the practice in Virginia of stopping cars on traffic violations when really they are looking to make pot busts.
Cuomo objected that these aggressive tactics result in the life-altering trauma of arrest, create arrest records for young people who are often minorities, who had no prior record, requiring them to retain or have counsel appointed, and suffering a stigma that may follow them their whole life long no matter what else happens, compromising their education and employment opportunities.
Cuomo was emboldened by the fact that a dozen states have decriminalized possession.
I was a federal drug prosecutor in New York City in the war on drugs in the 70s and we prosecuted organized crime syndicates bringing hundreds of kilos of pure heroin from Thailand and France to New York. We seized the drugs, arrested the conspirators, got million dollar bail amounts from the court, convicted drug kingpins, garnered front page headlines, got them long sentences in miserable prisons, and, looking back into the rear view mirror today, it made hardly any difference at all.
In the intervening years we are always re-declaring this never-ending war on drugs but to little good effect.
Whatever it is that we must do to reform our nation's drug policy to make any sense at all, one thing is clear, we shouldn't be trashing the lives of our young with penny ante pot possession charges.
incidentally, this appears to affect disproportionally those who are Hispanic or Black.
You may know the drill but, if not, you should.
State and local police loiter near bars and restaurants and movie theaters late at night, watch who leave, and follow them when they leave.
They let them go through an intersection and stop them for a rolling stop instead of a full stop, or a license plate light that's out.
The persons stopped often insist the alleged violation was false and only a pretext for stopping the vehicle. In other words, the stop was a fishing expedition to see what the police might find.
The driver may be your son or daughter.
The officer asks, "Mind if I search your car for drugs?" He may say, "I smell pot," whether or not he does. The officer is trained to lie to provoke a response. He's encouraged to lie to obtain an admission.
If your son or daughter says, "No, officer, it's late and l want to get home," the police officer says, "what's the matter, you got something to hide?"
The car is usually held by the side of the road while other officers are called to the scene and a K-9 unit is called.
This dog is led around the car and an officer decides the dog "alerted" on the car, meaning the dog suspects drugs are in the car.
You can see what an ensemble of officers and time and resources are involved in a single stop of this kind.
The officers then toss the car, search it, and, if they find nothing. When this happens, we don't get to hear about the "false alert" - that the sniffing dog got it wrong - as the motorist goes on his way, perhaps with a ticket for a broken tail light.
If they find something, they assert they had probable cause, for example, to unearth a joint under the front passenger seat - as indicated by the sniffing canine.
Then they closely question your son or daughter, "tell me is that your pot?"
You may say they should be advising your son or daughter he or she has a right to remain silent.
But, they don't because, most often, they insist, your son or daughter is not in custody.
Miranda says you have to be in custody to be warned. But who thinks, when stopped by the police, with other squad cars on the scene, and police dogs, and officers crawling in your car, searching it, that you are not in custody, and that you are free to go on your way? No one I've ever met!
At the end of this drill, your son or daughter is arrested for possession of some insignificant amount of marijuana.
What's wrong with this picture?
Several years ago, California Governor Arnold "the Terminator" Schwarzenegger sought to terminate misdemeanor marijuana possession prosecutions asking why California spends such resources on an offense that should be an infraction with a fine instead of being treated as a crime.
Only days ago, New York Governor Cuomo asked the State Legislature to decriminalize marijuana possession in his state. He was responding to stop-and-frisk practices by the New York police, asking individuals to empty their pockets and then prosecuting them for misdemeanor possession when they had a joint or any marijuana in their pockets. This is not so different from the practice in Virginia of stopping cars on traffic violations when really they are looking to make pot busts.
Cuomo objected that these aggressive tactics result in the life-altering trauma of arrest, create arrest records for young people who are often minorities, who had no prior record, requiring them to retain or have counsel appointed, and suffering a stigma that may follow them their whole life long no matter what else happens, compromising their education and employment opportunities.
Cuomo was emboldened by the fact that a dozen states have decriminalized possession.
I was a federal drug prosecutor in New York City in the war on drugs in the 70s and we prosecuted organized crime syndicates bringing hundreds of kilos of pure heroin from Thailand and France to New York. We seized the drugs, arrested the conspirators, got million dollar bail amounts from the court, convicted drug kingpins, garnered front page headlines, got them long sentences in miserable prisons, and, looking back into the rear view mirror today, it made hardly any difference at all.
In the intervening years we are always re-declaring this never-ending war on drugs but to little good effect.
Whatever it is that we must do to reform our nation's drug policy to make any sense at all, one thing is clear, we shouldn't be trashing the lives of our young with penny ante pot possession charges.
I once sat on the side of the road for hours because a dog alerted on the left over pizza box in the back of my van... of course you already known that. What a terrible waste of money and man power.
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