The Rev. Canon Carol L. Wade, former canon precentor at the National Cathedral in Washington, will be the new dean and rector at Lexington's historic Christ Church Episcopal Cathedral. She is the first woman to hold either position at the downtown church.Wade will assume her new duties in September...
The Fayette County School Board has named Daviess County Superintendent Tom Shelton as superintendent to replace out-going superintendent Stu Silberman.
About $41,000 in funding for the Valley View Ferry was restored Thursday by a Lexington council budget committee.Mayor Jim Gray initially proposed cutting money for the ferry to help reduce a multimillion-dollar city deficit for the fiscal year that begins July 1. But the administration reversed ...
FRANKFORT — State lawmakers Thursday questioned whether the state has the resources and expertise to oversee moving the $6 billion Medicaid program to private, for-profit managed care companies. Sen. Jimmy Higdon, the chairman of the Interim Committee on Program Review and Investigations, told...
For the first time, a Lexington teen who shot and killed his best friend publicly apologized to the victim's family.Jamar Mays, 18, told Ali Shalash's family — his mother, Gwendolyn Perkins, in particular — he was sorry during a sentencing hearing Thursday."I want to apologize to Miss...
Building strong communitywide support is key to closing achievement gaps and moving Lexington schools forward, Clark County superintendent Elaine Farris said Thursday as she sought Fayette County's top education job."It's very important that we understand that the excellence we want cannot be achieved...
FRANKFORT — A judge has ordered that a receiver take over a troubled personal care home in Letcher County that has been the subject of numerous state citations and federal and state criminal charges. Letcher Circuit Court Judge Samuel Wright granted a temporary restraining order Thursday and...
The Global Commission on Drug Policy called for a new approach to reducing drug abuse to replace the current strategy of strictly criminalizing drugs and incarcerating drug users while battling criminal cartels that control the drug trade.
"The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world," said the report issued by the commission on Thursday.
The study urges "experimentation by governments with models of legal regulation of drugs," adding: "This recommendation applies especially to cannabis, but we also encourage other experiments in decriminalization and legal regulation."
There are 250 million users of illicit drugs worldwide, with less than a 10th of them classified as dependent, and millions are involved in cultivation, production and distribution, according to U.N. estimates quoted in the report.
The study adds that decriminalization initiatives do not result in significant increases in drug use.
"Now is the time to break the taboo on discussion of all drug policy options, including alternatives to drug prohibition," former Colombian President Cesar Gaviria said.
The 19-member panel includes current Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and former heads of state, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, British businessman Richard Branson and former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz.
The commission said fundamental reforms were urgently needed in national and global drug control policies.
Seth Bock stands in what's supposed to be one of Rhode Island's first medical marijuana stores. His group was going to install grow lights and a ventilation system this week, but not anymore.
"We can't really invest any money into the carpentry and the building process until we know that this will go on," he says.
But that could take a while. Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee has put the program on hold indefinitely. The reason: a letter he received from the U.S. Attorneys' Office that said Rhode Island's so-called compassion centers could face federal raids, fines or criminal prosecution if they open.
"The U.S. attorney was very direct," governor's spokesman Michael Trainor says. "The governor believes that if we proceed on the present course, he'd be putting the compassion centers and people associated with compassion centers at great risk."
Rhode Island's letter is similar to those sent to at least eight other states with medical marijuana programs. Advocates believe the threats are a dramatic change from the Obama administration's original stance on medical marijuana. The Justice Department has refused to clarify its decision, saying only that its policy remains the same. It says the U.S. attorneys assigned to each state have "discretion" about how to enforce that policy.
The Ogden Memo
What the policy is, exactly, depends on how you interpret what's called "the Ogden memo."
"In 2009, the Department of Justice indicated that it would be a low priority to prosecute anyone who was complying with state medical marijuana laws," Jay Rorty of the American Civil Liberties Union explains. He says the 2009 memo from then-Deputy Attorney General David Ogden made advocates think the federal government wouldn't interfere with state medical marijuana stores.
Marijuana buds for sale at the Sunset Junction medical marijuana dispensary in Los Angeles, Calif.
U.S. Attorney Michael Ormsby from Washington state disagrees with that interpretation. "I think the ACLU takes that statement out of context," he says. According to him, the memo means the federal government won't go after patients who are growing their own marijuana — but retail stores were never part of that exception.
"We're talking, in some instances, about thousands of dollars a week being generated by these enterprises," he says.
It's a problem familiar to Colorado's Attorney General John Suthers. He says Colorado's more than 800 dispensaries are probably not what the federal government had in mind when it issued the Ogden memo.
"We've had just a plethora of retail dispensaries develop. We've got grow operations; we're now at 125,000 patients," he says. "And it's a joke."
That's why he asked his U.S. attorney for advice. Suthers guesses that the letters from other U.S. attorneys are an attempt to prevent more states from becoming like Colorado.
Meanwhile, States Have Patients
How each state interprets those letters is different. Some are going ahead with their programs despite the warnings. Others are in the same limbo as Rhode Island, where patients are getting frustrated.
"I don't know about you, but I feel mad. Do you?" Ellen Lenox Smith is a familiar face at the podium in the Rhode Island State House. She testifies in favor of dispensaries at every opportunity, with her wheelchair and service dog nearby. She says marijuana helps lessen the pain of her two incurable diseases. She grows her own plants, for now.
"I have to wonder, as I progress with my two conditions, where am I going to be headed? What happens when I can no longer grow? Where am I supposed to turn?" she says.
For now, the answer to Lenox Smith's question is unclear, as states weigh the new risks of opening dispensaries. Local governments are looking to a lawsuit filed by the governor of Arizona to clarify the federal government's stance on state marijuana programs. Meanwhile, the sale of the drug continues to follow a pattern of fits and starts across the country.
This week's Supreme Court decision in Kentucky v. King has civil-libertarians and marijuana policy reformers in an uproar, and rightly so, but it's not exactly the death of the 4th Amendment. Here's a look at how this case could impact police practices and constitutional rights.
It all started when police chased a drug suspect into a building and lost him. They smelled marijuana smoke coming from an apartment and decided to check it out, so they announced themselves and knocked loudly on the door. They heard movement inside, which the officers feared could indicate destruction of evidence, so they kicked in the door and entered the apartment. Hollis King was arrested for drugs and challenged the police entry as a violation of his 4th Amendment right against unreasonable searches.
In an 8-1 decision written by Justice Alito, the Court determined that an emergency search was justified to prevent destruction of evidence, even though police created the risk of such destruction by yelling "Police!" and banging on the door. The determining factor, in the Court's view, was that police had not violated the 4th Amendment simply by knocking on the door. Since the subsequent need to prevent destruction of evidence was the result of legal conduct by the officers, the events that followed do not constitute a violation of the suspect's constitutional rights.
Naturally, any fan of the 4th Amendment can look at this scenario and wonder what's to stop police from "smelling" marijuana and "hearing" evidence being destroyed any time they have an urge to enter a particular dwelling. What does destruction of evidence sound like anyway, and what doesn't it sound like? Doesn't someone jumping up to destroy evidence sound the same as someone jumping up to answer the door before police kick it down? It's hard to argue with anyone who sees this result as a blueprint for facilitating not only widespread police actions that circumvent the warrant requirement, but also more innocent people being killed in their own homes in misunderstandings that could have been prevented by just a little patience from police.
These are very valid concerns, but it's also true that in the immediate aftermath of any unfortunate Supreme Court ruling, there's a tendency to commence eulogizing the 4th Amendment and proclaiming that our freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures has been abolished once and for all. That's not the case here any more than it was with anynumberofpreviousrulings we wish had been decided differently. It's not a fatal diagnosis; it merely sucks.
The fact that police were chasing a suspect when they entered the building and the fact that they smelled marijuana coming from the defendant's apartment and the fact that they heard suspicious noises after knocking were all factors in the legal outcome. Remove any one of these conditions and the case might have been decided differently. In other words, this Supreme Court decision does not mean police can start knocking on doors randomly and bursting in any time they hear a sound coming from inside. They must already have probable cause to believe there's a crime taking place and, fortunately, any prudent citizen can take measures to prevent their home from reeking of probable cause.
Ultimately, the lesson here is something we've been emphasizing at FlexYourRights.org for a long time now: stay calm, don't expose yourself to police attention, and know your rights in case something happens. Police often knock on doors without a warrant, so your best move is just to stay calm and make an informed decision about how to handle the situation.
If you prefer not to answer, which is your legal right, then do so by waiting silently for the officers to leave. If you choose to speak with them, stepping outside is a smart way to keep them from claiming to detect criminal evidence within your home. Unless they have a warrant, they may not search or even enter the home without your permission. Don't give it to them. Finally, understand that if the officers do have a warrant, your legal options are limited to the point that you should just focus on not getting hurt. In the event of any kind of negative outcome, remain silent and discuss your options with an attorney.
It's a shame that we even have to prepare people for situations like this in what's supposed to be a free society, but modern drug enforcement practices are so prone to error and abuse that every citizen should know how to protect their constitutional rights in an emergency situation. As the Supreme Court continues to reduce the scope of our 4th Amendment protections, understanding how to properly exercise our remaining rights becomes more important than ever before.
Sage smells like cannabis when burned. This war on drugs is a war on the Global African community and mother earth! These are the facts because numbers do not lie...
The justices said officers who smell marijuana and loudly knock on the door may break in if they hear sounds that suggest the residents are scurrying to hide the drugs.
Residents who "attempt to destroy evidence have only themselves to blame" when police burst in, said Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. for an 8-1 majority.
In a lone dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she feared the ruling in a Kentucky case gives police an easy way to ignore the Fourth Amendment. She said its "core requirement" is that officers have probable cause and a search warrant before they break into a house.
"How 'secure' do our homes remain if police, armed with no warrant, can pound on doors at will and ... forcibly enter?" Ginsburg asked.
An expert on criminal searches said the decision would encourage the police to undertake "knock and talk" raids. "I'm surprised the Supreme Court would condone this, that if the police hear suspicious noises inside, they can break in. I'm even more surprised that nearly all of them went along," said John Wesley Hall, a criminal defense lawyer in Little Rock, Ark.
In the past, the court has insisted that homes are special preserves. As Alito said, the Fourth Amendment "has drawn a firm line at the entrance to the house." One exception to the search-warrant rule involves an emergency, such as screams coming from a house. Police may also pursue a fleeing suspect who enters a residence.
The Kentucky case began when police in Lexington sought to arrest a man who had sold crack cocaine to an informer. They followed him to an apartment building, but lost sight of him. Upon smelling marijuana coming from one apartment, they pounded on the door and called "Police. Police. Police," and heard sounds of people moving.
At this, the officers announced they were coming in and broke down the door. The suspect was not in the apartment; instead, police found Hollis King smoking marijuana and put him under arrest. They also found powder cocaine. King was convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to 11 years in prison.
The Supreme Court ruled in Kentucky v. King that the officers' conduct "was entirely lawful," and they were justified in breaking in to prevent the destruction of the evidence.
"When law enforcement officers who are not armed with a warrant knock on a door, they do no more than any private citizen may do," he wrote. A resident need not respond, he added. But the sounds of people moving and perhaps toilets being flushed could justify police entering without a warrant, he added.
The ruling was not a final loss for King. The justices said the Kentucky state court should consider again whether the police faced an emergency situation in this case.
Ginsburg, however, said the court's approach "arms the police with a way routinely to dishonor the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement in drug cases." She said the police did not face a "genuine emergency" and should not have been allowed to enter the apartment without a warrant.
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(c) 2011, Tribune Co.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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