Global Ganja Report

The US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 June 3 in Maryland v. King that police may collect DNA samples from individuals arrested and charged with serious crimes. The respondent in the case, Alonzo King, challenged the validity of Maryland's DNA Collection Act after state officials used a DNA sample taken after a 2009 arrest on assault charges to implicate him in a 2003 rape. In an opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the majority found that the warrantless DNA collection does not violate Fourth Amendment rights. Kennedy wrote:

Police on May 23 arrested four in raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in Southern Oregon. Medford Police Chief Tim George said the arrests followed a two-year investigation in which undercover police purchased cannabis outside the law governing medical marijuana. The Oregon medical marijuana allows growers to recover only their expenses, and nothing to cover their labor or a profit. Oregon's Mail Tribune reports that among the four was Lori Duckworth, executive director of Southern Oregon NORML.

The US Supreme Court ruled March 26 in Florida v. Jardines that an alert from a drug-sniffing dog on a suspect's front porch constitutes a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The ruling upheld the Florida Supreme Court, which held that evidence gathered pursuant to search warrant obtained based on the positive alert from the dog must be suppressed because the dog's presence itself constituted a warrantless search. The case stemmed from a 2006 incident in which Miami police and DEA agents, acting on a tip, place the home of Joelis Jardines under warrantless surveillance. Following the canine alert, a warrant was obtained, which uncovered Jardines' indoor grow operaiton.

Seattle's Mayor Mike McGinn on Feb. 7 ordered his police department to abandon its plan to use drones after residents and privacy advocates protested. McGinn said the two small drones obtained through a federal grant will be returned to the vendor. "Today I spoke with Seattle Police Chief John Diaz, and we agreed that it was time to end the unmanned aerial vehicle program, so that SPD can focus its resources on public safety and the community building work that is the department's priority," he said in a brief statement.

A true American freedom fighter has her day in court—and loses. This is a blow against freedom, but at least Andrea Hernandez stood up for her rights—and those of all of us. Win or lose—always worthwhile. From the BBC News, Jan. 9:

For years, police forces in the Emerald Triangle and elsewhere around backcountry California have been hyping an increasing presence in the region's forests of Mexican and Russian cannabis grow ops linked to criminal mafias and cartels based abroad. Now, refreshingly, a Los Angeles Times story of Jan. 2, "Roots of pot cultivation hard to trace," takes a dispassionate look at the question. The piece opens with a slightly lurid lead about camo-clad federal agents ready to "lock-and-load" in a stake-out on National Forest land in Kern County, fearing attack by Mexican cartel gunmen. But at the end, the piece basically tells us not to believe the hype:

The Obama administration's aggressive federal enforcement in medical marijuana states has reached a crescendo this month, with three people being sentenced, two others due to surrender to federal authorities to serve out sentences of up to five years in prison, and one federal trial in Montana currently scheduled for Jan. 14. Two of the three people being sentenced in the coming month—Montana cultivator Chris Williams and Los Angeles-area dispensary operator Aaron Sandusky—face five and ten years to life, respectively.

Police can't pull you over and arrest you just because you gave them the finger, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York ruled Jan. 3. In a 14-page opinion, the court found that the "ancient gesture of insult is not the basis for a reasonable suspicion of a traffic violation or impending criminal activity." John Swartz and his wife Judy Mayton-Swartz had sued two police officers who arrested Swartz in May 2006 after he flipped off an officer who was using a radar device at an intersection in St. Johnsville, NY. Swartz was charged with a violation of New York's disorderly conduct statute, although the charges were dropped on speedy trial grounds.