Cops With Super Sniffers Fool No One Except the Judge
Iowa officers detect less than one gram of marijuana, 100 yards away, in a closed container in a moving car.
K-9 units faced some competition from human crime sniffers in Des Moines, Iowa, after three officers claimed olfactory prowess during a traffic stop on October 5, 2019. Court documents from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit revealed that the officers claimed to detect marijuana while driving behind the defendant, Vernon Shumaker.
The officers testified that they detected less than one gram of marijuana in a closed container coming from a moving car, a football field's length away, while a hefty breeze cut across traffic. They supposedly picked up the scent of burning marijuana through the open windows of their patrol car and pinpointed the source to a specific vehicle, two cars ahead of them.
Officers insisted "without a shadow of a doubt" that the whiff gave them probable cause to stop the car. They discovered a few unlit marijuana blunts stashed in a covered ashtray. They also found a gun, leading to Shumakers' arrest for being a felon and drug user in possession of a firearm.
Prosecutors had what they needed for conviction, though they faced one small hurdle, the Fourth Amendment. Officers must have probable cause before they conduct searches and seizures. Yet when Shumaker filed a motion to suppress evidence—based on the limits of human noses—the district court sided with the officers. The 8th Circuit upheld the ruling on December 29, 2021.
Courts are the bulwark of civil rights. Citizens need an engaged judiciary that puts the government to its burden. Yet too often, courts bend over backward to justify officers' testimony, no matter how implausible—even when government officials have clear conflicts of interest.
Iowa law enforcement agencies routinely use traffic enforcement to generate revenue through a money making scheme called civil forfeiture. When officers seize cash and other valuables, civil forfeiture forces property owners to file affidavits and pay legal fees to recover their assets—even when they are innocent of wrongdoing.
Costs often outweigh the value of seized items, prompting many property owners to walk away. Despite reforms that the Iowa Legislature passed in 2017, some motorists permanently lose assets without ever being arrested or charged with a crime. Police and prosecutors keep 100 percent of those assets.
"Policing for Profit," a 2020 report from the Institute for Justice, shows that civil forfeiture generated more than $100 million for Iowa law enforcement agencies in the last two decades.
That's a strong financial incentive for aggressive traffic patrols. The Special Enforcement Team within the Des Moines Police Department, which picked up Shumaker, specializes in seizures, and one team member even testified that they make "as many stops as possible."
It's no surprise that an entire cottage industry has sprung up around this practice. The director of the Smell and Taste Center at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center testified on Shumaker's behalf, stating that the government's case reeked of misconduct. The prosecution followed up with their own expert witness from Desert Snow, a multi-million dollar company that trains cops on civil forfeiture proceedings, who claimed that humans can do amazing things with their noses so long as they have the proper "training and experience." And this assertion was good enough to pass judicial review.
Passive judges who accept government arguments without rigorous scrutiny are corrosive to the Constitution. Clearly something is rotten in law enforcement and the courts can't seem to smell it.
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Three clinger judges — two Bush, one Trump — on that silly, authoritarian Eighth Circuit panel.
The liberal-libertarian mainstream will continue to curb our vestigial drug warriors, against the efforts and wishes of authoritarian right-wingers.
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There is no way something this sensitive won’t have a ton of false positives.
The nose knows…
The Washington Post provides this helpful explainer as to why the vaccine which was highly effective against Omicron was able to be “sidestepped” by Omicron creating the large number of breakthrough infections.
Breakthrough makes it seem rare. The rarity seems to have worn off, but the media is clinging to it.
The director of the Smell and Taste Center at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center testified on Shumaker’s behalf, stating that the government’s case reeked of misconduct.
Cute.
The nose can be a blunt instrument.
>>Courts are the bulwark of civil rights.
lol courts are the mother’s leg the DAs hide behind.
Canada’s health officials are willing to take bold steps to stop the virus.
“how many lolz can you identify in the above paragraphs?”
Canada’s “PHAC you” to its citizenry.
Naturally, the courts must defer to the experts in all matters.
It’s a society-wide issue, but seems to be prevalent in the ‘professional’ classes who fawn over experts, expert testimony, and assorted bunk from whichever blowhards make the most noise. Witness the fauci phenomenon, the insistence that hillary was the most qualified candidate since Washington, the ‘270 doctors’ who aren’t doctors trying to get JRE silenced.
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Seems like the defense could have cross examined the officer that testified “without a shadow of a doubt”, put the evidence in one of five cardboard boxes (the other four containing only empty jars) and asking him which of the five contained the evidence “”without a shadow of a doubt”.
If he didn’t refer to the SNL skit, ‘put your weed in it,’ no dice.
We can bitch all we want about policing, especially illegal car searches. I have seen this over and over in my community where cars are searched without cause just because of how the occupants look, their age, race, hair length…
The cops will detain you and wait for a warrant based on whatever excuse they can drum up. Yes, just to find pot. So…Don’t carry weed in your car and if you have to, put it some place out of the way. Not in the damn ashtray. If you are carrying weed, don’t carry your gun and…don’t smoke in your car or drive stoned.
The cops are pricks but take a little bit of responsibility, you are breaking the law…no matter how petty the law is.
Goddamn-“training and experience”
Motherfuckers.
That’s reminiscent to my run in. Bloodhound super trooper could smell less then a gram of weed in bag, in the center counsel in a Wrangler with the top down. And this wasn’t great stinky weed.
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طراحی سایت املاک
It has always amazed me that people who smoke think that nobody notices. The stench is detectable a long way away.
That said, this one doesn’t pass the smell test.
Asset Forfeiture aka Theft Under Color of Law must be stopped. That’s that, in the proverbial nutshell.
Face it, the US “judicial system” is more corrupt than most third world systems. Judges, cops, prosecutors, are all on the same team, and you’re on the losing team. Murder someone, burn down a police station, and you walk free, trespass and you get life in solitary. “Anti-vaxers” are now felons. This country is upside down.
Lets go Brandon is weak, fuck joe biden, is more like it.
Another instance of Reason not pointing out that these courts who make these decisions are stacked with Trump and Bush appointees. The 8th circuit surely is.
There’s no substitute for real world practical experience. And they sure as hell don’t teach you that in law school.
And police (as a group) and the judiciary (as a group) have to contend with a loss of respect from the public when stuff like this (obvious perjury) and (acceptance of perjury) as valid evidence transpires. I do have to agree with the prediction that the USA is 10 years out from collapse of democracy. When you can’t trust the cops OR the courts, all you have left to count on is Smith and Wesson.
وکیل پایه یک دادگستری و یک موسسه حقوقی باتوجه به طی مراحل متعدد علمی توانایی وکالت به صورت عام را دارند و می توانند دراکثرغریب به اتفاق مسائل حقوقی و کیفری ورود کرده و قبول وکالت نمایند.
یک وکیل پایه یک دادگستری و وکیل حقوقی باید خصوصیات دیگری از قبیل صداقت،امانت داری و عدالت طلبی داشته باشد.
وکیل دعاوی ملکی یا وکیل متخصص ملک به دلیل ارزش و پیچیدگی جزو مهمترین دعاوی به شمار میآیند و بسیار حائز اهمیت است.