Pubdate: Sun, 14 Apr 2002
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2002 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Ed Quillen

A GOOD DECISION THAT COULD HAVE BEEN STRONGER

Sunday, April 14, 2002 - Sometimes the best reading lies between the lines, 
and by that process, last week's decision by the Colorado Supreme Court 
provides some insight into the twisted minds that conduct the War on Drugs 
in this country.

This tale started on March 13, 2000, when agents of the North Metro Drug 
Task Force looked through the trash from a mobile home in Adams County that 
they had been monitoring.

They found evidence of drug operations, as well as a mailing container from 
the Tattered Cover Book Store addressed to one trailer occupant. The 
envelope bore invoice and customer numbers, but did not indicate the contents.

The task force got a search warrant and searched the mobile home on the 
next day. Inside the master bedroom, they found a meth lab, various other 
items, and two books about how to make meth.

Even though they had their suspicions, the police did not know which 
person, of several possibilities, actually occupied the master bedroom and 
presumably cooked the meth.

But there was the mailing container in the trash, plus the books. If they 
could get the bookstore records, to show the books had been ordered by a 
certain person, they'd have a better case - or so they said. What they were 
really doing was something else. Their true purpose was not to gather 
evidence to convict someone of a crime. Instead, they were trying to harass 
a bookstore that sold material they didn't approve of. And if they had 
succeeded, bookstores in the future might well decide that no matter what 
the Bill of Rights says, it would be too much trouble to fill certain 
customer orders.

How do we know this was harassment instead of a good-faith search for 
evidence? By reading between the lines of the state Supreme Court decision.

The court observed that the police had many other ways to establish who was 
making crank. "The master bedroom in the trailer appears to have been a 
typical bedroom containing clothes, furniture, papers, and other personal 
objects. Clothes and shoes could have been examined to see if the sizes 
matched . Objects could have been fingerprinted. The bed and flooring could 
have been examined for hair or other DNA samples . There are numerous 
witnesses that the City likely could have interviewed ."

In other words, the police had plenty of evidence to gather and examine by 
the usual methods, but instead decided to harass a store for selling the 
wrong kind of book. For further evidence that this was their true purpose, 
observe the process they followed.

The usual method would be to ask for the records, and if that didn't work, 
to subpoena the records. And upon receiving the subpoena, the Tattered 
Cover could have either complied or contested it in a hearing before a court.

But instead of requesting a subpoena that might have led to a hearing, the 
task force went shopping for a prosecutor who would request a search 
warrant. The Adams County district attorney's office properly refused. So 
the task force went to Denver. If Bill Ritter, the Denver DA, has any sense 
of shame, this fact has escaped public notice, so his office requested and 
got a search warrant from a judge who should have known better.

In general, you don't get to contest a search warrant. This makes sense; 
for example, if the trailer occupants had received notice of the search 
warrant and the opportunity to contest it, they likely would have destroyed 
the evidence.

But the Tattered Cover wasn't a suspect, and there was no reason to fear it 
would destroy the relevant records. The search warrant was just another way 
to harass places where people might buy books that don't bear the North 
Metro Drug Task Force stamp of approval.

Fortunately, the Tattered Cover had attorneys at hand when Ritter's forces 
appeared with the warrant, and that led to last week's Supreme Court decision.

The court did not grant an absolute right to privacy concerning book 
purchases. It did say that law-enforcement agencies should first exhaust 
other means for gathering evidence, and then go through an "adversarial 
hearing," rather than just get a search warrant.

And when the request was based on the content of a book, as it was in this 
case, then the hurdle should be high, because our state constitution 
guarantees that "every person shall be free to speak, write or publish 
whatever he will on any subject ."

Since police officers and prosecutors take oaths to support the 
constitution of the state of Colorado, and here they acted purposefully 
against our constitution by harassing a book seller (i.e., they didn't 
pursue other evidence, and they sought a search warrant instead of a 
subpoena), I wish our Supreme Court had addressed a proper punishment for 
these scofflaws - i.e., does deliberate subversion of our constitution 
constitute treason, and if so, would the death penalty be appropriate?

Despite that bleeding-heart omission, though, it was a good decision. If 
liberty means anything, it should mean that you can buy any book you want 
without ending up on some police list.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom