Posted on 12/17/2014 5:23:46 PM PST by Ken H
Kansas Court of Appeals upholds the search of a vehicle based solely on the presence of a ripped plastic baggie.
The second highest court in Kansas declared last week that anyone driving with a torn plastic baggie is most likely involved in the drug trade and can be searched without a warrant. The state Court of Appeals came to this conclusion in upholding the conviction of Cameron Howard, who was found not with drugs but a lawfully purchased firearm.
On September 15, 2011, Prairie Village Police Officer Chad Loughman pulled Howard over. In the car's cupholder, Officer Loughman spotted a plastic baggie with a rip in the corner, and he noticed that the passenger seat was reclined (Howard's passenger was pregnant). The bag and reclined seat, the officer insisted, provided reasonable suspicion that criminal activity was involved.
"My training and experience with drugs and transportation of illegal drugs, that is a common practice that people wrap marijuana in particular in cellophane baggies and twist the baggies several times to keep it secured," Officer Loughman testified.
The three-judge panel rejected the idea that reclining is suspicious, but it upheld the plastic bag's significance.
"Like one-hitter boxes or tape-wrapped baseballs, people don't often carry baggies with torn corners, and Howard hasn't cited a common, legal use for baggie corners," Judge Steve Leben wrote for the court. "In the absence of another purpose, the torn corner in this case indicates that the baggie had been used to store illegal drugs, even though the police didn't smell marijuana or observe that Howard or his passenger appeared to be under the influence of drugs."
The search for drugs only turned up an AK-47, which Howard bought in Missouri after passing a federal background check. He was in full compliance with federal and state law to buy the weapon, but there was a complication. In 2006 Howard had pleaded guilty to burglary in Missouri. He never served time as the judge suspended his sentence as part of a diversion agreement that kept Howard from being considered a convicted felon -- in Missouri. Howard did not realize that Kansas does not accept this agreement.
The Court of Appeals expanded upon a Kansas Supreme Court decision to declare Howard a convicted felon according to Kansas standards. While the US Supreme Court allows police to be wrong about the law as long as their actions are objectively reasonable, Kansas offers no such leniency to motorists.
"Even if Howard thought he was not a felon, that would not have negated his general intent to possess the firearm," Judge Leben wrote. "The state did not have to prove that Howard knew about Kansas law regarding his felon status, and the evidence that he lawfully purchased the gun (as a nonfelon in Missouri) was neither probative nor material in his case."
The court upheld Howard's new felony conviction for being a felon in possession of a firearm.
The “war on drugs” is a scourge on our society, and a vehicle to shred the Constitutional rights of us all. The “war on terror” is as well.
Too bad the peeps can make up their own laws, especially reasonable ones while the cops, prosecutors and gov’t employees (Cough****TOTUS*****cough) can.
Too bad the peeps can’t make up their own laws, especially reasonable ones while the cops, prosecutors and gov’t employees (Cough****TOTUS*****cough) can.
Have those judges never put food in a plastic baggie? Or are they all druggies?
Ok I am not comfortable with convicted burglar Howard having an AK-47. BUT, being a felon in one state and not in another seems odd. Unfair. AND, the baggie thing sounds a little strange. I have a baggie in my cup holder that is full of coins. I use baggies for all sorts of things and in all sorts of places. They are cheap and convenient. I have several in my purse.
Now I do not know exactly what the cop is talking about. With the slit or twist or whatever it was perhaps that is more suspect. I really do not know. But it is WEAK.
Have you ever lived with someone with a drug problem? It is not pleasant and it essentially robs the person of any and all quality of life. Then there is the cost to the lives of others.
I’m still trying to figure out what a tape wrapped
baseball has to do with it?
Good point. If I am traveling I might have veggies and sandwiches and other snacks in baggies. Plus all sorts of small items i might need. Vitamins. Tylenol. Coins. Hair ties. All sorts of things.
Every Monday morning, I depart home around 2:00 AM.
I drive 3-1/2 hours east to a very rural area.
I have plastic bags right and left.
There is the bag that has two hard boiled eggs in it, in my lunch box.
There is the bag with two pieces of cornbread.
There is the bag with a muffin in it to snack on the way home Monday evening.
Obviously these bags eventually are empty and in the trash can in the back seat of my truck.
And you are going to tell me that the hours I travel, the route I travel and the bags makes me a suspect for peddling or using dope?
Asinine.
Define “baggie.” Do they mean zip locks or those plastic bags we can no longer get at store in California after the enviros lobbied for them then against them? Dang near everything in my ALICE was in a zip lock; kept it dry and clean and would keep the ALICE floating were I to go in the drink.
I remember years ago a cop telling me the Constitution was a 200 year old piece of paper that got in the way of him doing his job.
Damn these cops and judges. This guy was cornered and trapped into a conviction based on spurious charges. Meanwhile we have a president, government “leaders”, and illegals breaking laws left and right while they get a free pass. It’s anarchy, and good reason for citizens to say heck with the laws ourselves. Losing respect for “lawgivers”.
I am a recent convert (in the last year) to the “no more war on drugs” point of view.
I am not a libertarian.
I do have children and do worry about drug use in society.
I am not anti-police and view Michael Brown (just as an example) of deserving what he got.
But I have come to believe that the war on drugs brings out the worst in law enforcement and judicial infringements on the US Constitution. And I have come to believe that those infringements are a growing trend. And I don’t see any other way to put a stop to this trend than to end the war on drugs.
Just my opinion.
Add to my sandwich bag, besides a sandwich, cookies, and plastic eating forks, TUMS, cough drops, and other medicines which I need in case of an attack of Diverticulitis, my ulcer acts up (spices do it), and previously, a throat lesion that made me cough uncontrollably.
I wonder what the Kansas judges were smoking when they made their decision. Another shithole state I’m going to avoid even if they bury that leftist bitch Sebelius a hundred feet down.
I guess I’d better stay out of Kansas, I bet I have ten torn little baggies in my truck, I store all kinds of stuff in them, and often have to tear them to get the contents out.....
And horrors, I often do carry drugs in them... my little emergency ration of naproxen, antihistamine, loperamide, etc.
How is that relevant to whether or not drugs are legal?
People who use drugs are going to do so regardless. Why trash the rights of ALL of us because of the actions of a few?
1. Well, I am. He's OK to be free to walk the streets, he's OK to do it armed, like any free citizen.
2. I suspect journalistic malpractice in describing a similar looking semi-auto rifle as an "AK-47", but on the off chance it really was one, he passed a proctological FBI/BATFE background check and paid a $200 tax and an exorbitant purchase price for one manufactured before 1986. That should make him "legal" to own it.
3. Obviously, I'm one of those weirdos that believes that the Second Amendment is, by it's own wording, the only legal "gun law" in the United States of America and its territories. And I vote that way every chance I get!
I didn’t say I felt he should not have gun rights. I only mean to say that I suspect he plans to use it for more robberies.
If a cop wants to pull you over, he will say you were weaving.
If he wants to search your car/truck, he will see “something suspicious” through the window and use that as an excuse for the search.
Best to keep the interior of your vehicle absolutely spotless, but when they bring in Fido, he will alert when the cop wants him to, so it may not help much.
Avoiding interactions with the law is always the right decision.
Prairie Village KS cops are very overbearing
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