The other day my wife, Lisa, sat on a jury that decided the sort of bizarre case that is typical of the drug war.
The actual case she and the other jurors decided was a criminal possession of marijuana case which left her, and most of the other jurors, flabergasted at the whole inanity of the case.
The case started when the defendant was cited for — get this — squealing his tires while making a sharp turn on a hot July evening. According to police, the minor passenger smelled like he had been drinking alcohol, although they did not perform a breathalyzer test. So, of course, they searched the car. They found a 3/4″ partially smoked marijuana cigarette in the closed ashtray.
At the time of the stop the driver was only cited for speeding (although there was no radar measurement — just the squealing of tires), but later the police reported finding the joint and the driver was arrested for marijuana possession.
Unfortunately for the prosecution, showing possession proved pretty difficult. The car belonged to the driver’s mother and she testified that 8 to 10 people had regular access to the car. In addition, the driver had to undergo regular random drug tests at the place of his employment, including one just prior to his arrest, all of which were negative.
According to my wife, the reaction in the jury room was disbelief that the jurors had to waste their time on such a ridiculous case. They took about 10 minutes to pronounce the defendant not guilty.
The amusing thing is the city prosecutor devoted all this time to prosecuting someone for possession of a small amount of marijuana, but they still do not have a clue who stole more than $50,000 worth of cocaine from a police evidence locker. In fact it is fascinating to see how much police corruption, both drug related and otherwise, is present even in small town areas. Along with the missing cocaine, a couple years ago an officer was arrested after hiring a prisoner to beat the crap out of his pregnant girlfriend (the officer was married and did not want his wife to find out about the affair). In a nearby town a police chief was fired and faced charges after it was revealed he had a love affair with a male prisoner over many years — a prisoner who, coincidentally, had recieved special treatment from the police chief.
But the most bizarre example was the police department in a small muncipality near Grand Rapids, MI, who spent several months investigating a massage parlor suspected of being a front for a prostitution ring. One undercover officer spent several months engaging in numerous sexual acts with female massage parlor employees without ever filing charges — the investigation was simply kept “ongoing.” When word leaked out that an officer was basically spending taxpayer money to visit a prostitute, the police destroyed all evidence relating to the officer’s “surveillance” of the massage parlor. No charges were ever filed against the massage parlor or the officers, since all of the evidence was missing.