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UPn 05/22/95 Court: 'Knock and announce' basic right
By MICHAEL KIRKLAND
WASHINGTON, May 22 (UPI) -- The Supreme Court ruled for the first time Monday
that in most cases police are required to knock and announce themselves before
entering a home to serve a warrant.
However, the unanimous decision written by Justice Clarence Thomas leaves
plenty of "reasonableness" loopholes that police may use to skirt the
requirement.
The decision said a "knock and announce" rule must be used within reason, and
that danger to police, hot pursuit of an escapee or feared destruction of
evidence could be valid reasons to ignore the requirement.
Monday's ruling marks the first time that "knock and announce" has been
judged by the high court to be inherent in the Constitution, the country's
primal written law.
The earliest ruling about police knockdowns based on British common law
occurs in a case in England in 1603.
In that seminal ruling, "Semayne's Case," court judges held that before an
officer could forcibly enter a home to make an arrest, "he ought to signify the
cause of his coming, and to make request to open the doors."
"At the time of the framing" of the Constitution in 1789, Thomas said in
Monday's unanimous decision, "the common (unwritten) law of search and seizure
recognized a law enforcement officer's authority to break open the doors of a
dwelling, but generally indicated that he first ought to announce his presence
and authority," Thomas said.
"In this case, we hold that this common-law 'knock and announce' principle
forms a part of the reasonableness inquiry under the Fourth Amendment," he said.
The Fourth Amendment protects the "right of the people to be secure in their
persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and
seizures..."
The case comes out of Hot Springs County, Ark., where a woman was convicted
of drug charges in 1993.
Four officers executed a search warrant at Sharlene Wilson's home on New
Year's Eve 1992.
One of the officers testified that there was no announcement, that the
raiding party simply walked in, according to Wilson's petition to the Supreme
Court. Another testified that police announced their intention to search the
house as they walked in, not before, the petition said.
The petition filed by Walker said those inside the house "were given no
opportunity to surrender their privacy to the officers."
Wilson was convicted of delivery of marijuana and possession of drug
paraphernalia, both felonies, and possession of marijuana, a misdemeanor. She
was acquitted of an methamphetamine charge, which was based solely on the
testimony of an informant.
Nevertheless, she was sentenced by a jury to a total of 31 years in prison
and fined $11,000 on the felonies, and one year in jail for the misdemeanor.
Her appeal to the Supreme Court, however, concerned only the search of her
house "without prior announcement." The felony convictions were based on
informant testimony, rather than on evidence found in the house.
Arkansas courts upheld her convictions, and the woman asked the Supreme Court
for help.
Monday's decision reverses the Arkansas Supreme Court, but sends the case
back down for a rehearing. Thomas said in his opinion that the lower courts may
feel free to decide that the circumstances in the Wilson case provide a loophole
to "knock and announce."
(No. 94-5707, Wilson vs. Arkansas)
APn 06/16/95 Loaded Loaves
WARWICK, N.Y. (AP) -- The bread that came in a care package could have given
anybody a high -- and the yeast had nothing to do with it.
Guards at Mid-Orange Correctional Facility found 40 small bags of marijuana,
a plastic bag with 10 rocks of crack cocaine and 37 bags of heroin inside the
gutted loaves sent to an inmate, said John Van Der Molen, a state police
investigator.
He said the guards had scanned the bread in a machine similar to an airport
X-ray unit during a routine check of inmates' packages.
Lamont Barnes, the intended recipient, was charged with drug possession. He
is serving time for a 1973 murder conviction.
PR 06/16/95 Hempstead Hemp Field Plowed
COSTA MESA, Calif., June 16 /PRNewsire/ -- The following release was issued
by Christopher Boucher, CEO of Hempstead:
The hemp industry was dealt a major setback last year when the Hempstead
Company hemp field was plowed under. Its destruction cost over 200 jobs and
$50,000,000 in potential revenue, according to Christopher Boucher, CEO of
Hempstead, a Costa Mesa, California based company. They made history last year
by growing America's first industrial hemp field in over 38 years, with legally
registered European imported seeds that have no drug effect at all; only to have
it seized and plowed under by the California Narcotic Task Force which entered
the USDA sponsored Desert Research Center on July 29, 1994.
Boucher, founder of Hempstead says, "Enough is enough. We must protect our
good name and the industries reputation. We are forced by bad laws to spend
millions of dollars abroad to buy fabrics and seed from China and Hungary. This
drives the price up for our products." The hemp plant produces 1-2 tons of fiber
per acre in less than 100 days, pesticide free. Industrial hemp has already
created jobs and industry virtually overnight. Projected world industrial hemp
sales will total $35 to $40 million in 1995. Modifying current harvesting and
processing equipment, hemp could be the agro-economical breakthrough of the 21st
century. Hempstead sells to over 1,200 retail stores nationwide and 5 foreign
countries.
"Why don't we invest right here in American farming communities? California
needs the help right now," says Christopher Boucher. The economic practicality
is enormous. Manufacturers are already in high gear, from Calvin Klein's new
hemp linen upholstery, Converse, Adidas, Robert Redford's Sundancer catalog, to
Disney's Indiana Jones stores, all sell hemp. "Can all this industry really be
illegal?" asks Boucher. What's next for the Hempstead and the hemp industry?
This week the Kentucky Governor's Hemp Task Force was forced to approve an
unseen report suggesting hemp could not add an extra dollar to the agricultural
market since federal subsidized forest wood chips go for $20 per ton vs hemp at
$100 per ton. What is the true cost of forest wood to the environment?
-0- 6/16/95
/CONTACT: Milano Boucher of Media Hemp Alert, 714-650-8325, 714- 650-8325
fax; or Christopher Boucher, CEO of Hempstead, 714-650-0285/
CO: Hempstead ST: California IN: AGR SU:
AAP 06/16/95 NSW: NATS APPROVE TRIAL OF HEMP PRODUCTION AS A RESOURCE
The Australian Associated Press
MUDGEE, NSW, June 16 AAP - A hemp plantation trial was approved today by the
New South Wales National Party to see if the fibre product could become a
valuable natural resource.
Successive speakers spoke of the qualities of hemp - which has three times
more fibre than cotton, was second only in nutrition to soya beans, produces a
fabric 26 times stronger than cotton and is mankind's oldest cultivated fibre
crop.
They also reassured delegates the fibre hemp crop was not a replacement for
cotton but if blended with it would strengthen garments.
Those in favour of the motion also made sure delegates distinguished between
the fibre hemp plant and the Indian hemp variety, also known as cannabis.
One speaker said anyone who tried to smoke some of the fibre hemp would feel
they were "smoking someone's dirty underpants".
The Orange branch of the Young Nationals' secretary Ray Dally proposed the
original motion calling for the introduction of an Indian hemp industry.
But the words "Indian" and "introduction" were deleted from the final motion
carried meaning the Nationals support a trial of the crop.
Mr Dally admitted there was a certain stigma attached to hemp as a
cultivated crop. But he said the type used for fibre production contained 0.3
per cent of the psychoactive chemical, tetrahydrocannabinol (TCH), which
delivered "the buzz" in smoking marijuana.
Regular cannabis plants, or marijuana, had 3.0 per cent of TCH.
"Using fibre hemp as a drug would have absolutely no effect unless of course
you smoked the quantity derived from a 100 hectare paddock in one sitting," Mr
Dally told delegates.
He said hemp strengthened recycled paper as well as cotton products.
"Hemp could be the answer to the job losses on the north coast with the
timber mills being closed," he said.
"It will generate quality employment in the rural and manufacturing
sectors."
AAP mm/ch/mk/de
AAP 06/18/95 SA: INDUSTRIAL HEMP NEWSLETTER RELEASED
The Australian Associated Press
ADELAIDE, June 18 AAP - A three-page newsletter explaining the diference
between marijuana and the growing of industrial hemp on selected South
Australian farms has been released as part of a public awareness campaign.
The free information sheet, published by the Primary Industries South
Australia (PISA), explains that industrial hemp, unlike marijunana, has
negligible amounts of the "psychoactive" substance THC.
The sheet also details the progress of the state's first trial plantings of
industrial hemp and explains the purpose of the project and the legal status of
the product.
Jim Hanney, PISA program manager for pulse and new crops, said the brochure
was the forerunner to the official Industrial Hemp Newsletter which will
provide a half-yearly update on the progress of the project. The first issue
will be available later this year.
Trial planting of industrial hemp began in SA's south-east, lower north and
Yorke Peninsula in May, with additional seedings planned for each month until
September.
Mr Hanney said the trials would determine the best conditions to grow the
hemp and said ideal weather had given the early crops a healthy start.
Up until 1870, hemp was the most cultivated non-food crop in the world and
is now rated as one of the world's most diverse crops which can produce fabric,
plastics, paper, fuel and construction materials.
AAP ptk/sld
06/18/95 Lawyer targeted by raid asserts his innocence
The Boston Globe
June 18, 1995, Sunday, City Edition
Correction Appended
SECTION: METRO/REGION; Pg. 23
LENGTH: 1383 words
HEADLINE: Lawyer targeted by raid asserts his innocence
BYLINE: By Geeta Anand, Globe Staff
DATELINE: CAVENDISH, Vt.
BODY:
William A. Hunter was awakened at 3 a.m. June 9 by loud knocking on the door
of the four-bedroom Cape on a dirt road where he lives with his wife and three
young children.
He stumbled downstairs to find seven agents from the US Drug Enforcement
Agency at his door.
They handed Hunter, a lawyer, a search warrant that said several of his
clients had been arrested that night on drug charges and the government was
looking for records of their illegal business activities. A judge approved the
search of his home and basement office.
Hunter, 41, a Harvard Law School graduate and former state legislator who
runs a law practice in Vermont that more closely resembles a legal aid service,
would learn later that day that he was a suspect in a money laundering scheme.
Newspaper headlines said so the next day, quoting an affidavit filed in US
District Court.
The reports have stunned residents and lawyers in Vermont, where Hunter is a
widely known, controversial figure - revered by some for his representation of
so many poor people, reviled by others for the zealousness of his defense of
many of the same people.
Hunter's shabby tweed jackets and his junk cars are a frequent source of
ridicule, as is his lateness for court hearings.
After reviewing the case of a former client that Hunter represented in a
divorce, the professional conduct board for lawyers in Vermont ruled last year
that Hunter was overextended by all of the work he does for disadvantaged
clients.
While the board expressed some sympathy for him, it put him on probation for
nine months for mishandling the divorce case.
But until the raid on June 9, few people, if any, had considered the notion
of Hunter being corrupt.
At his home that early morning, agents rushed upstairs carrying flashlights
they used to scan the bedroom where his baby and 7-year-old son still slept.
They shone a light around his 9-year-old daughter's bedroom.
They converged in the two-room basement where Hunter runs his law practice,
searching through four 5-foot tall metal filing cabinets where his clients'
records are kept.
Four hours later, the federal agents left with four computers, 200 floppy
discs and two crates of files.
In an affidavit, filed in US District Court in Burlington, the government
outlined its reasons for searching Hunter's property and carting off his
records.
According to the government, Hunter had set up a real estate company for
Frank M. Sargent Jr., a 26-year-old man with a previous conviction for drug
dealing, whom the government alleged was selling cocaine out of his home in
nearby Windsor, Vt.
The drug profits allegedly were being siphoned into Sargent's fledgling
company, Connecticut Realty Trust, to buy run-down properties and refurbish
them, according to the affidavit.
"It is clear. . . that Sargent and Hunter had worked together to launder
Sargent's money and that they used CRT for that purpose," James Bradley,
special agent for the US Drug Enforcement Administration, said in the
affidavit.
As evidence, the government cited a paper trail: the CRT corporation
paperwork at the Vermont secretary of state's office lists Hunter and "a
longtime Hunter associate," his paralegal, Kathy Davis, as officers of CRT.
There is a letter Hunter wrote on behalf of CRT to a woman named Gloria
Radcliff who was going to invest $ 60,000 from a personal injury settlement
into CRT.
That investment, according to the affidavit, was a ploy by the
Hunter-Sargent team to turn a drug debt owed by Radcliff into legal money.
"Thus it appears that Hunter was serving as a drug debt collector for
Sargent," according to the affidavit.
As evidence that Hunter knew the source of the money was drug sales, federal
agents cite a confidential informant's report of a meeting between Hunter,
Sargent and Radcliff in which Sargent allegedly said Hunter "washed his money,"
according to the affidavit.
Hunter has appeared on television and talked on radio over the past week,
declaring his innocence. He says he did not know Sargent's money came from drug
profits.
Hunter says he has "never laid eyes on Gloria Radcliff." The meeting
referred to in the affidavit never occurred, he says. Radcliff's criminal
record includes four convictions for providing false information to police
officers, according to court records.
Meanwhile, defense lawyers in Vermont have expressed outrage at the timing
of the raid and the confiscation of Hunter's electronic files.
"This is not Miami or a drug cartel in Colombia," said Peter Welch, a former
president of the Vermont Senate, who is now a full-time defense lawyer. "To
raid a lawyer with no history of violence at 3 a.m. is just astonishing and
totally abhorrent."
Since many of Hunter's clients are drug defendants in government cases,
defense lawyer Sigismund Wysolmerski - a former city councilor in Rutland -
says he fears federal officials reviewing Hunter's computer records for
evidence in the Sargent case will be unable to resist a peek into other
cases. "The attorney-client privilege is just out the window," Wysolmerski
said.
In letters of support for Hunter, several lawyers have said they routinely
establish real estate companies for clients without investigating from where
the money comes. Routinely, these lawyers say, their names are listed as
officers of the corporation.
US Attorney Charles Tetzlaff, a former defense lawyer known nationally for
representing former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro's son, John
Zaccaro, on a drug charge, said last week that he stood by the actions of
law enforcement officials under his command.
Tetzlaff defended the timing of the raid at Hunter's house, saying it was a
"destruction of evidence issue." He noted that, according to the court
affidavit, Sargent's house was searched just hours earlier by federal agents.
The US attorney's office has yet to present Hunter's case to a grand jury
for an indictment, according to a witness who has been asked to testify.
But Hunter said Tetzlaff has agreed to meet him on June 27 to discuss the
allegations.
To those who know Hunter well, the charges seem preposterous. A Rhodes
scholar with an undergraduate degree from Yale and a Harvard law degree, he
turned down job offers from big city firms to go into private practice in
Vermont, where his clients are largely indigent.
He believes in the barter system, having clients mow his lawn, refinish his
furniture or rebuild his fence to pay for legal services.
"Someone who launders money must be interested in money," says his wife,
April Hensel. "Will doesn't play golf, he doesn't eat at fancy restaurants.
His hobbies are going to yard sales and visiting junk yards."
The yellow paint is chipped on the house the couple share. He drives a 1984
Mazda, an upgrade from the 20-year-old pickup he drove for years, a loan from a
client-friend who owned a junkyard.
Yet one aspect of Hunter's professional life is troubling even to his
friends: His blending of his legal practice and his personal life.
Hunter's clients become his associates and his friends. They formed the
biggest contingent at his wedding three years ago.
Four years ago, Hunter bought a $ 50,000 house to prevent a penniless
client-friend and his family from being evicted.
Always, Hunter has ardently defended his approach to lawyering. He says that
the lives of many he represents "are totally broken down."
"I can't just segment out one section and say I'm going to just give them
legal help," Hunter said.
But Welch, the defense lawyer, says an attorney who becomes personally
involved in cases puts himself at risk because he suspends judgment at some
level.
Welch says he believes Hunter was so involved in helping Sargent rebuild his
life that he was oblivious to Sargent's alleged drug activities.
In Windsor, where Sargent was raised and continues to live in a run-down
neighborhood along the Connecticut River, residents are far less sympathetic to
Hunter.
Paula Silvester, the owner of a local sporting goods store, says she is
tired of watching drugs proliferating in her town.
"Anyone who hangs out with those criminals and defends them the way he does
is sick," Silvester says. "I hope Will Hunter is put away for good. Maybe
then we'll see this area cleaned up."
[End]
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