Thoughts for Tuesday

Motion to Suppress
I prevailed at a motion to suppress last week. A suppression hearing is one where the defendant challenges the constitutionality of an arrest, search, or seizure. A plain reading of the 4th amendment would imply that all arrests require a warrant. Luckily our living breathing constitution has developed so many exceptions to that outdated rule that the vast majority of arrests are warrantless.

If you want to assert what is left of the tattered 4th Amendment do NOT consent to a search of your car. If there are no drugs in your car, there is no reason to let the police search. Believe it or not- “Those aren’t my drugs” is not a compelling defense to possession.

Xanax Violence-
A shootout in Richland Hills left one dead and a security guard injured. Allegedly a deal to buy 90 Xanax pills went bad. I have never seen a blood bath at CVS and they sell lots of Xanax. I wonder what the difference is?

Reno 911-
Reno 911, one of my two favorite cop shows (The Shield) is returning next week. I have rented the movie 3 times now. Brilliant comedy that I always DVR. Trudy is my favorite officer.

The Economics of Prohibition, LEAP
I am a member of LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. As such we are expected to write a speech/presentation. In order to prepare my speech I ordered The Economics of Prohibition by Mark Thornton. This book is available for FREE here (h/t Tuna!).

TEOP is a must read (and it’s free!). It covers the history and economics of Prohibition and the War on Drugs. You can see how Prohibition produces the same negative externalities time after time. It was an amazing read. I may go through the ideas in detail in the future.

It was not until I opened my package from Amazon.com that I realized I had been assigned this book in a Economics of Crime class at UT-Arlington and… never finished it.