Constitutional Law

Now That Is Some Expensive Pot, Officer

My plug's prices are way cheaper than that.

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weed moneyFew things ruin a combo 21st birthday/New Year’s Eve party quite like a Fourth Amendment violation. Georgia police (read: taxpayers) were ordered to pay almost $1M after they arrested 65 people over an ounce of weed back in 2017. Which, besides being a violation of liberty, is just bad math — an oz. only cost ~$320 in Georgia back then. And while charging guidelines allow for such a thing, I find it to be ridiculous.

While I personally do not dabble in the marijuanas, word from a trusted source told me that an ounce would cover about 14 people or so at a party. Said source added that “For that to get 65 people charged, that would have to be the skimpiest joint you ever saw in your f*****g life.” I found it necessary to include this additional information for the attorneys who are not currently admitted to practice in California and/or Oregon.

Gerald Griggs, an attorney who works with the NAACP, stated that “It’s a very large settlement, so it sends a message to Georgia that if you violate somebody’s civil rights, the NAACP and civil rights attorneys will hold you to task and protect those young peoples’ rights.”

And that’s a beautiful thing. But some are more focused on the interpersonal realities of having the cops barge into your party and handcuff several basketball teams’ worth of young adults over what would appear to be oregano from a small distance.

Deja Heard, the birthday-haver whose party was crashed over what was likely some mid, stated that “I literally was in shackles from my arms, and they were tied around my ankles as well — it was very traumatic…. It’s an issue not just with Blacks. I feel like this is an issue with everyone in my community with corrupt police[.]” She walked away from her ordeal with some easy-to-implement reform strategies for the badged among us.

“It’s OK to be wrong sometimes. And we’re all human, we all make mistakes. Just going forward, correct yourselves. Apologize. I mean, yes, a settlement, like I said I’m very greatly appreciative of it, but no one has actually sat down and said that we apologize for being in the wrong, we’re sorry for what we did to you, we’re sorry for treating you inhumane,”

And while most of the attendees of her party were Black, she’s right. While there are clear racial discrepancies in how it pans out, overpolicing and liberty violations impact us all. While there is much talk about how unarmed Blacks are disproportionately shot and killed by police, because it’s true, the gross number of people murdered by those meant to protect them are more sunburned than sunkissed.

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Occasionally, when people talk about police conduct and apples in varying conditions of goodness, the word complicity gets thrown about. We’re all complicit in a lot of things worth speaking out on, like America being one of the largest slave nations in the history of our species past or present despite all of our liberty talk, or being all for democracy assistance promotion so long as it’s not on our soil, the list goes on.

But when you think about systemic complicity in abstract terms, it can be hard to comprehend what complicity looks like in a real, tactile way. We’ve seen examples of geopolitical complicity acknowledgement recently, with firms jumping to announce that they’re dropping their Russia matters in an act of solidarity. When it comes to race and policing in America, I wonder what it would look like if we changed what our complicity with policing patterns looks like. It’s pretty obvious what was wrong here: knowing that, barring some Matthew 15:32-39 scenario, there was no way that 65 people each owned the same bag of weed, yet charging them for it anyway. Prosecutors okaying penalties for sisters, brothers, cousins — kids, really — and the only thing approaching an apology is the police department saying that they’ll keep doing their jobs. Shouldn’t we as a profession be more vocal when stuff like this happens? We should expect better of the cops and prosecutors who charge and enforce the stuff we rushed to learn in crim law.

Because young people are out there living with the consequences of it. While this group of 65 young adults got some measure of redress, you best believe there are legion of others who only got more of  “[We] will continue to honor the 4th Amendment, which protects people from unreasonable searches.” And while I wish the interaction went more like this, can we just federally legalize the damned plant already? Please and thanks.

Police Ordered To Pay Nearly $1M Settlement After Arresting 65 Young People At House Party [WSBTV]

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Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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