[420 Girl]

The Vermont Supreme Court has reversed convictions in two marijuana cases, saying the police searches were improper and the results should have been barred from evidence.

In a Newport case, the court said Thursday the police erred in opening up the backpack of an alleged drug buyer without a warrant. The same day, justices ruled in a Lamoille County case that the lower court judge was out of bounds when he issued a search warrant for marijuana the defendant was allegedly growing in his house. The Supreme Court said the deputy sheriff applying for the warrant had not sufficiently demonstrated an informant’s reliability.

David Williams, a St. Johnsbury-based lawyer in the Newport case, said the decisions did not break new ground but showed the state high court holding steadfast to search-and-seziure protections for criminal defendants while the U.S. Supreme Court has grown more favorable to police in such cases.

In the Newport case, the Border Patrol arrested Kirk Thornton on Dec. 13, 2006, as he tried to enter the U.S. from Canada and Thornton agreed to cooperate with police in arresting Thornton’s buyer, according to the court opinion. But by the time Vermont Drug Task Force members arrived, the alleged buyer, Matthew Birchard of Barre, had placed the marijuana in his backpack and zipped the pack closed, the opinion said.

Police then opened the backpack without a warrant.

District Court Judge Robert Bent said the search of Birchard’s backpack would have been unconstitutional except that authorities knew of the marijuana and its ownership because police had seized the marijuana from Thornton at the border. Bent said police had a “sense and memory” of the marijuana. In addition, he said, the marijuana was “at all times after its seizure from Thornton, property of the state.”

But the Supreme Court found that the police violated a state constitutional provision against warrantless search and seizure. The justices said that to argue that the warrantless search was legal merely because the object of the search had once been the property of the state would create a “novel” rule. They said “neither the (prosecution) nor the trial court supplies a rational basis for such a rule.”

In the Lamoille County case, the Supreme Court reversed the marijuana possession conviction of Earl McManis because the court said the deputy sheriff who requested the search warrant for McManis’ home lacked sufficient basis to do so.

The justices said when police apply for a search warrant based on information from a confidential informant, they must demonstrate to the court that the informant is reliable, which didn’t happen in the McManis case.

Williams said that if the Lamoille County case had been in federal court, the evidence most likely would not have been suppressed “because the police would have been seen as acting in good faith on what they believed to be a valid warrant.”


NewsHawk: Ganjarden: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: The Burlington Free Press
Author: Dave Gram
Contact: The Burlington Free Press
Copyright: 2010 The Burlington Free Press
Website: Vermont Supreme Court overturns 2 pot convictions


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