cannabisnews.com: Prosecutors Drop Man's Drug Paraphernalia Case





Prosecutors Drop Man's Drug Paraphernalia Case
Posted by FoM on September 30, 2000 at 17:42:19 PT
By William R. Levesque
Source: St. Petersburg Times
The police raid was almost three years ago. The judge dismissed key evidence a year ago. The trial was two weeks away. Randy Heine says he's a legitimate businessman who just wants police to leave him alone. But Pinellas sheriff's detectives say the owner of the Tobacco Emporium is the leading seller and manufacturer of drug paraphernalia in the county. Two weeks before Heine's scheduled trial on marijuana possession and paraphernalia charges, Pinellas prosecutors unexpectedly dropped all charges against him. 
The move comes a year after a circuit judge threw out key evidence in the case because of flawed police search warrants served against Heine. Neither Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe nor his assistants with information about the case returned calls for comment Friday. In court papers, McCabe's office said the charges were being dismissed because Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Lauren Laughlin "suppressed critical evidence needed to support these counts, making a successful prosecution unlikely." Heine, 49, who is challenging U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Largo, for the 10th District seat, said he was targeted by police for political reasons. "I didn't do anything wrong in the first place," said Heine, who was free on bail pending trial. "We knew from Day One that this was a travesty. I've never done anything illegal and I've never sold anything that was illegal." Heine's Clearwater attorney, John Trevena, said, "It's extremely rare for prosecutors to dismiss charges that have been pending for nearly three years. In fact, it's probably unprecedented." Heine sold and manufactured tobacco pipes that he and his attorney say can be sold and used by consumers legally. Although police say the pipes are commonly used to smoke illegal drugs, such as marijuana, Heine says that they can also be used to smoke legal tobacco products. As a result, he said, they are not what prosecutors define as illegal drug paraphernalia. A January 1998 police raid and seizure of his inventory, Heine said, nearly bankrupted him. He said he has never reopened his pipe-manufacturing plant and has lost $2-million in profit. The dismissal may have had more to do with a police search warrant than it did the definition of what is and isn't drug paraphernalia. Sheriff's deputies raided Heine's home, Tobacco Emporium store and a factory where he made pipes in January 1998. Deputies said they found exactly what their search warrants predicted: drug paraphernalia and marijuana. But Laughlin threw out much of the evidence that was seized, ruling in an October 1999 opinion that the search warrants contained "a reckless disregard for the truth and a gross, material misrepresentation of fact." The ruling said that police failed to tell the judge who approved the search warrants that an informant had told them that Heine no longer was growing marijuana. As it turned out, the informant was wrong, authorities say. Police did find marijuana at Heine's home. But that didn't matter. Police, the judge said, cannot raid a home or business on a hunch that a suspect is breaking the law simply because he has done so in the past. The judge threw out evidence that included 2 pounds of marijuana that police said they found growing in Heine's home. The case also may have been jeopardized by Sheriff's Detective Ken McLean, one of two deputies who prepared the search warrants against Heine. After Heine's arrest, McLean's supervisors said they discovered that he had lied to obtain a search warrant in another, unrelated drug case. McLean admitted he lied and was forced to resign, and he later pleaded no contest to a perjury charge and was sentenced to two years' probation. Not all evidence against Heine had been suppressed. Evidence that deputies found at his Tobacco Emporium business was not, including evidence of marijuana residue police said they found in a trash bin. "But I don't think prosecutors ever wanted to put McLean on the stand," Trevena said. Charges that Heine sold fraudulent drug-testing products also were dropped. Source: St. Petersburg Times (FL)Copyright: 2000 St. Petersburg TimesPublished September 30, 2000 Author: William R. LevesqueContact: letters sptimes.comWebsite: http://www.sptimes.com/Forum: http://www.sptimes.com/Forums/ubb/cgi-bin/Ultimate.cgiCannabisNews Paraphernalia Articles:http://cannabisnews.com/news/list/paraphernalia.shtml
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Comment #4 posted by kaptinemo on October 01, 2000 at 07:25:53 PT:
Testilying
Police, the judge said, cannot raid a home or business on a hunch that a suspect is breaking the law simply because he has done so in the past. The judge threw out evidence that included 2 pounds of marijuana that police said they found growing in Heine's home. The case also may have been jeopardized by Sheriff's Detective Ken McLean, one of two deputies who prepared the search warrants against Heine. After Heine's arrest, McLean's supervisors said they discovered that he had *lied* (empasis mine) to obtain a search warrant in another, unrelated drug case. McLean admitted he lied and was forced to resign, and he later pleaded no contest to a perjury charge and was sentenced to two years' probation.So, someone entrusted with upholding the law lies, commits perjury, and what happens? A slap on the wrist. But what would have happened if the the local LEOs had come in like gangbustsers and shot Heine, a la Ismael Mena? Nothing, not a damn thing.La Cosa Nostra roughly translates into "Our thing" or "Our Affair". It refers to a clannish, exclusionary social order that shuns outsiders. They practice something called"omerta", or "the silence". They will lie to protect the their own. It is telling that police officers practice a version of the omerta; the 'blue wall of silence'. Even to protect one of their own that is blatantly a danger to both the civs and themselves. They carry throw down weapons to lay next to rapidly cooling corpses of the kids they kill by accident or design, and say they had no choice, the kid was armed. And fellow cops will not gainsay it. With such corruption being endemic amongst the police, more and more, the lines between criminal and lawman are becoming so blurred as to be almost invisible. 
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Comment #3 posted by EdC on October 01, 2000 at 05:18:30 PT:
Prosecutors Drop Man's Drug Paraphernalia Case
Who do these judges who routinely approve these warrants answer to? A pipe is a pipe. If a pipe can be used to smoke pot, so what. We don't ban straws because they might be used to snort cocaine. 
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Comment #2 posted by EdC on October 01, 2000 at 05:07:35 PT:
Freedom to toke comment
I would say that if you have enough cops with nothing better to do than bust citizens for 'being in an area where controlled substances are known,' you've got too many cops. How many is too many? End the drug war and see how many are standing around doing nothing. 
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Comment #1 posted by FoM on September 30, 2000 at 22:31:04 PT:
Freedom To Toke 
Pubdate: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 Source: Eugene Weekly (OR) Copyright: Eugene Weekly 2000. Contact: editor eugeneweekly.com Website: http://www.eugeneweekly.com/ For more than a week now, a growing number of cannabis activists have been testing their First Amendment right to " freedom of religion" on the steps of Eugene's County Courthouse by holding a prayer circle and passing a "peace pipe." They say they believe it their personal, religious choice to smoke marijuana and that their right to do so is guaranteed by the Constitution. Every day at 4:20 pm they have been gathering to pray for an "end to the drug war" and "the criminalization of a plant." On Thursday and Friday the EPD intervened and several who participated in the ceremony were ticketed for posession of less than an ounce of marijuana or "being in an area where controlled substances are known." In response to police intervention, some of the participants have begun a 24 hour vigil at the courthouse. "We're here because it's our religion and it's our right," says Michael Anthony, long time cannabis proponent and religious leader, "and we will remain until this system repents for its crimes against the people." 
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