When narcotics officers appeared at a Castro home shortly after 7 a.m. on Jan. 11, they had permission from a judge to search for “proceeds” from an illegal marijuana grow. The SFPD and DEA found no piles of marijuana money at 243 Diamond St., one of six addresses raided simultaneously in San Francisco that morning. Instead, they found Clark Freshman, who rents the penthouse at the two-unit building. Freshman, a UC Hastings law professor and the main consultant to the television show Lie to Me, was put into handcuffs while in his bathrobe as agents searched, despite Freshman’s insistence that they had the wrong place and were breaking the law. “I told them to call the judge and get their warrant updated,” he says. “They just laughed at me — I guess that’s why they’re called pigs.”
A furious Freshman has pledged to sue the DEA and the SFPD for unlawful search and seizure of his home. SFPD offered no comment other than reiterating they had a warrant from Judge Richard Kramer to search 243 Diamond. But Peter Keane, dean emeritus of Golden Gate University’s School of Law, says there appears to be a problem. “There’s been cases like this in the past where police have a warrant to search [a single residence], then they get there and it’s a multi-unit building and they search the whole building. In those cases, people have sued and collected substantial settlements. I think whomever is representing the government better get out his checkbook.”
“I’ve been on the fence for years about the legalization of drugs … and now I’m a victim of this crazy war on drugs,” says Freshman, who pledged to sue until “I see [the agents'] houses sold at auction and their kids’ college tuitions taken away from them. There will not be a better litigated case this century.”
The key is right in the first paragraph. It’s even in the first sentence. In fact it is the second word of the article quotation. Do you not see it? ”Narcotics.” The law calls marijuana a narcotic. Schedule I. When we as a society use the wrong word for something, there is no end to the grief & hilarity which ensueth.
Law professor will fill his family’s coffers at SF’s expense—& have fun doing it. Society at large will continue to use the wrong word for green weed. Nothing will be learned.
#3 chris
I don’t care about the cops here, one way or another. It appears they made a mistake and the taxpayers are going to pay for it. So be it. I was just wondering, why would this lawyer’s best litigated case this century be his own case – and not my case?
#5 bobbo
Please see above explanation. Of course he’s going to get all of the settlement. I was just wondering, in the lawyer’s handbook, does it say you’re supposed to save your best work for yourself and just do ‘normal’ work for all of your other clients?
As for your sensible questions, the answers are beyond this mere mortal.
At least our public agents stopped a kid from smoking a spliff.
At least our public agents got next year’s budget justified, creating more jobs and buying more toys for perpetrating more of the same.
My opinion on the war on drugs is this:
Legalize it, tax the shit out if it, kiss the drug enforcers and the drug runners goodbye, and lets the chips fall where they may on the new flatter ground.
I don’t even take Aspirin™®, so I’m just trying to stop from getting hit by a stray bullet.
msbpodcast, “I don’t even take Aspirin™®”
Just wait until you are older…
War is a racket, including and especially the war on drugs.
I’m guessing the DA’s big mistake was to write on the warrant the address of the whole building without being specific as to the unit.
The cops are evidently taught — by the DA — to run through this technicality with a freight train.
The judge wrote a warrant for a multi-occupancy unit but pretended not to notice the Constitution’s specificity requirement.
The cops are in on it, the DA is in on it, the judge is in on the action. They all stand to personally benefit from their bad behavior in terms of their career opportunities.
I hope and pray the law prof rips the town a new asshole so big and painful that the citizens impeach the judge, and impeach the DA, and lay off 50% of the cops.
The remaining 50% of the cops can go back to doing useful work other than the failed war on drugs.
The WOD is a huge business. It employs thousands, and has a budget in the billions.
Follow the money! It will never end!
But, It will really be a ‘show’ when this gets in to court!
It would make a great reality TV show!
WOW! I can’t wait!
#22–Reagan==please don’t “make up” your own facts/issues just so you can disagree with it. You “almost” admit what you actually said is wrong, but for clarity: when a lawyer represents himself in an action in which he was also the victim==indeed he should get ALL the settlement/award money. No other action makes any sense at all.
Now, if what you want to argue with is the fact or the assumption that this very same lawyer will fight harder for his own case than he will for cases where he is just the lawyer THAT is totally unrelated to what you have said twice now. Focus. Use the right words/concepts for what you want to argue.
On the second/manufactured argument, I have 3 responses: 1: who says?
2: When representing himself, the lawyer has a client who has presented all the facts and returns all the phone calls. This always helps any case go better.
3. Yes, people often work harder in their own interest than they do for others EVEN when getting paid for it. Some other people are just the opposite. People are funny that way.
In # 25 God, Allah and other monikers said: “Just wait until you are older…
Hell man, I was born in 1953. How much older do you want me to be?
I know our gummint doesn’t want me to get any older
They’d be happier if I died last year when I qualified for Social Security Disability.
If the guy had been a republican, this would have been Obama’s fault! As it is, seems to me that the DEA budget is a good place to start cutting. Most of the DEA agents are pretty hard to distinguish from the folks they are supposedly chasing!
The cops made a big mistake.
I don’t see the officers at the scene being responsible for the error, so suing them is HOPEFULLY as waste.
The person that requested the warrant made the error BURN that person.
Actually I have no sympathy for the guy, he comes off as a despicable asshole.
The older I get, the less I like cops. Seriously. I really don’t like law enforcement officers at all any more.
Especially when they hassle people who are not a threat to the safety of others.
I, however, pride myself on being a threat to the safety of others.
#28 bobbo
1. You’re not reading or comprehending very well just now. You might want to rest your eyes.
2. Trying to start a fight with someone who essentially agrees with you is counterproductive, to say the least.
3. Trying to start a fight with someone who compliments you, a couple of times, is simply incomprehensible.
Sorry, this not my game. I’m simply not that stupid. Go play with the hive mind.
Reagan==regardless of your real or imagined performance level, you only become better by recognizing opportunities to do so.
Too many here think too well of themselves to slow down and learn. That is what every argument/disagreement/discussion provides, but only the opportunity.
Kinda like responding to whether or not I think I am boring, or just that Hopper is? Few people admit to faults and such should never be assumed, much less issued as a rebuke, when the communication is ambiguous.
Friendship is nice–but far down the list from an opportunity to learn.
I don’t like lawyers but I dislike jack booted thugs less. Sick’m!
I don’t think we’re getting the whole story here, not surprising from the advisor of a show called Lie To Me.
Is it common procedure to handcuff people when police are searching a place? Were the son-in-law and pregnant daughter also handcuffed? The article just says they were detained.
Is it possible the lawyer caused lots of trouble causing him to get handcuffed? Not too surprising if the police were in the wrong place, just like Henry Gates. Maybe President Obama should issue an opinion here.
Another possibility, is it possible the police deliberately did the wrong search to annoy this guy?
I call two-to-the-head on this guy.
#14 – bobbo
Perhaps you answer this elsewhere, but I have to ask again: Why does it serve me to harass the cops and leave the “drug war” in place?
Not to put words in your mouth, but are you assuming that the problem is the “bad apples” not what I termed a “no-win” situation these cops are in?
I only know this Freshmen, I don’t know these cops, I wasn’t there at the scene. My inclination is to believe the cops are doing their best with a very bad circumstance. I’ve met Freshmen so my inclination is to believe he did everything he could to provoke these cops and to make their jobs harder.
IANAL but am I wrong that the suit will cost the taxpayers or do you believe that all expenses will be recovered by some “court cost” fees? Sorry if that is wrong and if that presumption wasn’t clear in my initial post.
I agree with you bobbo that suing is in order or at least I can support action. I do not see that the officers involved are the responsible parties. Just like in the Zimbardo Study, the problem is the situation not the individuals. We need to reform the police state if we want change. Drumming officers out of service will actually lead to less well qualified candidates… I think I made all this clear before, but I would be happy to elaborate and provide various references upon request.
Finally, I notice you repeat your view about deviants and progress. I am sure you are correct. BTW, one of my favorite plays is the Ibsen “An Enemy of the People”; it expresses a very similar view that I also hold.
I would like to know how you understand that suing these police officers will help.
#35 – Improbus
“I don’t like lawyers but I dislike jack booted thugs less. Sick’m!”
It’s fun trying to work out your many negators in that sentence… I think maybe you intended one fewer.
#32 – 1873 Colt
I don’t like cops, either, but I remember a saying LBJ is supposed to have used: Keep the assholes inside the tent pissing out!
What this says to me is society will always produce the sort of people who want to become cops. If we don’t provide constructive roles for them they will find destruction roles instead.
Can you suggest some better job for the sort of people who often become thuggish cops? And I don’t mean to say that all cops become thugs–simply too many of them.
#26 – Publius
“I hope and pray the law prof rips the town a new asshole so big and painful that the citizens impeach the judge, and impeach the DA, and lay off 50% of the cops.”
And are you saying you don’t care how this will effect us who live here? Or are you just using hyperbole to express your frustration? I think it’s clear that the consequences you describe would not result from the antecedent you anticipate, the “pain” to “the town”.
#17 – dfctlc
“The line MUST be drawn somewhere…or else it could be YOUR HOUSE NEXT!!!!”
Well said…but this is not the right fight. Reveal reform requires a social change that garners the support of a large portion of society. To quote Martin Prince The Simpsons S18E08, “Individually we are weak, like a single twig, but as a bundle we form a mighty faggot.”
I think the biggest factor is the increasing gulf between the classes in the U.S. If the headlines were about how the rich were being trampled under the boots… But of course the rich never are except in violent revolution–and the cost is always born most by the poor in those cases. (Haiti? Cuba? USSR? etc) Have you read the Jared Diamond “Collapse”? He discusses the social strain of these class divides and how they determine the fate of every civilization and culture.
The only way that cases create new law is when someone gets good and pissed off about something. Here, this Prof at a very prestigious law school is good and pissed off and has the capability to do something about it. No other lawyer would take this sort of case – one call from the prosecutor to the Bar and the guy’s law license would be in trouble. But there is nothing that Big Law can do to this guy and if we are lucky, he will establish (or reestablish) a few of our Constitutional rights.
In the words of the prophet: Sometimes it pays to be careful _first_. I do have the feeling this might impact funding for that group of officers.