Judge John T. Noonan is a textbook example of a social conservative who duly applies and interprets the law. In a decision today, he calls out a police officer for lying. Scroll down to the emboldened text for the exact wording.
On September 16, 1998, so the affidavit continues, [Jeff Potter of Placer County's marijuana eradication team] searched the trash at Baldwin’s home address. He found “marijuana leaves and stems recently cut from a mature marijuana plant. The marijuana was fresh green and still moist.” He also, he said, had found “marijuana seeds and a hydroponic grow rock. There were also two black 1/2 gallon planting pots commonly used in indoor marijuana grows and four packages of ‘rain drop’ irrigation equipment commonly used in indoor marijuana grows.” He concluded on the basis of his specific training in the investigation of narcotics and his ten years of experience in approximately three hundred narcotics cases that “[t]he items found in the trash inspection reveal an ongoing criminal activity to grow marijuana indoors.” He also concluded that “it is common for persons involved in the cultivation of marijuana to also be involved in the sale of marijuana.” Potter sought a warrant listing the documents and property he expected to find; he did not mention guns. On September 23, 1998, a state court judge issued the search warrant that Potter sought.
According to the plaintiffs’ evidence, the only marijuana in their trash searched by Potter were blackened bits of marijuana wrapped in a paper towel, the remnants of smoked marijuana. They bolster their claim of falsity in Potter’s affidavit by thirteen declarations from other individuals whose trash was searched by MET. In each instance MET officers swore they found “marijuana leaves and stems recently cut from a mature marijuana plant” and that “the marijuana was fresh green and still moist.” In each instance, these thirteen individuals swore they placed no marijuana or products of marijuana in their trash.
The Baldwins’ further evidence is that the “rain drop” irrigation equipment was only for outdoor landscaping and that this fact should have been obvious to a trained narcotics investigator. The equipment included a sprinkler spraying water up to 14 feet, a soaker hose, and 6² heavy duty support stakes; none of these items are used in an indoor grow. The two black gardening pots pointed to no illegal activity. The “grow rock” in Potter’s affidavit was, the plaintiffs also state, a lava rock with no implication of criminal activity.
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First, when Potter’s lies are taken out, what is left is an unidentified citizen at an unidentified date telling a sheriff’s deputy of marijuana growing at an unidentified time; also the presence of a rock and two pots, the uses of which are ambiguous. No magistrate could have authorized a search on this basis, essentially amounting to an informant’s tentative tip.
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Plainly, Potter’s lies were substantial in moving the magistrate [to issue a search warrant].
I suggest that those fearful of Evil Conservative Judges spend some time with Judge Noonan's opinions and articles.
