Regarding the man who choked on marijuana and died when stopped by police while changing a flat tire...and the woman who died at the Seattle Airport during a similar police encounter, Seattle criminal defense attorney and NORML board member Jeff Steinborn writes the following, in a letter that might be called, Liberty is Always an Unfinished Biz:

What's the excitement all of a sudden about overly "aggressive" cops? Cops beat up an informant? Cops rough up a citizen over a marijuana pipe at the airport and she dies? Cops bully a witness until they get the testimony they want? This is nothing new. I meet several clients every month who, along with their families, have been bullied and physically terrorized while being arrested for marijuana. Often the witnesses against them recant, saying that police forced them to sign false statements accusing the suspect.

In 1963 the Seattle ACLU was working on a project to get civilian review for the police. 40 years later we still don't have it and demonstrably out of control police officers still suffer no consequences unless the unthinkable happens: a fellow officer tells the truth about their misconduct. .

The simple fact is that for a small but readily identifiable minority of police officers, as one prosecuting attorney told me when I complained about a frail pot smoker being roughed up, "that's the way they investigate." Judges, too, turn a deaf ear. Although our constitution requires that the fruits of unlawful police conduct be "suppressed" at trial, the fact that police acted like sadistic gangsters while searching your home will not result in the suppression of the evidence, no matter how extreme the police conduct.

It's a good thing that for this brief moment the daylight is shining on this shadowy corner of law enforcement. Among our otherwise fine law enforcement agencies in this state there is a small but traditionally well-protected group who can only be described as malicious children without adult supervision. This would be a good time for responsible law enforcement officers to join in to help eliminate these abuses. Let's hope this doesn't get buried as it has been for the last 40 years.

Yours very truly,

Jeffrey Steinborn
Board Member,
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML)
PotBust.com