Federal Courts

The Obama administration may have signaled an end to the federal war against medical marijuana in California, but there is unfinished business from the Bush era crusades. A tragic case in point is that of Morro Bay dispensary operator Charles Lynch, who faces years in federal prison when he is sentenced Monday.

When investigating a DC area cocaine dealer, police installed a GPS tracking device on his vehicle without bothering to obtain a search warrant. Now two leading civil liberties groups are urging a DC appeals court to rule such actions a violation of Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

The three Atlanta narcs whose phony drug raid ended with the death of a 92-year-old woman were sentenced to prison Tuesday. Has the Atlanta Police Department learned its lesson? The sentencing judge certainly hopes so.

California has been addicted to mass incarceration for the past quarter-century. Now, it looks like some federal judges are going to make the state go cold turkey. Tens of thousands of prisoners could be set free because California can't or won't pay to treat them as the Constitution requires.

The US Supreme Court has chipped away at the Fourth Amendment yet again, this time in a case involving the frisking of passengers in vehicles stopped for traffic violations.

Is it okay for middle school authorities to strip-search a girl in search of a couple of Ibuprofen tablets? The Supreme Court will decide.

Marijuana reform advocates have been seeking to have it rescheduled out of Schedule I since 1972. This week, the DEA rejected the latest petition to seek rescheduling, but that just sets the stage for the next moves. Meanwhile, another petition is moving through the bureaucratic process.

Pennsylvania housewife Christine Korbe heard what she thought were robbers breaking into her home at dawn on November 19. She opened fire from a stairway, shooting an FBI agent serving a drug arrest warrant on her husband before calling 911 to report a break-in. Now, in the latest example of overly aggressive drug raids gone bad, the FBI is dead, and Korbe is facing murder charges.

Last year, a California appeals court ruled that state and local police are not required to enforce federal drug laws. Now, the US Supreme Court has declined a chance to overturn that ruling.

A pair of would-be North Dakota hemp farmers were in a federal appeals court Wednesday as they resumed their bid to get the federal government out of their way.