MIXED RULING IN BONNER COUNTY MARIJUANA ARREST

BOISE The state Court of Appeals on Friday unanimously reinstated
incriminating statements and evidence gathered from a car search against a
North Idaho man charged with trafficking in marijuana.

But the three-member appellate panel rejected the attempt by prosecutors to
subject Joey Schumacher to a mandatory three-year prison term if convicted
by ruling that 21 of the 67 marijuana plants police claimed to have found
in Schumacher's Bonner County barn were not plants because they had no roots.

Officers counted the cuttings, which Schumacher was trying to root, because
the mandatory three-year prison term only applies to people charged with
having more than 50 plants in their possession.

"In common parlance, one plant does not immediately become many plants as
soon as it is cut into pieces, even if those pieces have been placed in
soil or a growing medium," Judge Karen Lansing wrote for the court.

The court also agreed with Schumacher that the police use of a thermal
imaging device to determine the heat exuding from his barn was an illegal
search.

But it reversed lower court rulings and allowed prosecutors to use the
statements Schumacher made to police about his marijuana activities and the
marijuana found in his car after he was stopped for a license infraction.

Schumacher claimed he was intimidated into admitting to his growing
operation because police suggested they already had a search warrant for
his barn when they did not and because they said his wife would be arrested
if her fingerprints were found on any of the growing paraphernalia.

But the court said the warning about Schumacher's wife was not coercive
since police said she would only be charged if her prints were found and
did not say she would not be arrested if Schumacher confessed.

As for suggesting they had a search warrant when they did not, the court
found that "within limits, deceit and subterfuge are within the 'bag of
tricks' that police may use in interrogating suspects."