COURT: WARRANTS FOR POT BUST OBTAINED WITH FAULTY EVIDENCE

Phone calls from someone who grows pot and a high electric bill aren't
sufficient evidence to search a home for marijuana plants, a state
appellate court has ruled.

A three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal ruled that three
Sonoma County judges erred when they approved search warrants based on such
limited evidence.

"This was not a close case," the court said in a unanimous decision issued
this week.

The ruling means that Sonoma County resident Richard G. Hight probably will
not have to go to jail, even though 92 marijuana plants were found in his
barn near Sonoma three years ago.

Hight pleaded guilty to marijuana cultivation charges after the search
warrant was upheld by a Superior Court judge. He was sentenced to nine
months in jail, which was stayed pending appeal.

Hight's attorney, Richard Ingram, says law enforcement routinely uses
skimpy evidence related to power usage to justify searching the homes of
people they think might be growing marijuana.

But District Attorney Mike Mullins called the case "an aberration," adding
that only 11 felony cases were thrown out last year because of problems
related to faulty search warrants.

"That's total," he said. "Eleven, out of over a thousand."

The facts in Hight's case start with the 1998 arrest of a woman found to be
growing 318 pot plants in her basement, according to court records. The
woman, Rachel Kristine, had been arrested and convicted for growing
marijuana five years earlier.

Drug agents focused on Hight after his number appeared in Kristine's phone
records. Agents also obtained Hight's PG&E records, which they contended
showed he used more power than several of his neighbors on Cavedale Road,
suggesting he might be using "grow lights" for a garden.

In obtaining a warrant from Judge Allan Hardcastle authorizing the use of
thermal imaging to try to detect heat from the house, investigators said
Hight's electrical use was double that of his neighbors and that Kristine
had called him five times in a single month.

Both statements were false, according to the Court of Appeal. A single call
lasting less than two minutes had been placed from Kristine's home. The
calculation of Hight's power use also was incorrect.

But even had those mistakes not been made, the court said there was
insufficient evidence to justify a search. Notably lacking was "information
to provide a substantial basis to conclude the warrant would uncover
evidence of crime."

After the thermal imaging proved inconclusive, Ingram said Judge Robert
Dale signed a search warrant for Hight's home, and 92 plants were found in
his barn.

When Ingram challenged the warrant used to find them, a third judge, Robert
Boyd, ruled against him.