WEED WATCH: GOOSE CREEK POLICE GEESE

Nearly three years after police in the Charleston, S.C., suburb of
Goose Creek made an early-morning, guns-drawn raid at Stratford High
School on an ultimately futile hunt for student marijuana, cash, and
weapons stashes, the ACLU announced last week that a federal court had
at last approved a "landmark" settlement with students who sued school
officials and police that, in part, incorporates a federal consent
decree reinforcing the students' Fourth Amendment rights.

Former Stratford principal George McCracken (who resigned shortly
after the raid debacle) precipitated the raid by calling police to ask
for their help with the school's "drug problem." Unfortunately, police
created a far bigger problem for local officials when they stormed
into the high school at 6:40am on Nov. 5, 2003 -- recorded by school
surveillance and police cameras -- forcing students to the ground,
handcuffing them, and holding guns to their heads while police
searched backpacks and lockers in for contraband; they found nothing.

Although African-American students made up less than 25% of the school
population, minority students were a majority of those detained in the
raid, in part because of the district's busing policy, which meant
that certain students regularly arrived at school well before the rest
of the student body. "I felt like I had less rights than other people
that day," 16-year-old Joshua Ody said in a press statement.

In the aftermath of the raid, the ACLU's Drug Policy Litigation
Project took the case on behalf of 20 individual students, filing suit
in December 2003, arguing that the students' right to be free from
unlawful search and seizure had been violated and that police had used
unnecessary force during the dawn raid. On July 11, the ACLU announced
that it had reached a settlement deal that includes a $1.6 million
fund to pay for counseling for the affected students -- money awarded
in individual damages to be paid by the Goose Creek PD and the city --
and the institution of a consent decree that declared the raid
unconstitutional and that bans the future use of such raids.

Indeed, the decree bans police from conducting law-enforcement
activity on school grounds without a warrant or probable cause. "Goose
Creek students now have a unique place in our nation," Graham Boyd,
director of the ACLU's Drug Law Reform Project said in a press
release. "They are the only students in the nation who have complete
protection of their Fourth Amendment rights of search and seizure"
while on public school property.

It was also a good week for drug reformers up in Alaska, who claimed
victory July 10 in the state's renewed fight over whether possession
of small amounts of marijuana by adults should be recriminalized. For
years Alaska courts have ruled that the state's constitution -- which
outlines a firm right to privacy -- means adult possession and use of
small quantities of pot is beyond the reach of criminal law. Or so it
was until Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski signed into law on June 2 a bill
to recriminalize pot possession; the ACLU reacted quickly, however,
filing for an injunction that was granted by a state superior court
last week. Until the Alaska Supreme Court says otherwise, Superior
Court Judge Patricia Collins ruled, no state court has the ability to
overturn the high court's 1975 ruling (in a case styled Ravin v.
State) and to recriminalize pot possession and use by adults at home.
"Unless and until" the state's highest court "directs otherwise, Ravin
is the law in this state," Collins wrote in her opinion. Not
surprisingly, the state is expected to appeal.