ACLU SUES STATE POLICE, BARBOUR COUNTY DEPUTIES

Authorities Set Up Checkpoint Near Rally for Marijuana Reform in Summer of 2001

CHARLESTON -- The American Civil Liberties Union sued State Police and
the Barbour County Sheriff's Department Thursday for allegedly
operating an illegal drug roadblock last year.

The lawsuit, filed by ACLU attorneys Allan Karlin and Jason Huber on
behalf of Thomas Thacker and Brett Gasper, accuses police of operating
the checkpoint near a rally organized by marijuana law reform
advocates. "The authorities established this roadblock without cause
and in clear violation of the fundamental Fourth Amendment right of
all Americans to be free from arbitrary government intrusion," said
Andrew Schneider, executive director of ACLU West Virginia.

"The state officials who authorized this roadblock apparently chose
to ignore a U.S. Supreme Court ruling from only a few months prior to
this incident which found that such roadblocks were
unconstitutional."

Thacker and Gasper said police violated their constitutional rights on
July 28, 2001, when they stopped and searched them for drugs on the
way to a Barbour County festival sponsored by the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Police violated Thacker and Gasper's rights to assemble and to due
process of law when they used specially trained dogs to search them
without their consent and without lawful justification on their way to
the political rally, according to the lawsuit.

"I was asked if my car could be searched, and when I said no, the
drug dogs were brought on the scene to pressure me to waive my
constitutional rights," Gasper said. "I don't like drugs, and I
especially don't like big German shepherds in my face, or dirty looks
from policemen or insinuating remarks from the same."

The officers ran the checkpoint "in a manner that singled out and
discriminated against NORML members, supporters and other festival
attendees," according to the lawsuit.

"Members of law enforcement shouldn't have to violate the law to
enforce the law," Schneider said. Neither Thacker nor Gasper was
charged as a result of the search, Schneider said.