Via Talk Left, the latest in the War on Your Neighbor Drugs:
When college freshman Janet Lee packed her bags for a Christmas trip home two years ago, her luggage contained three condoms filled with flour — a stress-relief contraption that she and some friends made as part of a dorm project.
Philadelphia International Airport screeners found the condoms, and their initial tests showed they contained drugs. The Bryn Mawr College student was arrested on drug trafficking charges and jailed. Three weeks later, she was released after a lab test backed her story.
Lee filed a federal lawsuit last week against city police, seeking damages for pain and suffering, financial loss, and emotional distress. She was arrested on Dec. 21, 2003, and was held on $500,000 bail and faced up to 20 years in prison had she been convicted of the drug charges.
***Airport screeners found the condoms filled with white powder in Lee’s checked luggage shortly before she was to board a plane to Los Angeles to visit her family. She said she told city police they were filled with flour and that they were stress-relievers, not drug packages.
Police told her a field test showed that the powder contained opium and cocaine, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. A lab test later proved the substance was flour — and prosecutors dropped the charges, the newspaper reported Thursday.
I hope she wins (despite how mind-bogglingly stupid I think it is to have four condoms filled with flour), and wins everything she is asking for. I do take issue with this aspect of the Penn Live write-up:
Many records in the case remain confidential, inaccessible even to Lee’s lawyers.
“I believed her story because things just didn’t add up,” Oh said.
The field tests were odd because they detected the presence of not one drug but three, he said.
“People don’t mix drugs like that,” Oh said.
Oh yeah? Explain this:
In all seriousness, though, I hope she wins. Big.
Pooh
Was it the ‘drugs’ or the condoms? She could have been some rapid pro-Planned Parenthood agitator. If your little girl can carry condoms on a plane, the terrorists win…
(oh yeah, broken link also…)
John Cole
Link fixed. Thanks.
MrSnrub
For $10 she could have bought a similar squeezeball contraption without the attached jail time.
ppGaz
“Stress relief.”
Good one.
Doug
Unless the cops just flat out lied about something underlying the arrest, I think she has a loser of a case. I assume Pennsylvania provides for law enforcement immunity such that mere negligence on the part of the cops is not going to result in liability. Probably the next step is a 42 USC 1983 suit alleging deprivation of a constitutional right, most likely an unconstitutional deprivation of liberty. But she’d have to show she was deprived of such liberty without due process. If she was arraigned and a court found cause to hold her, I’d think that offers the arresting officers some measure of protection. The court is entitled to judicial immunity. The jailers holding her on a valid court order are safe.
Now, if the officers falsified the field test or some such, that changes the equation considerably.
capelza
Maybe if all else fails, she can sue the manufacturer of the field testing equipment. A test that can show two drugs completely at completely different ends of the scale when in fact neither are there is pretty bad. Are the folks who used that kind of testing still using it?
Jesus, are the arresting officers so lame they didn’t know flour when they saw it, smelled it, maybe even tasted a little bit on their tongues (or is that only on TV?). There is a HUGE difference…
Sojourner
Wow, I feel so much safer knowing that screeners are on the hunt for flour-filled condoms.
Now if they could only find those damn guns that slip through every now and then.
John Cole
I wondered the same damn thing.
SeesThroughIt
FYI, when cops put a little big on their tongues, it’s not a taste test. As a local anesthetic, coke will make the tongue go numb.
capelza
SeesThroughIt..I realise that. Like I said, when no numbing occurred (if they did that) wouldn’t the gummy paste formed by the flour and their own saliva have been a little clue?
capelza
Also, THREE WEEKS to determine it was the flour she had claimed it was all along? THREE WEEKS?
rob
3 weeks in jail? How long does it take to get a lab test back? (as apposed to “initial test”) Doesn’t sound like a loser to me.
Pooh
They were waiting for her at the airport because she emailed her folks saying she was bringing something ‘special’ home for Christmas.
HOAX! I declare the whole thing a HOAX!
SeesThroughIt
Oh, I completely agree. I mean, she’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer for putting white powder inside condoms and thinking everything’s gonna be smooth sailing, but come on. This whole thing should’ve been cleared up in under five minutes right there at the airport.
jg
Only a suicidal cop will dip a finger into ‘suspect’ white powder and give it a taste. Even pre-9/11 and anthrax scares it wasn’t done in real life.
You’d think the cops would give the benefit of a doubt though since drug mules swallow little round balloons filled with drugs. Seeing condoms all filled up and stuffed in a bag had to make them think twice that they had made a real drug bust. Is there still a laugh test in the post 9/11 world?
rilkefan
I assume they just lied to her about having run a test and its result, hoping to get a confession to save trouble. Then the case got lost in transit. Or maybe somebody screwed up – mixed up the case number with a drug bust – and tried to avoid having to admit it. That a test machine could be that wrong seems odd. It would be giving the same positive result every time, likely something of a giveaway.
ppGaz
This whole thing sounds like a hoax.
Was the flour pre-sifted? Cake flour, or bread flour? Gluten content? What do we really know about the flour?
Staged in order to provide the basis for the lawsuit?
Publicity stunt?
Two years elapsed from arrest to lawsuit, and we are just now hearing about this bizarre case?
Slow news day? No missing coeds on the wires, or cat fight between John and a feminist blogger, or something?
Bruce in Alta California
What is a field test?
Krista
ppGaz – we share the same dirty mind. Stress relief — indeed. Although, if you filled a condom with flour, it probably wouldn’t keep its…intended shape.
At any rate, it was an exceedingly dumb thing for her to do, but how many of us thought beyond the next 5 minutes when we were 18? I hope she wins too…three weeks is ridiculous — poor kid was probably scared out of her mind.
Mike S
Better than showing that nut to prove that people mix drugs “like that” would be John Belushi. He mixed Heroin and Coke for a speedball. It didn’t work out like he’d hoped.
Jesse
This girl is as stupid as a human being can be. I don’t feel bad for her. Even if she never believed that someone would think it was drugs once they were opened, she would have to know that she would at least be stopped and have them inspected and causing everyone a delay. She was lucky it was only three weeks. This is about as dumb as someone carrying fake dynamite in their suitcase.
Zifnab
I admit that with the materials she used to construct this… um… stress releaver… (seriously, that’s just something else, isn’t it) she could have easily just dumped them in the dorm and made new ones when she got home. In fact, I do question the health hazards and cleanliness of, um… reusing that particular type of stress releaver.
But I think we’re going a bit far in blaming the victim here when you claim that she should have expected to be searched, seized, and arrested for transporting flour in any manner. I don’t know what you stick in your condoms, but I’d hardly equate a sex toy to a stick of dynamite.
I don’t know if she’s got a case, per say, but I think whoever was doing the testing needs to be sacked and sacked hard. Who makes a mistake like that? Seriously.
Bob
Heh. As a former student at Swarthmore (liberal arts college near Bryn Mawr), this amuses me to no end.
Not to pimp my own stuff or anything, but if you want to read about the time I got talked into going to Bryn Mawr in search of (ahem) by my alcoholic friend from Zimbabwe, go here: http://smegmaster.com/2005/11/487/:
</self-pimpery>
Oberon
As much I despise the War on Drugs, I don’t see what case she has here. Carrying white powder in condoms is guaranteed to set off the police.
What a bizarre set of facts. Was she an actual drug courier just testing airport security? Someone trying to get arrested so she could start a lawsuit (3 weeks — couldn’t she make bail?)
reader_iam
Um, are we saying that Our Nation’s Flour Supply is cross-contaminated with not one, not two, but three pollutants?
Damn! Where are the people who were so alarmed over Alar when we need them??
(And what’s with flour in condoms, anyway? Haven’t they ever heard of the more delectable mix of Blue Goo and wheat berries?
Words fail (but eye-rolling cannot) at the sheer obliviousness of this poor girl.
(Helluva year, this 2005: At the end of it, I can’t help reverting to my former, cruder inner child. And no, I’ve never stuffed a condom with foreign substances.)
reader_iam
Of course, there was supposed to be an end parentheses after “wheat berries.”
anon
I recently had my first distasteful experience with TSA, and it was at Philadelphia Int’l Airport. But in general, the TSA staff everywhere (including Philly) are very professional.
reader_iam
Btw, for work- and family-related reasons, I’ve flow in and out of a bunch of airports, but none more than Philly Int’l. In sheer nastiness, it’s second only to Newark, NJ (and that’s saying something, given how often I–and/or my husband–haven gotten stuck in O’Hare Int’l).
The Other Steve
And people claim the Govt spying on people isn’t going to give false positives and inconvenience citizens unfortunately caught up in the loop.
Pooh
Well, you shouldn’t say words that rhyme with “bomb” on the phone. What were you thinking?
demimondian
All of my bullshit detectors are screaming red alert here, folks.
I mean, stress relief? Uh, yeah. I want you to stop and think about the physics of a flour-filled condom. I strongly suggest that the result would be about as stiff as a unfilled bicycle tube, and would rupture if squeezed. Sounds to me like somebody whose trying to create an image which is so sniggeringly obvious that no one will ever question the story.
demimondian
Yeah, the problem was that I said “comb”, and then the recognition engine looked at the spelling instead of the pronunciation.
The Disenfranchised Voter
I don’t knwo what is more upsetting–the story itself or the ridiculous comments here defending the actions of the city police.
Drug prohibition will continue to be unconstitutional until a Constitutional Amendment banning specific drugs is passed.
Pooh
Huh? It will continue to be bad policy both until and after such amenments might pass, but unconstitutional? (But then, so is the income tax, right?)
Justin Slotman
Read the Inquirer version if you have any doubts about her story. It’s pretty clear to me that somebody on the police end fucked up.
tbrosz
Found one reference to condom/flour stress relievers here, so at least the idea is out there.
On a more sinister note, we have flour-filled condoms as weapons of mass humiliation!
demimondian
tbrosz — well, it could be. I don’t think that the items would be long-lasting stress balls, but, then, that would explain having three of them.
The Other Steve
Interesting. I came across this while looking at constitutional amendments…
http://www.thirdamendment.com/nobility.html
It’s yet another secret underworld of the conservatives that I had no knowledge of. The Cult of the Secret 13th Amendment.
stickler
This is why I read blogs. That comment right there is priceless.
And I don’t know what all of you stick in your condoms, either. Nor do I want to know, frankly.
Doug
3 weeks in jail? How long does it take to get a lab test back? (as apposed to “initial test”) Doesn’t sound like a loser to me.
The problem she faces is the various types of immunities afforded to the folks in the legal system. I think the police are on the hook, obviously, if they lied about the tests.
But, my guess is she was charged and arraigned within 48 hours or so of being detained. Once the prosecutors charge her and the judge orders her held pending trial, I think the police are off the hook for holding her for the remainder of the 3 weeks. And the judges and the prosecutors are immune from liability for their actions.
So, the real focus is going to be on the events between arrest and arraignment. And it seems difficult to say that the police did not have probable cause to detain her for that period when the judge went ahead and remanded her to jail after the arraignment.
Presumably Pennsylvania has immunity provisions for civil liability law enforcement activity, so that’s going to bar a state law claim that the cops were negligent in performing the field test. So, I think what she’s left with is a federal Constitutional claim where she has to prove that the cops either recklessly or intentionally performed the field test improperly.
Doug
I messed up my blockquoting. In that previous post, the “3 weeks in jail?” paragraph was also supposed to be a blockquote.
Grotesqueticle
Without going to tbrosz link, I would imagine the “stress-relief” aspect was for squeezing, not for use as a sex toy. But, then again, who knows? Crazy kids these days.
Once again, I am in complete agreement with John, it WAS incredibly stupid of her, but I hope she wins big.
Folks, flour looks nothing at all like cocaine or heroin. If the screeners and cops at the airport couldn’t tell the diffrerence from a visual inspection, then they need to find new jobs.
Mr Furious
Dumbest. Person. Ever.
Seriously, this IS as dumb as having fake dynamite in your luggage. Though, this story just screams hoax/urban legend.
If it’s true, she deserves some of what she got for being so stupid as to “smuggle” flour. Certainly not three weeks (or even a day) worth of jail time, but some Darwin Award or something.
Also, if this is true, I’m willing to bet it will be determined that the field test was faked or somehow tossed. There’s know way this should have happened. The cops lied or bluffed at the airport and then couldn’t extricate themselves from the tangled web…
Mr Furious
Oh, and I’m with Grotesqueticle (ugh), “Stress-relief” always implied some hand squeeze-type thing to me. The fact that it used a condom sent a bunch of you down a differentt path…
KCinDC
What about the half-million-dollar bail? Isn’t that a tad excessive?
slightlybad
Doug pretty much analyzed the legal issues right. Unless they can prove the cops deliberately faked the field test, this chick is probably not getting anything. And three weeks for a lab test? Believe me, that’s nothing — its about 3 months in my jurisdiction.
Anybody considered that she could have been a decoy for an actual smuggler? This whole stress relief thing sounds a little suspect. Maybe they sent her through first knowing she would attract some attention, and everybody in line behind her would go through while the cops were busy with her.
Mr Furious
Anybody considered that she could have been a decoy for an actual smuggler?
Or probing the security at the airport? Both of these occured to me. There are certain things that stretch the definition of “innocent”. Going into a bank with a rubber gun is one, this may be another…
At the very least, she wasted a lot of resources at the airport where security should be a priority. She could easily have served as a diversion for a real drug smuggler. Or worse. How many bags/passengers got on that flight without the proper scrutiny due to this “huge bust?”
DecidedFenceSitter
Um. Flour is cheap. Condoms available for free. As a fairly recent college student (’01), fully able to believe that they were using them for squeeze stress relief balls. I’ve seen flour+balloons suggested for the same.
James C.
I’m with Doug on this one. The whole incident has a strange aspect to it that makes one wonder what’s missing from the writeup.
Zifnab
Ah, guilty until proven innocent. I mean, if the cops were after her, surely she’d done SOMETHING wrong. I know I go through all my luggage before getting on an airplane with the mentality of “What might the cops assume is drug parafinalial?” No powdered donuts. No cigerettes. No lightbulbs. No brownies. No clothing made from hemp. Was she supposed to claim her flour filled condoms before passing through customs?
Or maybe there was something else that sparked the guards’ suspicions. Perhaps she was seen Driving While Black. Or she attempted to enter an upscale shopping center without looking rich enough. Maybe her affilication with a public college was in itself a clear indicator of drug use – after all, every college student does drugs all the time. All these crimes are reason enough to get yourself arrested if you’re in the right (or wrong) part of town.
Sam Hutcheson
At the very least, she wasted a lot of resources at the airport where security should be a priority. She could easily have served as a diversion for a real drug smuggler. Or worse. How many bags/passengers got on that flight without the proper scrutiny due to this “huge bust?”
If the TSA doesn’t have the ability to apprehend a single young girl with a suitcase full of baking flour and still do its duties with regard to screening other bags, then the TSA needs to be disbanded and replaced with a fiesty chihuahua on a short leash, tied to the baggage carousel. Of course, that would probably be an improvement, and we’d get about the same “safety” bang for the buck.
This girl did nothing wrong and lost three weeks of her life because of it. Someone in the clusterfuck needs to reimburse her for that time.
Doug
Another detail, possibly irrelevant, is that the Inquirer said that the field test was positive for opium. Can opium take a form other than cocaine that might appear more similar to flour?
Sam Hutcheson
Or maybe there was something else that sparked the guards’ suspicions. Perhaps she was seen Driving While Black.
She’s of asian descent, apparently, and the Inquirer story hints that this was a factor in her detention. Because, you know, all asian people traffic narcotics.
Sam Hutcheson
Another detail, possibly irrelevant, is that the Inquirer said that the field test was positive for opium. Can opium take a form other than cocaine that might appear more similar to flour?
Reading the Inquirer article, it is relatively clear that (assuming all of those facts are correct) the officers in question were fishing, hoping to get some sort of confession out of the hyperventilating teenager they had in custody. They first dropped the idea of “cocaine”. When that didn’t work, they went with “opium.” When that didn’t work, they tried to goad her into admitting she was carrying “amphetamines.” It seems pretty clear that they *didn’t do a field test* at all. They saw white powder, arrested her, then tried to coax her into “confessing” to something. That’s not atypical behavior in law enforcement. The fact that she “stuck to her story” about flour probably just pissed them off.
slightlybad
Hey Zifnab, I’m more than acquainted with the concept of innocent until proven guilty — I’m a defense attorney. But when you’re engaged in action that bears a remarkable resemblance to drug trafficking, don’t be suprised when the police investigate.
If this story has the circumstances right (big if, I know), they wouldn’t have arrested her if the field test hadn’t indicated that it was narcotics. When you have a young woman attempting to board a flight with condoms full of white powder, it is reasonable security might want an explanation. Her sketchy explanation, coupled with a field test that the contents are indeed narcotics, is more than enough probably cause to arrest someone.
I feel sorry for this girl, and if the cops faked the story they should be fired/jailed/sued, but if she hadn’t been carrying condoms of white powder through airport security, it never would have happened.
And Doug, heroin is an opiate, cocaine is not.
slightlybad
Probable cause, not probably cause.
Uberweiss
That was my big problem. How in the world does it take three weeks to tell the difference between flour and cocaine? It could take I think all of us about 3 seconds to tell the difference. Talk about incompetence.
demimondian
Uhh — Zif? Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sisters. Not only was Ms. Lee not arrested for Driving While Black, she was also not arrested for attending a sufficiently expensive university.
I’m still really, really skeptical about the story as a whole, but…
Andrew
If you thought cocaine or heroin look nothing like flour, you should take a look at opium. It’s a sticky brown paste, not a white powder.
You could MAYBE confuse flour for super pure heroin, but almost anyone who’s seen heroin knows that most heroin is closer to brown that white. The purests stuff you’re likely to see in small quantaties is going to be ivory.
Sam Hutcheson
I feel sorry for this girl, and if the cops faked the story they should be fired/jailed/sued, but if she hadn’t been carrying condoms of white powder through airport security, it never would have happened.
I don’t see anyone here complaining that they saw fit to stop and screen her. That’s a perfectly reasonable thing to do when your x-ray shows condoms full of white powder. The problem is clearly with the follow through. Lee was thoughtless and careless and a bit naive, and for that she probably could have reasonably expected to be detained, questioned, given the evil eye by the big, bad security guard, have to deal with the hassle of missing her flight and explaining it to her parents. All of that would be reasonable. Three weeks in jail and a $500,000 bail for not foreseeing the similarity between your freshman year sex-joke and drug trafficking is not reasonable.
demimondian
The cops did say “opiates”, not “opium”. Still and all, I agree that if the story is as stated, then the cops were fishing without any data.
(And that, slightlybad, would absolutely make this a civil rights issue.)
Tulkinghorn
The damages stem from the three weeks in jail. She has no recourse for this — she had the legal remedy of appealing the bail set by the judge.
And even if you ignore that problem, and point out that the TSA screwed up, what is her harm? Missing Christmas? No lost wages here here, no injury or trauma is asserted…
All that is left is some sort of civil rights case, but that requires some basis of conspiracy to be alleged, even if it does not need to be too specific for a civil rights case. I don’t see how a sensible lawyer would go anywhere near this case.
Concurring with those posting above — this smells like an ill-advised nuisance case.
Maybe there is a big retainer up front, but if that were the case she would have made bail back when this happened.
slightlybad
If they actually did perform the field test, then they reasonably believed she had drugs and had every right to arrest her. They only way she’s getting from out under at that point is if the lab tells them it’s not drugs, but it takes a while for the crime lab to get to a particular case ’cause they get pretty backed up. I always request a certificate of analysis in drug cases and the prosecutor usually doesn’t even get one until at least a month after the arrest occurs.
Sam Hutcheson
They only way she’s getting from out under at that point is if the lab tells them it’s not drugs, but it takes a while for the crime lab to get to a particular case ‘cause they get pretty backed up.
I don’t doubt your technical expertise with the law, but I do suggest that should this case find its way in front of an even semi-compassionate jury, technicalities can be rendered moot rather quickly.
slightlybad
Yeah, she’s pretty sympathetic victim, at least on paper. Getting it in front of a jury without having the complaint struck for not alleging a cause of action or redressable injury is the problem.
Actually, even a jury trial might not be that great. Can you see a bunch of working class Philadelphia jurors, some black, who know people that the police have actually fucked with for much more minor things, giving a huge amount of sympathy to some Asian girl from California who attends an expensive college and tried to carry condoms of white powder through the airport? The reaction might be more along the lines of “what the hell did you expect to happen?”
capelza
slightlybad, as I said above, IF they did perform a field test, wouldn’t that show how freaking unreliable said field test was? Obviously?
I’d want to know if they are still using the same testing equipment.
slightlybad
Yeah, if that field test actually was performed, it was definitely a piece of shit. You would have to show that the cops knew or had reason to know that it was inaccurate to have a case though.
One thing that occurred to me since they said that it indicated the presence of several drugs. Most of the chemical field tests that I’m familiar with are disposable — you use it once and throw the kit away. If the cops had re-used the same testing kit, you would be quite likely to get false positives. Doing something dumbass like that would definitely make them amenable to suit.
demimondian
Not in the least.
No, the city will certainly ask for a jury trial here, and they’ll win, provided the test was actually performed. If, for some reason, the first results have “gotten lost” or something, though…the city will quietly settle out of court.
The Other Steve
Now this is my way of thinking, and I understand that it’s subject to perception.
But it seems to me that if you were mistakenly arrested and spent 3 weeks in jail, that the pain and suffering of that incident can only be further extended by trying to go to trial to complain about it.
That is, she’d have far less pain and suffering if she’d simply forget about it.
And frankly, it’s a good life lesson for her. If she’d flown into Istanbul carrying that shit, she’d probably end up with a 20 year prison sentence with no tests or trial.
Tulkinghorn
… and we do not even need to go into what would happen in Singapore.
demimondian
Other Steve…stupidity is not illegal. Youth and inexperience are certainly not illegal. That what she is alleged to have done was stupid is beyond doubt or cavil. Arresting somebody without probable cause — that *is* illegal.
If the tests were done, and properly so, and came back with the results reported, then the police are immune. If the tests were not done, or were incorrectly done, or the results were not as the officers alleged in their arrest warrant, then the police and the city are absolutely not immune.
I, personally, find Ms. Lee’s story troubling. That said, I also find the city’s sudden invocation of confidentiality troubling as well. I’m suspicious of the plaintiff, but I’m not at all convinced that there’s nothing there yet.
capelza
The Other Steve, would you feel the same way if it had been you who spent three weeks in jail? Because you had flour in your luggage?
I do think she was incredibly dumb to not have thought of it, but then she may have also thought that it would be obvious that it was flour. Innocent people don’t neccessarily think like criminals, especially the more sheltered ones, which she might have been.
As for “stress relief”, I’ve stayed away from the sniggers, but squeeze balls ARE good stress relievers. I have one filled with lavender…would I have to spend three weeks in jail becuase some cop thought (and his “field test” showed so) I had pot in there? You bet I’d be pissed. In fact that is the odd thing, I’d’ve sued them a whole lot earlier and been hollering to any media that would listen.
Listen to yourself….she wasn’t in Istanbul, she was in the United States of America. She had the expectation that law enforcement wouldn’t be so fucking inept or wrong. Showed her, huh?
KCinDC
Well, as long as we’re better than Turkey and Singapore, we have nothing to worry about. It’s our friend the “Not As Bad As” defense again!
demimondian
Other Steve, Tulkinghorn…you know, I must hate America, but I just don’t feel that we should achieve the same level of legal protection that Singapore does, any more than we should achieve a level of torture no higher than Iran’s.
Uberweiss
It seems to me like there are a lot of people on here who know a whole lot about heroin. Stay off the junk kids, do you really want to end up like Gary Busey? I think not.
Uberweiss
When I first read this story I thought this girl was dumb as dirt. After I thought about it for awhile, the response above is the best answer for those of you who think that this girl was just really stupid and deserved what happened. It is pretty obvious that the cops didn’t do a “field test” on the flour and they were just trying to get this girl to confess. Remember, most cops are dirty. You will find a good cop every now and then but for the most part, cops are dirty dirty pigs. Never trust the police. Ever.
Pooh
No way this case sees trial. Neither the police nor the TSA really want that, a settlement is highly likely, ESPECIALLY now that the story is public.
Doug
I’ve gotta strongly disagree with the first two sentences. I’ve met a great number of fine individuals who serve as police officers. As for the last part, I’d agree that if you are under suspicion for something, your best bet is to assume the police don’t have your best interests at heart.
Doug
If they were merely negligent in performing the tests, they’re still probably immune. A cop isn’t liable if he negligently infringes your civil liberties. The violation has to be at least reckless. And before you can get it to a jury, you have to get past a federal judge by convincing him that you have enough evidence to support a claim of recklessness.
(This is premised on my assumption that there is no state law claim because Pennsylvania grants immunity to police for actions taken in the course of attempting to enforce the law. If Pennsylvania doesn’t grant any such immunity then the analysis changes. And, of course, if they lied about doing the test or its results, then they’re screwed.)
Grotesqueticle
What capelza said.
I don’t care how unsheltered an individual might be, three weeks in county sucks. Hard. Especially if you’ve done nothing wrong. She deserves whatever she can squeeze out of whoever ultimately has the responsiblity.
If being stupid were an actual crime we’d all be dressed like the Beagle brotheres.
Sam Hutcheson
I’ve gotta strongly disagree with the first two sentences. I’ve met a great number of fine individuals who serve as police officers.
Many (most?) are fine people, I agree, and few are “corrupt” in the ways we think of corruption (i.e. television shows about “bad cops” and such.) But it’s a relatively well-known fact that noone lies with the audacity and assurance of a cop on the witness stand. Police officers are almost universally known to fabricate, perjure and spin when it comes to “protecting a brother officer”, or when it comes to prosecuting a criminal they collared. Most prosecutors and defense attorneys will tell you that, as bad as eye-witness testimony is in general, cop EW accounts are even worse. They generally believe they’ve collared the right guy and are willing to tell whatever tale the jury needs to hear to convict.
So, outside of the more theatrical concepts of “dirty cops” (of which there exist plenty, certainly), the notion that this case might be tainted by the “loyal to the brotherhood of officers” variety of corruption is hardly undue.
capelza
Can’t help myself, but I keep hearing that canard that’s been floating around regarding the whole NSA flap and privacy issues…”If you haven’t done anything wrong, then you don’t have anything to fear”…
The Disenfranchised Voter
Since when was carrying condoms of white powder through airport secuirty illegal?
And the responses to this story scare me more than the story itself.
And Pooh, to help you out with my claim that Drug Prohibition is unconstitutonal until some Amendments are passed, ponder this…It took a Constitutional Amendment–agreed to by 3/4 of the states–to make a single drug, alcohol, illegal.
Alcohol Prohibition was constitutionally done. Drug Prohibition was not. And it won’t be until some actual amendments banning specific substances are passed.
jg
Didn’t they find this in her checked bag? Not her carryon? If its a checked bag I don’t see how she interfered with any other passengers or ran a diversion for a real smuggler.
How many drug mules travel by air? From Philly to LA? Running a diversion? Ridiculous. There is absolutely no reason to put yourself in the situation where you might get caught when you could simply hop in a car (a rental maybe?) and drive to Cali. One has security checkpoints the other has some tolls. Which would you choose if you were a smuggler?
Laugh test. Even Det. Medavoy would see through this case. Total overreaction to something that if given more than a surface once over would show it wasn’t what it appeared.
Another Jeff
I’ve been in Philly lock-up, it’s not that bad. The food is tasty and the guards have a pleasant demeanor. But i was only there for 12 hours and had my own cell.
jg
Is it a first instinct to look for a way to raise reasonable doubt? No insult intended. I’m wondering if its a part of law school study that one always looks for another way to see the event.
OCSteve
On the one hand – any time I fly, even before 9/11, I check every compartment on every piece of luggage, checked or carry on. Did I leave something in there that could cause a stir? Did my wife stick something in there since last time I used it? Etc. She was just dumb dumb dumb. Guess what? Dumb has a price sometimes. If I was on that flight and held up for even an hour because of her dumbness 3 weeks is the least I would wish on her.
On the other hand – cops/security that can’t tell flour is flour really need to find new employment.
Sojourner
Have I missed something? When did flour and condoms become illegal?
So we now have to worry about what “might” look illegal and what “might” be mistaken to be illegal by idiotic TSA staff?
Sure looks like the terrorists are winning.
capelza
OCSteve, what do you think of the new (has Taft signed it yet) Ohio Patriot Act that allows police to arrest someone in public even if they have done NOTHING wrong, simply because they refuse to show ID, or give a birthdate, etc?
Listen to yourself. You are saying that we, the public, should conform to the authorities’s view of what is acceptable? This girl’s case got me thinking about the little jar of face powder (white and unlabeled) that I travel with in my CHECKED luggage (as she did). Should I no longer take my make-up with me because of the fear that some yahoo airport screener would mistake it for drugs or anthrax and jump the gun like they did? And if the “field test” showed opiates AND cocaine or whatever else…
A little bit at a time, we, the people, give up our rights to move freely and innocently for fear of being rousted by the cops or to make us “safer”. This is okay with you? Whyever for?
LoafingOaf
Whoa, that’s pretty hot that she likes to squeeze condoms!
Hmm, I think what went on here is that it looked to the cops like SO MUCH coke that they thought they had a major bust on their hands. I agree with those who have said she was stupid, but that in no way excuses the incompetance (or worse) of the police.
For example, did you catch this part:
When the detective returned, he said the powder tested positive for opium. Police returned her to her cell. “I started hyperventilating,” Lee recalled. “The detective was very nice, and said he would test again.”
The result was the same.
So they tested TWICE in the field? Either they lied about testing it, or the test was done incompetantly, or the test itself is worthless. Whatever the case, I support her filing suit because by doing so she will not just seek justice for herself, but will hopefully put a magnifying glass on these field tests and correct whatever went wrong here. The cops weren’t wrong to suspect her or to view her story skeptically, but what happened after that should not be able to happen.
I notice a couple people who don’t buy her story. However, you’ll find that if she’s telling the truth about “stress-relievers” it’s going to be easy for her to show in court, as she will have testimony from others in her dorm.
They were filled with flour, she said, and were silly stress-relief contraptions that she had made with classmates as part of a freshman rite of passage in her Main Line dorm.
Three weeks in jail is no small thing. A lot of bad stuff goes down in jails because Americans seem not to care about making our jails and prisons safer places. Always remember: Some people who are locked up are 100% innocent.
OCSteve
I’m saying that as a reasonably informed citizen post 9/11 this was a stupid thing to do. Your jar of white face powder has little resemblance to condoms filled with white powder. Smuggling drugs in condoms is a known tactic (admittedly usually swallowed).
The requirement to show ID on request of authorities is nothing new, Google for 60k hits.
I’m not sure what showing ID has to do with putting something that looks like it might be drugs into your checked baggage…
If you were on the flight and it was delayed for hours because of this woman’s stupidity you would be OK with that?
capelza
See, here I’m different…I’d want to know why, when the facts came out, that my flight was delayed by idiots that didn’t know the difference between flour and cocaine.
Or why, when I check (not try to carry on) a set of kitchen knives and tell the checkers so before they run it through the new super duper x-ray machines they have that they have to cut open the box, to see, that yes, those things I told them were knives and defintely looked like knives on their screen were indeed knives. (okay, that last one is just a bemused complaint I have..)
And I can tell you, if a policeman asked me for ID when I am just standing on a street corner minding my own business, I’d very politely tell him to fuck off. But I’m like that.
I go straight to the police chief if our local finest pull something hinky (admittedly I live in small enough town). In fact I have done exactly that. I respect the job police have to do, but when they cross the line I am not afraid to say so. Might get me in trouble someday, but the alternative is unpalatable to me. They work for me, not vice versa.
capelza
Also, I do not know if you have college age kids yet (I do, a pile of them), but they often don’t fire on all cylinders, especially when it comes to awareness of the subtleties of what the coppers might think hinky.
OCSteve
I’m really not talking about civil liberties.
If I buy an inert grenade because I think it’s cool and want to use it as a paper weight – I would be a complete idiot to put it in my checked baggage. It’s completely harmless, I have a legal right to have it, and I would be a complete idiot to put it in my checked baggage.
I don’t agree with the war on drugs – I think it is a phenomenal waste of money, manpower, and prison space. But it is the current law. Knowing that, if you put something that looks like it could be drugs in your baggage, you should expect this.
Mary
I am not a drug mule, but it’s my understanding that people put small amounts of drugs into condoms so they can swallow them or stuff them up an orifice. Some unlucky mules find that the condoms burst and make them very ill or very dead, but in most cases, the condom carries out its purpose: keeping the drug away from the inside of a human being.
I have never heard of a condom fully stuffed with a drug just being put on carry-on luggage. Drugs in luggage are made to look like, well, a jar of face powder, or a bag of flour. Why, oh why would a drug smuggler fully stuff some condoms, and then leave the telltale shape out in the open of their luggage?
Are people just going “White powder plus condoms = SUSPECTED DRUG!!” without adding in the crucial “condom must be swallowed or stuffed inside you” element?
capelza
YOU might know it looks like drugs…she might not have (though she certainly does now). To her , they looked like condoms filled with flour. It is truly sad that a kid who could conceivably be unaware of the way drugs are smuggled would be called stupid, and not actually to be applauded for NOT knowing that. It’s a sad state of affairs when it is automatically assumed that EVERYONE knows how to smuggle drugs. In fact anyone that DOES know how to smuggle drugs certainly wouldn’t have done what she did. Now THAT would have been stupid.
The Disenfranchised Voter
Bullshit. Anyone who disagrees with the WoD wouldn’t be spouting the type of shit you are. You’re blaming the victim for the police fucking up.
You’re a closet WoD supporter.
OCSteve
I definitely understand that point. However, I just can’t envision a college age kid that naïve in today’s world. Sorry – I just can’t. Do young kids do stupid things? Hell yeah. I’m surprised to this day that I survived my teens.
I would sympathize more if something truly horrible had happened as a result. But 3 weeks in an American jail? No. Sorry. No lawsuit. Learn from your mistakes and drive on.
And I’ll still say that the cops/screeners who can’t recognize flour need to find more suitable employment.
jg
I’m just not with ya on that. If it only ‘looks’ like drugs there is no crime. There’s no law that says you can’t do something an overzealous law officer might mistake for a crime and there should be NO amount of punishment associated with it. The worst that should have happened in she missed her flight for doing something stupid. Arrest? Booked? No way.
I know its from movies and all but isn’t there a simple test where some of the powder is mixed in a little jar and if it turns blue then you got drugs? I know I saw it the Falcon and the Snowman. Is it just fiction? I would hope flour didn’t return a false positive.
LoafingOaf
if you put something that looks like it could be drugs in your baggage, you should expect this.
I don’t think anyone’s arguing that the officers shouldn’t have suspected her of smuggling drugs and temporarily detained her to see what’s what. It should’ve been cleared up that day, however. If their field tests can’t tell the difference between flour and coke and opium, there’s a big problem with those tests. If officers are too lazy or negligent to perform the tests properly, they should be replaced.
OCSteve
Dude – you are dating yourself :)
Seriously – I don’t dispute that taking 3 weeks to figure out flour is flour is asinine.
LoafingOaf
As far as the “post-9/11 world” I see being mentioned, I have to say I think the War on Drugs creates a major distraction for officers who would be better serving the public by concentrating on terrorism.
OCSteve
Spot on. I’m with you 100%. Legalize drugs, tax it as bad (well, worse) than cigarettes and booze, and put all those resources into fighting terrorism.
Sam Hutcheson
I think that all wars on indefinite nouns are pretty much idiotic.
The Disenfranchised Voter
I agree Sam….Heh.
Oberon
I’m wondering if its a part of law school study that one always looks for another way to see the event.
Nah, you don’t get in that habit until you actually start practicing law.
Pooh
That’s simply bad reasoning. Because it was once done by Constitutional amendment does not mean it can only be done in that manner. By your reasoning, all “blue” laws are unconstitutional, as is the FDA for that matter.
I agree with you that the war on drugs is bad policy, neither well considered nor prosecuted. (if I can whore for a moment: prohibition was stupid) That being said, it is well within the Commerce Clause powers of congress (and certainly within the Police powers of the individual states. Which Congress is free to, er, influence through the Spending Power.)
Pooh
That’s not quite true – if you attempt to pass it off as drugs it is a crime (though far less severe then if it was actual drugs.)
Bernard Yomtov
The focus on condoms here is ridiculous. All those who are carrying on about how stupid she was, etc. need to think some more.
Suppose it was talcum powder, say, in a talcum powder container. Why couldn’t it have been? After all, what she was arrested for was having white powder in her suitcase. Are condoms the only containers used by drug dealers? So then the same thing might have happened, complete with phony test, had she been carrying something perfectly normal, in a perfectly normal container. Just like you do sometimes.
I’m no lawyer, so I have no idea what the technical merits of her lawsuit are. But someone needs to get fired here, and she deserves compensation.
jg
Sure but if someone is also attempting to pretend this stuff is drugs we’ve moved beyond ONLY looking like drugs. A conscious act is being committed now.
Pooh
well yeah. The hair is now split…
demimondian
Which inevitably leads to the more important question, “How many angels can dance on the head of a condom?”
The Disenfranchised Voter
It isn’t bad reasoning because a Constitutional Amendment is the only way you can override Amendments in the Bill of Rights. And since Drug Prohibition violates certain amendments in the Bill of Rights, it requires a Constitutional Amendment to be lawful.
This analysis does a better job of proving the claim:
Source
All federal blue laws are because of the establishment clause.
More than likely. I don’t know enough on the matter to make a determination.
Noooo it is not . You have a pretty broad idea of what the commerce clause entails if you feel that way.
Drug laws are federal laws, so I don’t even need to debate this issue.
The Captain of the O
You mean there is police incompetance in my fair city of Philadelphia? I am SHOCKED! Shocked, I tell you!
Pooh
I think I have an accurate view of what the commerce clause contains, based on, you know, Supreme Court precedent. (Unless Marbury v. Madison was wrongly decided, and then we’re playing a whole different game.)
(P.S. that whole Civil War thing answered the Federalism question to a great degree)
(P.P.S. Good luck with that at trial)
The Disenfranchised Voter
Supreme Court precedent is horseshit. Precedent doesn’t hold much weight when it comes to unconstitutional issues.
Hell, if it did, Brown vs Board would have probably never went the way it did.
Pooh
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I think we just have to agree to not discuss legal issues if you don’t think the law matters.
The Disenfranchised Voter
You seem to misunderstand what I am saying.
I didn’t say the law doesn’t matter. I am saying that you are giving the precedent argument way too much power. Precendent is not as important as you are making it out to be.
Precedent is not the end all, be all–and not even close when the past ruling was actually unconstitutional, i.e. Brown v. Board.
On a side note, I’d appreciate if you show me the specific rulings on the Commerce Clause in which you think allows Federal Drug Prohibition…
Pooh
Well, for starters – Wickard v. Filburn, NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin, U.S. v Darby, the Shreverport rate cases, the Lottery cases…
If you can make a principled distinction between federal regulation of cocaine and federal regulation of persrciption drugs, or food in general, I’m all ears.
Once again, good luck with your challenge to the constitutionality of the Controlled Substances Act, let us know when visitors days are.
BadTux
Geeze. All these apologists for Big Brother nanny government here. Look, what business is it of other people what substances I do (or do not) ingest? *NONE*. Zero. Zilch. As long as I’m not hurting you or yours (by, say, driving while intoxicated), I as a grown man should be able to booze, snort, inject, injest, or not, whatever the hell I want to injest. The whole folly of the “War on Drugs” is that flour-filled condoms would even be looked at in the first place, given that they obviously were not explosives that could harm other people (the only REAL use for government — protecting folks from others who would harm them).
C’mon now, the most fundamental right of an American is to be LEFT THE H*** ALONE. I haven’t seen so many apologists for Big Government collected in one place since the time I watched a few seconds of the Democratic National Convention. Sheesh. And some of you call yourselves *CONSERVATIVES*?! Pshaw. Tellin’ a man what he can do in the privacy of his own home is about as conservative as Teddy Kennedy.
– Badtux the Libertarian Penguin
(Who, btw, does not inhale, ingest, inject, or otherwise embibe mind-altering substances, other than coffee, but believes that if some other moron wants to do so it’s no business of me or mine as long as he stays off the roads while intoxicated).
BadTux
“If you can make a principled distinction between federal regulation of cocaine and federal regulation of persrciption drugs, or food in general, I’m all ears.”
The fundamental duty of government is to protect me from unwanted harm by others. When I buy food, I want clean, unspoiled food. When I buy drugs to solve a medical condition, I want drugs that are in the correct dosage and purity to solve the medical condition. If my food is spoiled or my drugs adulterated or in the wrong dosages, I could die . In both cases, there is a valid government case that it is a fundamental duty of government to regulate food and drug purity and, in some cases, dosages, so that what is received is what I believe I am receiving and will do what I believe it is supposed to do.
If like “morals czar” Bill Bennet I want Melissa the Mistress of Pain to whip me until blood flows, that’s between me and Melissa. (And BTW, I have no problem with Big Bill getting his whippings from his dominatrix, my only objection is when he then tries to tell other folks what morality they should follow in their private personal lives). And if I am stupid enough to want to snort powder cocaine up my nose, again, there is perhaps a government duty to ensure the purity of said cocaine so that I do not harm my health (beyond the normal effects of stimulant use), and there is perhaps a government duty to require the sellers (as for cigarettes) to say that this is a harmful substance, but there is no fundamental government duty to protect me from voluntary embibing of a substance that I know is dangerous (as vs. the involuntary embibing of such a substance).
The fundamental argument is one of imposition. In the case of adulterated food, my injestion of botulism toxin is involuntary — I did not voluntarily purchase botulism toxin and ingest it, I believed I was ingesting fresh mayonnaise. On the other hand, if I voluntarily injest cocaine, there is no imposition.
Note that this boils down to an issue of the fundamental role of government — whether the fundamental role of government is to protect me from harm imposed upon me by others, or is to protect me from harm I do to myself. I hold that the fundamental role of government is the former. Big Government advocates hold, however, that the latter is a fundamental role of government too. I object most strenuously to the latter, believing that a person’s own self is the property of the person, not of the government, and if I wish to do destructive things to myself, that is between me and my Creator, and not an issue for government.
– Badtux the Libertarian Penguin
John
That was silly to take into an airport.
BIRDZILLA
Its hard to fly like a eagle when your working for turkeys