Tag Archives: seizure

Civil Liberties, Featured, Police Accountability, Police State, US

Supreme Court rules an officer’s misunderstanding of a law is protected

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A Supreme Court ruling on Monday found police officers who pull over a car for a traffic stop can search and seize the vehicle, even if the officer does not have a full understanding of the law used to pull the vehicle over.

The ruling comes after Nicholas Heien, a North Carolina resident, was pulled over in 2009 on the premise of a single broken taillight.  After being pulled over, the officer searched the vehicle and found a baggie of cocaine, and the officer then arrested Heien.

However, North Carolina law only requires one working taillight, so when the officer pulled over Heien, it would appear he had no legal right to do so.

The case was brought up to a North Carolina appeals court who, according to VOX, agreed the stop was unlawful.  The case was then heard by the state’s highest court and the Supreme Court, who both ruled in favor of the officer, saying even if the officer does not know the technical aspects of a law, a search and seizure is still constitutional.

“This Court held  that reasonable mistakes of law, like those of fact, could justify a certificate of probable cause,” reads the Court’s ruling.  The vehicle search, therefore, does not violate the Fourth Amendment, as was argued by Heien, which protects citizens from unlawful searches and seizures without probable cause.  The Court said, “a search or seizure may be permissible even though the justification for the action includes a reasonable factual mistake.”

Ultimately, the Court found the Fourth Amendment requires officers to act reasonably, but not perfectly, since officers are human and make mistakes as well.  Chief Justice John Roberts said, according to the AP, an officer’s mistake of fact can rightly justify a traffic stop and therefore that misunderstanding can also satisfy the Constitution.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor was the only member of the Court to disagree with the decision, saying an officer’s mistake or misunderstanding of a law, “no matter how reasonable, cannot support the individualized suspicion necessary to justify a seizure under the Fourth Amendment.”

Health, US

Epileptic child has been seizure free thanks to cannabis oil

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A child in Oregon who has suffered from seizures brought on by epilepsy has been seizure free for close to nine-weeks now thanks to cannabis oil.

A week after Forrest Smelser turned eight, he was diagnosed with epilepsy, which would cause him to go into seizures, sometimes lasting upwards of 15 minutes.  According to the Epilepsy Foundation, any seizure lasting longer then five minutes requires immediate medical attention and may result in permanent brain damage.

His mother Tanesha took Forrest to the emergency room many times until finally the doctors prescribed Forrest with an anti-seizure drug called Trileptal.  However, the medication only seemed to make things worse for Forrest.  “He would scream, he would fight, he would punch himself,” said Tanesha according to KATU.  

The FDA  has said these side effects are not common, but they do occur in about one in every 500 people.  

At this point, Tanesha said Forrest became suicidal, which she and her family blame on the medications.  Then, Tanesha and her family began to look into other medical options for Forrest.

Forrest’s family began to read into the uses of medical marijuana and its benefits, and made the conscious choice to begin Forrest on a medical marijuana treatment.

After nine weeks of giving Forrest cannabidiol (CBD), the second most active component of medical marijuana, the family reports Forrest has been seizure free.

The strain of medical marijuana Forrest is taking contains mostly CBDs, according to Medical Daily.  Normally, THC, the component which provides the high behind smoking marijuana, is the main component in medical marijuana, but because this strain is mostly CBD, there is virtually no high.  Instead, the CBDs provide anti-seizure, anti-inflammatory, and analgesic effects on the patient.

This link provides further studies by Project CBD on the effects of CBD in a medical setting.

However, Forrest is not smoking the medical marijuana, rather he is taking it through pill form like any other medication.

“Now that I’m on this medication, I feel like a normal boy,” Forrest said.

“I feel like it’s saved his life,” said Tanesha.  “I know it sounds scary, and I know it sounds unconventional, but it’s working. It’s working!”