Antony Davies James Harrigan
Nationwide was not on an elderly Pennsylvania couple’s side in October, when an insurance agent mistook their hibiscus plants for marijuana and reported them to the police. A raid ensued, and police ransacked the couple’s home. Through it all, 66-year-old Audrey Cramer sat partly dressed and handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser for four hours.
In 2012, a SWAT team raided Bob Harte family’s Leawood, Kan., home, holding the parents and two young children at gunpoint for two hours while police searched their house for marijuana. Why? Police observed Harte with hydroponic equipment he had purchased for his son’s science project. Police then rifled through the Harte’s garbage and found used tea leaves, which they “mistook” for marijuana.
Things have gotten so ridiculous in the search for victimless criminals that police have even taken to setting each other up, if only inadvertently. Recently, Detroit officers posing as drug buyers approached officers posing as dealers. They ended up brawling in the street. No actual criminals were even involved.
It’s easy to see how we got to this point. When crime goes from acts perpetrated upon clear and identifiable victims to behaviors that some of us simply don’t like, these sorts of things are bound to happen.
What also happens is a growing animosity between the people and the police sworn to serve and protect them. Recent estimates put the number of federal criminal statutes at 4,500, plus an additional 300,000 federal regulations. The list is so long that experts believe the average person unknowingly commits three felonies each day.
Add prosecutors, from U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions on down, who have a political incentive to be “tough on crime” and a police state results. Innumerable laws mean that police can arrest citizens almost at whim. Looking to advance their careers by racking up convictions, prosecutors pile on numerous charges and engage in coercive plea bargaining wherein they offer less prison time if the accused plead guilty to some of the charges.
Often, even innocent people plead guilty rather than take the risk of being tried on numerous charges and losing.
According to a National Registry of Exonerations study, among people subsequently exonerated from drug convictions, almost two-thirds had pleaded guilty,