Absurd Fourth Circuit ruling embodies everything that’s wrong with drug raids

Radley Balko points out an example of how courts are moving away from decisions based on common sense, the general welfare, and the Constitution and toward decisions to justify a police state:

Earlier this month, a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued an appalling decision in a lawsuit stemming from a fatal 2005 drug raid in Maryland. In fact, the opinion encapsulates everything that’s wrong with sending militarized police barreling into homes to serve search warrants on people suspected of nonviolent, consensual crimes.

Here’s what happened:

In May 2005, police in Cambridge, Md., received an anonymous tip that there was drug activity going on in the duplex at 408 High St. (Yes, that’s the real name of the street.) They did a trash pull and found what they claimed to be two plastic bags, one from each apartment, that contained marijuana residue. That’s…