Castro Pot Bust Goes Awry and a Law Professor Threatens to Sue

[The Straight Story]

Castro Pot Bust Goes Awry and a Law Professor Threatens to Sue

When narcotics officers appeared at a Castro home shortly after 7 a.m. on Jan. 11, they had permission from a judge to search for "proceeds" from an illegal marijuana grow.

The SFPD and DEA found no piles of marijuana money at 243 Diamond St., one of six addresses raided simultaneously in San Francisco that morning. Instead, they found Clark Freshman, who rents the penthouse at the two-unit building. Freshman, a UC Hastings law professor and the main consultant to the television show Lie to Me, was put into handcuffs while in his bathrobe as agents searched, despite Freshman's insistence that they had the wrong place and were breaking the law. "I told them to call the judge and get their warrant updated," he says. "They just laughed at me — I guess that's why they're called pigs."

Soon they may be called defendants in a lawsuit. A furious Freshman has pledged to sue the DEA and the SFPD for unlawful search and seizure of his home.

In his search warrant, Officer Scott Biggs of the SFPD's narcotics unit says that prior to the raid, he spent two days and two nights casing the address looking for Mahmoud Larizadeh, the property's owner. Larizadeh also owns a 13th Street warehouse, a part of which he rents to Bruce Rossignol, a licensed medical cannabis patient who now faces three felony charges for growing pot there.

http://www.sfweekly.com/2011-02-16/news/pot-raid-sfpd-castro-law-professor-clark-freshman-sue/#

[Duer 157099]

1. Here's the best quote from that article:

"I've been on the fence for years about the legalization of drugs ... and now I'm a victim of this crazy war on drugs," says Freshman, who pledged to sue until "I see houses sold at auction and their kids' college tuitions taken away from them. There will not be a better litigated case this century."

Good!

[ProgressiveProfessor]

2. Dup from Wed and Thurs

http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x431381

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=218x5554



Qualified immunity will cover any judgments and the taxpayers will pay whatever he wins.

[damntexdem]

3. But the city will get the message.

What, is he supposed to stay quiet about this idiocy inflicted on him and so many others?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

4. Not at all, but his bluster about bankrupting the cops personally was just that, bluster

He will also find that there will be little in the way of damages regardless. The city will either argue
innocent error or good probable cause and either win outright or lose with token damages.

I speak from some personal experience here.