how not to serve a search warrant

This story illustrates why a crowd of armed cops storming a residence is a bad way to serve a search warrant: because people get killed.

This is the same narcotics task force, by the way, that shot and killed a man wielding a golf club five seconds after breaking down his door during a botched meth raid last year. That cop was forgiven for his mistake. Heat of battle, volatile situation, mistakes were made—you know the drill.

I don't care if the cops are searching for porn or drugs. When our home was invaded by a dozen armed cops, I had no idea that search warrants are routinely served this way. Until more people understand that police operate this way, it will continue.

lifetime sentences

The July 2011 issue of Reason magazine focuses on criminal justice issues. Jacob Sullum's article, Perverted Justice, examines the sex offender registry. States are required to keep a registry of sex offenders or the state will not receive federal funding for law enforcement. Needless to say, states comply.

For our family, the idea of the sex offender registry is frightening. If my husband were to be convicted, he would be required to register for the rest of his life. Not because he is a danger to anyone nor because someone decided that he is likely to become dangerous--simply because he looked at pictures.

Politicians like to be seen as tough on crime and the best way to show how tough they are is to pass a law. Most bad stuff--murder, stealing, assault--is already illegal, so what is a legislator to do? He can make new laws that make punishment for a crime worse if a robber carries a gun or if a murderer kills someone in a protected class. When the prosecution was unable to convince the jury of Casey Anthony's guilt, some legislators saw that as an opening for new laws. Murdering a child was already a crime, of course, so they decided to create a law that could be used to make someone like Casey Anthony a felon if they were unable to convict her of murder. The idea is that sometimes we just know that the accused is guilty. OJ Simpson, for example, Casey Anthony for another.

In Nebraska, someone thought the law against procuring alcohol for a minor was pulling down insufficiently tough sentences, so they recently upped the ante by making it a felony under specific circumstances:

Under the former law, procuring for a minor was a misdemeanor that carried a maximum sentence of one year in jail. Now, when procuring leads to injuries or death, the supplier could face up to five years in prison.

The same kind of thinking is what led to the sex offender registry so sex offenders, no matter what the offense was--sex with an underage girlfriend or looking at pictures--end up with a lifetime sentence. A lifetime of registering with law enforcement, a lifetime of humiliation.

If you think that the sex offender registry is something you will never need to worry about, think again. Your son could be convicted for having sex with his younger girlfriend or for receiving a naked photo from her. Your brother could download something from a porn site and be surprised with an iillegal image. Are these truly crimes, let alone crimes that deserve a lifetime sentence?

wisdom

During one of my lunchtime parking lot sessions when I sat in my car and called the attorney, he answered one of my many questions. I said, "Oh, that makes me feel better." He said, "I'm glad you feel better--but nothing has changed to make you feel better." After he heard my small, dejected "Oh," he added, "...and at two in the morning when you can't sleep, nothing will have changed to make you feel worse."

Common sense is hard to remember when I am in the middle of a full-out panic--but remembering those words has saved me from at least a few sleepless nights.

fragile hope

Lately, I have decided to assume that ICE will not bring charges against my husband. It has been nine months and we have heard nothing. I cannot think of a reason that they would need nine months to sort through the computers and hard drives they took from us. Maybe they found nothing. I imagine them watching their monitors, waiting for his IP to appear. It won't.

Do I have any solid reason for my "decision"? Nope. It feels good, though, to think that nothing will happen.

I told my husband that optimism feels good. He said he doesn't want to feel optimism because if it comes crashing down around us, the disappointment will be even more painful. It doesn't matter if we are optimistic or pessimistic. If charges are brought against him, it won't matter how we were feeling the day before. It will be devastating.

protect and serve?

The morning they invaded our home, the ICE agents told me what they were looking for and then they "suggested" that I go ahead and take the kids to school. I had no choice. All I could think was that I needed to get the kids out of there. The car was barely out of the driveway when the kids both asked what the cops were looking for. At first I said, "I don't know," but they knew I had been told. I blurted, "Child pornography." My son said, "What's that?"

I blame the ICE agents for anything my son knows about porn. He didn't learn about it from my husband, he learned about it because of the ICE agents.Does he need to be aware of child porn? No, there is no earthly reason children need to know that something that ugly is out there. 

In their zeal to protect children, they have exposed my son to something vile. How can they justify that? 

perspective, please

My husband called me one day at work, furious. He had just received a bill from a department store and was horrified to see a late fee. He has probably paid a total of three in his whole life and he can remember the details of each one. He really hates late fees so he yelled at me over the phone for not paying the bill when I said I would.

I let him finish and then I said, "Hmmm... a $35 late fee vs. thousands of dollars for the lawyer's retainer?" Nothing for us to do but laugh about it. I think we both felt relief to be able to find something--anything--funny. Laughing with him again felt wonderful.

The department store waived the late fee when I asked them. So there.

life without Internet connection

When the ICE agents walked away from our house that morning, we were left with no Internet connection. It was immediately obvious to us that life would be more difficult without it the first thing we needed to do was to find a defense attorney. We dug up a phone book and started in the yellow pages. The problem with phone books is that they no longer hold all the information; real information lives on the Internet. Many businesses don't even bother listing in the phone book anymore. Finding a defense attorney is not something we knew how to do and now we were unable to use Google to find "how to find defense attorney." We found the attorney in the phone book, however--we went with a defense attorney we'd seen interviewed on TV.

We explained to the kids that we were going to be without Internet and they took in the news with no complaint because they understood why it was necessary. We told them that the attorney had advised us to keep the Internet out of our home and none of us were about to argue with that advice.
Since then, we have become accustomed to going to the public library when we need to use the Internet. The kids like going to Starbucks once in awhile, and when we realized that the cost of an occasional frappuccino would still be less than the cost of Internet access at home, we agreed. Even after adding in the cost of printing articles at the library, we come out ahead financially. It will take several decades of this cost savings to offset the attorney's retainer, though.

Like most people, we were used to using Google maps or Mapquest when we needed to drive to a new address and we can't do that anymore. No more quick looks at a restaurant menu before we decide where to go for dinner. No more quick searches for the best price or for movie showtimes. No more email! No more videogames played online. By the end of summer, we were adjusted to the idea of waiting until the next day when the library opened to find out what a kinkajou looks like. We make lists before we go to the library to make sure we don't forget which bills to pay or which question to answer.

When school began and all the clubs and organizations told us they would use email for communication, I panicked. How could we possibly manage without easy access to email? What about last minute announcements from the band director? Or club meeting cancellation notices? I called the attorney to explain our predicament and asked if a data plan on my cell phone would cause any problems for my husband's case. He, in turn, asked the prosecutor who reponded that he didn't care about what we did with cell phones. That made no sense to me; can't porn be downloaded on a cell phone as well as a computer?

We have one phone we can use to access email and that seems to work okay for us. My husband likes not having the temptation of the Internet, I like not spending the evening on political blogs. We both appreciate the time freed up for reading books. The kids don't complain often, bless their hearts. There are times when the frustration is too much and they let me know that they hate not being able to Skype their friends. The Internet is such a big part of entertainment for kids that not having Internet is as big a deal as not having TV when I was a child.

The kids worried that their friends wouldn't want to come to our house because it would be boring but their friends take it in stride that our house doesn't have Internet access. We still have TV and movies and, yes, board games are still fun.

All in all, not having Internet at home has been an inconvienence, not a disaster. If you had asked me a year ago if I would do without Internet access, I'd have thought you were crazy. Now, I can see how it has been good for all of us. Less time on videogames for our son, fewer distractions from study for our daughter. More reading time for all of us. I'm not sure I'd go back.