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-Land of the Free
Weed Warriors Who Mistook Tea for Marijuana Will Pay Their Victims $150,000
2020-05-07
[REASON] The Leawood, Kansas, couple whose home was raided in 2012 after sheriff's deputies claimed that loose tea found in their trash was marijuana will receive $150,000 for their trouble under a settlement agreement with the Johnson County Sheriff's Office. The settlement—which caps seven years of litigation, including two trips to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit—falls far short of the $7 million that Adlynn and Robert Harte originally sought. But it represents an implicit acknowledgment that the Hartes and their children suffered an outrageous invasion of their privacy and dignity in the service of a comically inept publicity stunt.

Here are some of the absurd facts that emerged as the couple's case was making its way through the courts:

• The family was targeted because Robert Harte bought supplies at a hydroponic gardening store in Kansas City. Harte was planning to grow vegetables with his son as a science project. But to Sgt. James Wingo of the Missouri State Highway Patrol, who was staking out the store, he looked like a cannabis kingpin.
Posted by:Fred

#6   honest mistakes like this are the price (to win the War on Drugs)

Honest mistakes, me arse! This was incompetence at every step in the process. The idea that the people involved will escape any sort of accountability thanks to qualified immunity should outrage anyone who cares about the rule of law.
Posted by: SteveS   2020-05-07 14:27  

#5  The family was targeted because Robert Harte bought supplies at a hydroponic gardening store in Kansas City. Harte was planning to grow vegetables with his son as a science project. But to Sgt. James Wingo of the Missouri State Highway Patrol, who was staking out the store, he looked like a cannabis kingpin.

So Missouri SHP has the time to do that, and a couple (or even several) hydroponic setups = Kingpin? It started bad and morons who mistake tea for for pot leaves are incompetent at best
Posted by: Frank G   2020-05-07 13:54  

#4  If we are to crush druggies and win the war on drugs, honest mistakes like this are the price. The alternative is letting the cartels win. Not an option.
Posted by: Spike Grineng8188   2020-05-07 13:47  

#3  This is in no small part the result of qualified immunity, a ridiculous, judicially manufactured 'right'. These people are manifestly owed damages, but the actual perpetrators and their direct employers and supervisors not only pass the responsibility they also pass the bill.
Posted by: Cesare   2020-05-07 13:17  

#2  Wrong. Taxpayers will pay it.
Posted by: Thorong Grundy1520   2020-05-07 07:21  

#1  Not to worry. Reading the tea leaves, the Keystone Gestapo will be riding high again soon, a-searching for COVID test-criminals. Against the wall, kids!
Posted by: Lex   2020-05-07 04:15  

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