Kansas Couple Sues Sheriff for 7 Million Over Unconstitutional Raid

Kansas Couple Sues Sheriff for $7 Million Over Unconstitutional Raid
 
 

KANSAS CITY, MO - A couple from Leawood, Kansas, is seeking over $7 million in damages from an unconstitutional raid on their home that resulted in authorities finding their extensive hydroponic basement grow room - containing nothing but tomatoes.
Adlynn and Robert Harte have filed suit against the Johnson County Sheriff, several deputies and the Johnson County Board of Commissioners, claiming they have suffered “severe and ongoing humiliation, shame, embarrassment, and emotional distress.”
The couple and  their two children – a 7-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son – were “shocked and frightened” when deputies armed with assault rifles and wearing bulletproof vests pounded on the door of their home around 7:30 in the morning of April 20, 2012.
“It was just like on the cops TV shows,” Robert Harte told The Associated Press. “It was like `Zero Dark Thirty' ready to storm the compound.”
They spent hours searching for marijuana while forcing Bob at one point to lie on the ground and refusing to show the couple a search warrant for hours.
Officers found nothing but a few tomatoes growing in the basement.
The Hartes suspect their home in an upscale Kansas City suburb split level was targeted because they had bought hydroponic equipment to grow a small number of tomatoes and squash plants in their basement.
“With little or no other evidence of any illegal activity, law enforcement officers make the assumption that shoppers at the store are potential marijuana growers, even though the stores are most commonly frequented by backyard gardeners who grow organically or start seedlings indoors,” the couple said in a lawsuit filed earlier this year under the Kansas Open Records Act after Johnson County after officials from Leawood denied their requests for information leading up to the case.
Documents obtained as a result of that lawsuit show that a Missouri Highway Patrolman had seen Bob and his son leaving an indoor gardening store.
Officers later searched the family's trash and found some wet leaves, which field-tested positive for marijuana.  Lab results showed that the field test yielded a false positive, and the wet leaves were actually just tea.
County officials have declined to comment on the case.
The Hartes released the following statement last week:

“Today we are filing a lawsuit to challenge the law enforcement practices that allowed us to be subjected to a swat-style raid last year. We hope that our suit leads to an examination of reckless and unjustified law enforcement practices and helps to bring about much-needed reform.
This legal action resulted from the April 20, 2012 raid on our home, which changed our lives profoundly. As we've since discovered, our entirely innocent activities – shopping at a garden store, drinking tea – caused us to be targeted as criminals. As a result, our family was awakened by a swat-style raid by law enforcement officers who had used flimsy information to obtain a warrant that allowed them to storm and search every corner of our home while holding us under armed guard for 2 ½ hours.
While we greatly respect and support law enforcement, we strongly believe that such aggressive, intrusive and expensive techniques must be reserved for situations where their use is clearly merited.
Although a raid by heavily armed tactical officers might be appropriate when pursuing people who are a threat to police or the public, the use of a tactical team to investigate non-violent suspects is a gross misallocation of resources and threatens our collective way of life, as evidenced by our experience.”

http://www.nejoc.com/2013/26384/kansas-couple-sues-sheriff-7-million-unconstitutional-raid/?utm_source=mantis&utm_medium=recommend&utm_campaign=mantis

 

Follow up




http://www.kansas.com/news/state/article50988070.h...


BY ROXANA HEGEMAN
Associated Press


A suburban Kansas City couple who sued authorities after a SWAT-style raid of their home found no marijuana has lost their civil lawsuit in a case that spurred Kansas lawmakers last year to make it easier for the public to access police investigative records.
A federal judge ruled late Friday that authorities had probable cause for the warrant to search the Leawood home of Robert and Adlynn Harte in 2012 after field tests of wet tea leaves found in their trash falsely tested positive for marijuana. The Johnson County Sheriff"s Office had sifted through their trash based on information that Robert Harte and his two children had left a Kansas City, Mo., hydroponics store seven months earlier carrying a small bag.
U.S. District Judge John Lungstrum concluded no constitutional violations occurred and that the officers" conduct in the search was lawful and reasonable. Despite the loss in their case, the couple"s legal fight has already had an impact far beyond the litigation.
The couple went on a crusade to find what led to the search, which turned up no evidence and produced no charges. They spent $25,000 in legal costs to get probable-cause affidavit, a document typically used to justify arrests or searches.
"They kept hitting roadblocks and discovered that the Kansas open records law was not nearly as open as it should have been and they felt very strongly about opening that up for public access,” said their attorney, Cheryl Pilate.
State Rep. John Rubin, R-Shawnee, chairman of the House corrections and juvenile justice committee, said the case highlighted a larger issue.
"I didn"t think it was right that it took the Hartes a year and $25,000 or more in their own money in legal fees to obtain the information, the probable cause affidavit, that supported the warrant that allowed the Johnson County Sheriff"s Department to come into their home with weapons drawn,” Rubin said.
His research found that Kansas at the time was out of step with every other state.
"Now the public has access to probable-cause affidavits without having to spend the kind of money the Hartes had to spend,” said Max Kautsch, legal counsel for the Kansas Press Association.
"It is extremely significant. Now the presumption is that the probable cause affidavits are open. Before, the presumption was that they were closed.”
The judge also noted in his decision that the Hartes" lawsuit prompted the Johnson County Sheriff"s Office to require lab confirmation of suspected drug material.
Lawrence Ferree, the attorney who represented Johnson County and the other defendants, said the judge wrote a very thorough opinion and appropriately applied the law to the facts.
The Hartes" attorney said they are studying the decision and probably will appeal.








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