Ira Glasser, ACLU Executive Director (1973-2001) & President of the Drug Policy Alliance (Read Full Bio)
	Ronald E. Hampton, Executive Director of the National Black Police Association & former Community Police Officer for the Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department. (Read Full Bio)
	Jon Katz, Esq., Attorney at Law (Read Full Bio & Blog)
	Timothy Lynch, Director, Cato Institute's Project on Criminal Justice (Read Full Bio & Blog)
	Judge William "Billy" Murphy, Jr., Attorney at Law (Read Full Bio)
	Deborah Peterson Small, Esq., Executive Director, Break the Chains (Read Full Bio)
	Norm Stamper, Ph.D., Former Chief of the Seattle Police Department & Author of Breaking Rank: A Top Cop’s Expose of the Dark Side of American Policing (Read Full Bio)
	Eric E. Sterling, Esq., President, Criminal Justice Policy Foundation & Adjunct Lecturer in Sociology, George Washington University (Read Full Bio & Blog)

Ronald Hampton retired from the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department after twenty-three years of service as Community Relations Officer. He is reputed for his outstanding work, with the citizens of the Third District in Washington, D.C. in crime prevention and community participation and relations. His extensive experience and knowledge in community relations and policing has resulted in education and training opportunities for Mr. Hampton locally, nationally, and internationally.

He is currently the Executive Director of the National Black Police Association, Inc. At present, he is involved in designing and delivering community policing and problem solving training for residents in public housing as well as overseeing a project dealing with intervention and crime prevention through alternative community sentencing. In addition, he continues to be engaged as a resource person and consultant for several governmental and non-governmental organizations both in the USA and abroad.

Over the years, he has assisted the Department of Justice's Community Relations Service with community relations and crime prevention. He has also worked with the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and has lectured at the American University's Washington Semester School Criminal Justice Program. In addition, he with other educators/trainers developed an anti-racism and organizational change program for Amnesty International USA.

With his reputation and expertise in community policing as well as human rights he serves as a consultant-educator to the Carter Center of Emory University, Human Rights Program. His work with the Carter Center lead to working in countries like, Ethiopia and Guyana. He has also provided consultation services for organizations in Britain, Canada and the Bahamas. In 1996, Mr. Hampton led a People to People, Citizens' Ambassador Program Law Enforcement Delegation of 23 to South Africa.

Mr. Hampton also volunteers to several organizations. He serves on the Federal Board of the Drug Policy Foundations' Law Enforcement Committee; he is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington, D.C., and serves on the Advisory Committee, Capital Punishment Project; he is a former Board Member of Amnesty International, USA.

Paul Bennett serves as Building & Operations Coordinator with the Mertz Gilmore Foundation (MGF), a private grant-making institution that supports and promotes healthy communities, the performing arts, and a sustainable environment. Paul manages the upkeep of building systems within the foundation's four-story brownstone. He also serves as MGF's liaison to progressive nonprofits that use the space for meetings and events.

Prior to joining MGF, Paul, in partnership with David Crockett, launched and managed, a business service in NYC for national opinion and behavior researchers. The venture's success afforded the duo resources to pursue other interests, which led them to co-found three NYC non-profits: Mobile Musicale; New Yorkers for Drug Policy Reform; and Partnership for Responsible Drug Information. The couple recruited the organizations' boards of directors, on which they served as officers, secured funding, garnered media exposure and guided programs.

In his spare time Paul promotes Crockett's first historical fiction, Boomers' War. Written under the nom de plume, Vidda Crochetta, Boomers' War is a bi-coastal coming-of-age saga that spans the final three turbulent years of the Sixties as seen through the eyes of a teenage runaway.

Though he's never been arrested, several years ago Paul successfully negotiated a stressful police encounter in his East Harlem neighborhood. As is typical with NYPD tactics, he was detained by an officer who lacked reasonable suspicion. Paul, knowing his rights, calmly refused to consent to the officer's search request. The officer, thinking Paul was a lawyer, immediately let him go.

Paul enjoys traveling with Frank Perez, his partner, roller-blading, biking, unrestrained laughter and time with Marley, their dachshund.

ABC's 20/20 covers the tragic death of 23-year-old Florida girl, Rachel Hoffman. Caught with what the Tallahassee police chief described as "about a baggie" of marijuana, she was tricked/blackmailed/threatened into becoming a police informant.

The chief blames Rachel for her death, repeatedly calling her a drug criminal. But it is clear that he is a scoundrel defending incompetent, callous officers who sent a sheep into a lions' den.

As I think of Rachel, I can't shake the terrible thought that a little know-your-rights education could have saved her life.

This story from New Orleans shows how great the stakes can be during even the most routine encounter with police. Suppose a friend carelessly leaves a little pot in your car…

The flood of new felony charges didn’t target murderers, rapists or armed robbers — they targeted small-time marijuana users, sometimes caught with less than a gram of pot, and threatened them with lengthy prison sentences.

The resulting impact has clogged the courts with non-violent, petty offenses, drained the resources of the criminal justice system and damaged low-income African-American communities, [Orleans Public Defenders Office Chief of Trials Steve] Singer said.
…

A first-time marijuana possession charge in Louisiana is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in prison but typically results in a small fine. A second offense is a felony that can carry up to five years in jail and a third offense up to 20 years.
…

Some say Landrum-Johnson’s decision to buck history and charge marijuana users with felonies is a political decision meant to assist in her run for Orleans Criminal District Court Section E judgeship. By prosecuting thousands of marijuana possession cases as felonies, Landrum-Johnson can then go to the voters of New Orleans and claim she is "tough on crime," [Tulane University criminologist Peter] Scharf said. She can point to the massive increase in felony prosecutions under her tenure without explaining that those prosecutions were for people holding joints and not guns, he said. [New Orleans CityBusiness]

All of this serves to illustrate the magnitude of the injustices still taking place in our criminal justice system on a daily basis. Laws vary from one place to the next, as do the personalities of the people enforcing them. It is not uncommon for disturbingly harsh penalties to remain on the books unenforced, only to one day be thrust upon an unwitting offender at the whim of a politically motivated prosecutor. Even in regions where marijuana enforcement is notoriously lenient, such as the west coast, one can still lose federal financial aid for college based on a minor possession conviction. Moreover, marijuana itself is ubiquitous, creating limitless potential for it to be found in the vicinity of innocent people.

So knowing your rights isn't just for pot-smokers (although any American who enjoys marijuana should know the 4th amendment like they know their own name). The point is that the volume of unjust outcomes produced by our criminal justice system remains far too great for that system to be regarded as infallible by any sensible person. The fact that a law exists which authorizes a 5 year felony sentence for second-time marijuana possession and that prosecutors are actually enforcing that law ought to more than establish the deep fallibility that often characterizes the administration of justice in our nation.

In this climate, asserting your rights is not a perfect or foolproof solution, but it is indeed the method by which our forefathers intended for average people to shield themselves from government abuse. And it often works beautifully. So as we wait for meaningful and lasting reforms to finally purge our criminal justice system of the gratuitous disparities and injustices that continue to fester before our eyes, at least we know what to say when the long arm of the law swings in our direction: "Officer, I don't consent to searches. Am I free to go?"

Since many of our supporters may be skeptical of NYPD when it comes to matters of search and seizure, I'd like to clarify that this is a very good thing:

The New York City Police Department wants suspects to sign a consent form before searching their homes or cars, a move that eliminates the need for a warrant and is meant to provide police a layer of legal protection, Newsday has learned.

The initiative was put in place because consent searches are often challenged at trial - and jurors too often believe the suspect's claim that police never got permission to conduct the search, police sources said.

At the same time, sources said, there has been concern within the NYPD about a handful of cases in which an officer's truthfulness was recently called into question. [Newsday]

Written consent policies are a win-win situation for police and the public. When consent is given in writing, police have an easier time demonstrating in court that consent was given voluntarily. Since evidence seized during a consent search is almost always legally admissible, defendants challenging such evidence must argue that consent was given involuntarily or not at all. As a result, police spend a considerable amount of time in court defending the manner in which consent was obtained. A written form goes a long way towards resolving such conflicts.

For the citizen, written consent provides a quick reminder that permitting searches is optional, while simultaneously creating an added layer of protection in disputes over whether consent was given voluntarily. The form will go a long way towards resolving widespread concerns about police erroneously claiming to have received consent before conducting a search.

Finally, there's an additional important point illustrated here. As Newsday reports, "jurors too often believe the suspect's claim that police never got permission to conduct the search, police sources said." For anyone questioning the viability of refusing consent during a police encounter, this should go a long way towards explaining how asserting 4th Amendment rights can help citizens achieve a more desirable outcome. It serves as a helpful reminder that, even if police violate your rights and search despite your refusal, any evidence they discover can be effectively challenged in court. Obviously, this is a frequent occurrence if NYPD cites such outcomes as a reason for moving towards a written consent policy.

Given the significance of the citizen's decision whether or not to permit police to look through his/her belongings, a written form is just the obvious, common sense approach to establishing whether consent was given.

Update: Pete Guither at DrugWarRant has a good post discussing the NYPD policy and explaining why it is never in the citizen's interest to consent to a police search.

Check out this comment on our blog, which accuses Flex Your Rights of compromising police work by helping serious criminals evade prosecution:

"With no physical evidence, no ability to interview the suspect, no ability to conduct a warrantless search, and no ability to develop probable cause for a search warrant, how will an investigator successfully prosecute a rape? a murder? a robbery?"

I understand that concern, but there's a simple reason why it's far overblown. The crimes that take the biggest toll on our communities aren't solved through warrantless searches. Police who are investigating a rape, robbery, or murder aren't using consent searches to investigate their suspects. Overwhelmingly, consent searches are used to attempt to discover crimes that weren't known until the search was conducted. They have absolutely no impact on clearance rates for reported crimes.

With regards to the 5th amendment right against self-incrimination, police must give Miranda warnings before conducting a custodial interrogation anyway. Regardless of our information, or the Miranda warning, many guilty suspects will continue to confess when confronted with the evidence against them.

The situations in which our advice to remain silent is more likely to make a difference is in cases in which the police suspect a crime may be afoot, but don't have evidence and must intimidate the suspect into self-incrimination, i.e. "If you have drugs, we're gonna find 'em. You might as well just hand it over and we'll go easier on you." Again, this will have no effect on clearance rates for reported crimes, except, ironically, to the extent that this type of policing draws resources away from investigating unsolved violent crimes.

There are exceptions, of course, and the possibility that a guilty person may evade prosecution for a serious crime by asserting constitutional rights always exists regardless of our website. That's a risk our forefathers took when drafting a constitution that's designed to make it very hard to convict the innocent. Sometimes the guilty must go free in order to preserve the integrity of our constitutional principles and protect law-abiding citizens from the potentially life-changing consequences of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I could go on all day about this, but the best evidence that our work isn't undermining good police work is that police aren't opposed to it. Many officers actively support the work that we do here. They do not, for the most part, share this dismal assessment of the potential harms contained in public know-your-rights education, for the reasons listed above, among others. We've gotten a few angry emails from law-enforcement, but far more that are appreciative. Our supporters include former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper, former San Jose Police Chief Joseph McNamara, National Black Police Association President Ronald Hampton, and many other current and former law enforcement professionals.

Good police work seldom requires that the suspect foolishly waive constitutional rights or recklessly incriminate him/herself. We've accompanied on-duty law-enforcement around Washington D.C. and observed urban police work first-hand. At no point did 4th or 5th amendment protections become an obstacle to the officers we spent time with, and we dealt with some very serious incidents.

In sum, we've put a considerable amount of thought and research into the implications of our work and concluded that the benefits far outweigh the potential costs. Over the past five years, that conclusion has been thoroughly supported by the feedback we've received from both police and the public.

Professor Duane from Regent Law School has a speaking style similar to Regis Philbin on methamphetamine. As a result this compelling 27-minute lecture flies by.

Duane cites multiple examples of how intelligent and powerful people have fallen prey to their mistaken believe that they are equipped to speak to criminal investigators. However, the most notable portions of the lecture are when he describes how easily a police interrogator's misrecollection can be used to crucify a perfectly innocent suspect who tells only the truth.

[Thanks to Tim Lynch for the tip]

This is creepy:

AKRON, Ohio - A medical examiner must change her autopsy findings to delete any reference that stun guns contributed to the deaths of three people involved in confrontations with law enforcement officers, a judge ruled.

Friday's decision was a victory for Taser International Inc., which had challenged rulings by Summit County Medical Examiner Lisa Kohler, including a case in which five sheriff's deputies are charged in the death a jail inmate who was restrained by the wrists and ankles and hit with pepper spray and a stun gun. [kstar.com]

I can't speak to the specific cases at issue here, but we're hearing more and more about this dubious "excited delirium" diagnosis that's being offered when people die in police custody. Drug use is often a factor, thus we must consider the possibility that tasers, though not typically lethal, may pose heightened risk of fatality when used on people who are under the influence. After all, people who are super wasted are among the most likely recipients of a thorough tasing by police.

I wouldn't want tasers to be erroneously identified as a cause of death, but as fatal outcomes involving these weapons are reported with increasing frequency, it's clear that more research is needed. In the meantime, scratching these weapons out of autopsy reports sounds to me like the opposite of what we should be doing to address growing concerns about their alleged safety.

From yesterday's New York Times:

More than two decades after President Ronald Reagan escalated the war on drugs, arrests for drug sales or, more often, drug possession are still rising. And despite public debate and limited efforts to reduce them, large disparities persist in the rate at which blacks and whites are arrested and imprisoned for drug offenses, even though the two races use illegal drugs at roughly equal rates.

Two new reports, issued Monday by the Sentencing Project in Washington and by Human Rights Watch in New York, both say the racial disparities reflect, in large part, an overwhelming focus of law enforcement on drug use in low-income urban areas, with arrests and incarceration the main weapon.

It's essential that this type of research continues, although I think we know now what to expect when scholars take a look at the racial breakdown of our prison population. Our press and policy makers need to be aware of the impact this lock 'em all up mentality is having and if that means documenting these same depressing disparities every six months, then so be it.

I also think this shows the need for some new angles in the broader struggle for criminal justice reform. Hmmm, maybe some sort of innovative film project could be helpful?