Pro-drug reformer prosecuted for activism?

In New Hampshire in January of 2008, a police officer tried to get talk show host Ian Bernard charged with a criminal offense for the host's promotion of a protest against anti-marijuana laws. A pro-marijuana reformer, James Carroll, held a quanity of marijuana out in the open in Keene, N.H., in order to get arrested by police as an act of protest. In which he was.

Well, Mr. Bernard had blogged, issued press releases and urged people to attend the protest. Along with Bernard being at the protest, he had went to the police lobby after the arrest. For that, this cop wanted Mr. Bernard to be arrested. See, this cop was mad that Mr. Bernard had Mr. Carroll on his show.

See, Mr. Bernard had a 90 day suspended sentence, being on probation for not sitting fast enough, for a Judge Burke. This was supposed to the rationale to arrest Mr. Bernard for his pro-marijuana legalization activism. Supposedly in this 90 day period, Mr. Bernard had no free speech rights, at least when it comes to drug legalization.

By the way, this Judge Burke had lied, on camera, and told police officers that a man asking him questions was threatening him. The man was clearly just asking questions that Burke didn't like. The judge later said he mispoke. Sure, whatever. He is still on the bench, of course.

Oh by the way, in New York City, livery cabs (or on-call cabs) have been the subject of civil rights abuses. Police, under a program to see that these cab drivers are safe, are engaging in blatant unconstitutional searches of cab riders. Yes, I know, civil rights violations by the NYPD is nothing new.

Cab drivers state to the cops that everything is O.K. but police often pull out passengers and search them. While the cab companies give police the permission to pull them over to check for drivers' safety, and a sticker on the cab states this, clearly the law does not allow for searches of passengers.

Than again, the NYPD stops and detain individuals in their own apartment buildings and tenets of apartments have been arrested or cited for trespassing. Often, those arrested aren't prosecuted by the DA's office. I have an idea, any cop with a high percentage of arrests that aren't pursued should be demoted if it falls below a certain level. That will surely end completely illegal arrests.