Cotton candy or meth?

[MechAg94]

https://www.13wmaz.com/article/news/local/cotton-candy-or-meth-woman-sues-monroe-co-over-false-drug-test-results/93-615262432
A Monroe County woman says she spent nearly four months in jail because a roadside drug test falsely labeled a bag of cotton candy as methamphetamine.

Not a long article and I hate to quote the whole thing.
1.  Pulled over for dark window tint about New Year's Eve 2016.
2.  Officers saw open plastic bag in car.  She told them it was cotton candy.
3.  Field drug test kit used on "cotton candy" said it tested positive for meth.  
4.  She was arrested, charged with possession and dealing,  and judge set bond at $1 Million.  She couldn't afford it.
5.  In March, the official drug testing came back and said there were no illegal drugs.  
6.  Four weeks later, the charges were dropped and she was released.  

Fincher's lawsuit argues that the Monroe County Sheriff's Office was reckless and negligent and violated her civil rights.

The suit said the test was manufactured by Sirchie Acquisitions, a company based in North Carolina.

The test, called Nark II, has a history of false positive test results, the suit says.

Blue food coloring used in the cotton candy would likely cause a false positive test result, the suit argues.

Deputies Maples and Henderson were not trained in identifying street drugs or in performing the Nark II test, the lawsuit also says.

If all this happened as she is claiming, I wish her well in her lawsuit.  Thrown in jail for 4 months based on a faulty field drug test kit.  That would screw up my life pretty good.  I might be able to do a $1 Million dollar bond, but I would likely have to use my house as collateral.  I am not sure how that would work.

Question for those in the know:  Is 4 weeks typical for charges to be dropped after testing shows they are innocent.  Seems like a long time.  I assume she was released within days of that, but it doesn't say.

[RoadKingLarry]

That kind of crap happens all to frequently.
Now way could I cover That kind of bond.
When I hear about these incidents where a false positive essentially destroys someone's life and the best they get is case dismissed, you're free to go I wonder why we don't see more killdozer type events.

[MechAg94]

That kind of crap happens all to frequently.
Now way could I cover That kind of bond.
When I hear about these incidents where a false positive essentially destroys someone's life and the best they get is case dismissed, you're free to go I wonder why we don't see more killdozer type events.

It seems the lawsuits are the only way to apply pressure to change.  I was wondering what took so long for this woman to file suit.  Maybe it was lack of funds or lawyer.

It would be nice if someone like the FBI would sponsor 3rd party/independent testing on a lot of these law enforcement test methods and techniques so there was a definite public record of their reliability.  Then again, I don't know much about what we have now.

[Ben]

That kind of crap happens all to frequently.
Now way could I cover That kind of bond.
When I hear about these incidents where a false positive essentially destroys someone's life and the best they get is case dismissed, you're free to go I wonder why we don't see more killdozer type events.

Yeah, I feel the same. The cases are actually rare if you go by raw numbers of people being pulled over every day all over the US, but they are not so rare that they don't get coverage like this. They are also not so rare that people that are obviously not criminals seem to become the victims of these off the wall types of things (like the whole coffee can thing, or little old ladies with large sums of cash).

Even if rare, they are pretty life altering/destroying, which makes them despicable to me. I usually am also against very large sum lawsuits, but cases like this are an exception, just because it takes very large sums for municipalities to take notice and change their ways. Things like firing the arresting officer are likely looked at by municipalities as an "easy out". Gotta hit them in the pocketbook.

[Hawkmoon]

The arresting officer probably isn't at fault. I seem to recall a fairly recent (this year, at least) article about some kind of roadside drug test kit that has a high rate of false positives. If I'm remembering the article correctly, I think the conclusion was that it's a crappy test kit but that a lot of departments continue to use it because better kits -- TA DA! -- cost more money.

[Ron]

I wonder if a second field test would have had the same results?

If yes then the kit shouldn’t be used or if used not be taken into consideration when setting bail.

[MillCreek]

I wonder how often any civil suit payments end up hitting the agency or city in the pocketbook, as opposed to the insurance company for the agency or city.  Based on my professional experience, only rarely are these claims paid directly out of agency or city funds, as opposed to insurance.  And of course those agency or city funds are ultimately collected from the local taxpayers.

[charby]

4 months in jail on a drug charge, I would have lost my job, even wrongly accused.

[230RN]

I read something about two years ago which said that money is pretty contaminated with illicit drugs just because it goes through so many hands. 

[MechAg94]

4 months in jail on a drug charge, I would have lost my job, even wrongly accused.

That is what I was thinking.  And the 4th month was after the test showed there were no drugs.  It took a month to get the charges dropped.


Oh, and I would add that I came across this article from a tweet by John Stossel. 

[Ben]

I wonder how often any civil suit payments end up hitting the agency or city in the pocketbook, as opposed to the insurance company for the agency or city.  Based on my professional experience, only rarely are these claims paid directly out of agency or city funds, as opposed to insurance.  And of course those agency or city funds are ultimately collected from the local taxpayers.

Ah. I wasn't thinking about insurance as my only experience is with fed.gov, who is self-insured. I thought that was common among gov entities, but apparently not?

Still, IMO, there has to be some kind of a "slapped upside the head" response to this kind of stuff so that local governments don't just sweep it under the rug, or worse, continue the practice,  as with asset forfeiture. 

[Firethorn]

I wonder if a second field test would have had the same results?

If yes then the kit shouldn’t be used or if used not be taken into consideration when setting bail.

If it is being triggered by the blue food coloring, probably as long as it is the same field test model or uses the same chemistry.  Changing the chemistry to be more exact costs money.

I know that our testing paper for chemical weapons was set off by a long list of other chemicals.  Using felt tip pens like sharpies was recommended against, for example.  

Just end the war on drugs and this problem goes away.  Hell, decriminalize possession.  If they're selling, it is them working to prove that it is really the drug to customers, so they are doing the work for you.

[T.O.M.]

Here's what I don't get.  When I was a prosecutor, if someone was arrested for a felony case, the clock started ticking...

1.  Indictment by grand jury within ten days of the arrest if person is in custody.
2.  Arraignment/second bond hearing within the next seven days after indictment if person is in custody.
3.  Case has to come to trial within 270 days of the arrest, but if the person remains in custody, each day counts as three for that speedy trial calculation.

With those deadlines, we needed a lab analysis of any suspected drugs done within weeks, not months.  Yes, the speedy trial time can be waived by the defendant, and can be extended by certain procedural acts by the defendant (motion to suppress evidence comes to mind). 

Oh, and if I was the attorney for the defendant, I'd forget suing the field test company.  They market the tests as a probable cause test, not a conclusive beyond a reasonable doubt test.  The company will blame the prosecutors for relying on the test.  I would sue the prosecutor who had the results but failed to dismiss the charges, or at least agree to a release, for another month.

[Regolith]

I would sue the prosecutor who had the results but failed to dismiss the charges, or at least agree to a release, for another month.

Good luck with that. From what I've seen, until absolute/qualified immunity is done away with, suing prosecutors for anything that doesn't get them sent to jail (see Mike Nifong) is damn near impossible.

[Firethorn]

Oh, and if I was the attorney for the defendant, I'd forget suing the field test company.  They market the tests as a probable cause test, not a conclusive beyond a reasonable doubt test.  The company will blame the prosecutors for relying on the test.  I would sue the prosecutor who had the results but failed to dismiss the charges, or at least agree to a release, for another month.

Personally, how would this work?  Basically, rather than letting cops commit damages and requiring you to sue to get compensated(occasionally) if they did something wrong, treat it like a construction company tearing something up to repair something.  The repair is the prosecution of the crime.  It doesn't matter if the pipes needed fixing so you tore somebody's driveway up, you're fixing the driveway.

IE if you tear apart somebody's car looking for drugs?  You owe them something like $100 for wasting their time.  Whether you find drugs or not.  Slit their seats like I've heard has happened?  You now owe for replacement seats or replacing the upholstery.  If you do find drugs, then the costs come out of the fine, they don't suddenly become "justified".  Throw a flashbang in and destroy a room?  You're paying for the room and contents.  Etc...

I'd rate time in jail starting at $1k/day pre-trial.  And sentencing has to be done in ignorance of the time they have actually spent in jail awaiting trial.  Hold somebody for a year, and then sentence them to a month(no 'time served' under this proposal)?  You owe them $334k, minus restitution.  Restitution is the same deal - done in ignorance of time served, so they can't simply be tweaked to take the owed amount into account.

I'm sure the $1M in bond was done because the prosecutor, before the test results came back, assumed that she was a drug mule with a large amount of meth.

Though I'm not sure that you could even render meth into a cotton candy type form.  Methamphetamine hydrochloride salt has a melting point of 170-175C, which is compatible, I guess, with sugar's 140-186C, so you could put it into a candy machine, which works by melting the sugar and "throwing" the melt out into a bowl, where it solidifies into a thread in mid-air.  But the sugar is mixed with "floss", which is used to improve the texture and add flavor and such.

Reminds me of *expletive deleted*it like people being arrested for having baking soda.  In this case, that's over $112k for keeping the two in jail for over 8 weeks, plus damages to their truck.  Oh, and even more money until their security clearances are revalidated.

Hell, can't find the link right now, but I remember reading about people getting arrested for suspected drugs when cops opened the tamper evident packages in grocery bags while investigating people heading home from the grocery store over false drug positives.

Meanwhile prosecutors will offer deals, with defense attorneys pressuring their clients into accepting them, that are "sweet" enough to convince factually innocent defendants into accepting them as the lower cost option.  45 days vs 2 years?  Who wouldn't take that if they're stressed, pressured by their own representative, panicked, unaware of the long term consequences, etc...?
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/magazine/how-a-2-roadside-drug-test-sends-innocent-people-to-jail.html

[Perd Hapley]

I have to say I'm very much disappointed in all of you. Your soft-on-cotton-candy approach is exactly what's gone wrong with this country.

[Hawkmoon]

I missed this little nugget:

Deputies said they stopped the car Fincher was riding in because of its dark window tint, but later admitted that the windows were legal.

So they were out to fill a quota. [Britspeak]Brilliant[/Britspeak].

[HeroHog]

The tint can be very close to the legal limit and, to the eye, at least be questionable so I won't jump to the conclusion it was a bad stop right off.

[MechAg94]

Here's what I don't get.  When I was a prosecutor, if someone was arrested for a felony case, the clock started ticking...

1.  Indictment by grand jury within ten days of the arrest if person is in custody.
2.  Arraignment/second bond hearing within the next seven days after indictment if person is in custody.
3.  Case has to come to trial within 270 days of the arrest, but if the person remains in custody, each day counts as three for that speedy trial calculation.

With those deadlines, we needed a lab analysis of any suspected drugs done within weeks, not months.  Yes, the speedy trial time can be waived by the defendant, and can be extended by certain procedural acts by the defendant (motion to suppress evidence comes to mind).  

Oh, and if I was the attorney for the defendant, I'd forget suing the field test company.  They market the tests as a probable cause test, not a conclusive beyond a reasonable doubt test.  The company will blame the prosecutors for relying on the test.  I would sue the prosecutor who had the results but failed to dismiss the charges, or at least agree to a release, for another month.

I was curious what your comment would be on this.  Sounds like some states have better rules/regulations.  It seems to me that every jurisdiction should have strict rules to favor speedy trials since that is a constitutional right.  

I suspect laws/rules adopted for the War on Drugs had a little to do with that.