"Georgia Frees Lying Druggies" or "Fascist Police Put in Their Place"

Neither Court posted any decisions yesterday (8/28/2012) so I went back one day to 8/24/2012, last Friday.  Came across State v. Hamby, which contains a result that could be sensationalized in either direction, depending on your view on these particular kind of things.  It's one of those cases that makes some people say "these people were plainly guilty and got off on a technicality" and others say "I'd rather see 100 guilty go free than one innocent get convicted."  

Back in 2008, a police officer was patrolling the "highest crime area" in his jurisdiction, when he encountered Ms. Hamby.  Except that when he asked her for her name, she said it was Smith.  After establishing that no such Smith actually existed, he asked her again who she was, and she said she had ID in her hotel room.  By that point, two other officers joined the investigation, and they went to her hotel room.  They knocked and the door was opened by her husband. Without getting into detail, the officers observed much evidence of drug use.   There was some back and forth, and then the key facts unfolded as follows:

"Orrick had noticed three zipper bags on the kitchen table and he pointed to them and asked if Hamby's identification could be in any of those. Both Hamby and Smith said they had no knowledge of those bags and they were not theirs. Regarding the bags as abandoned, Orrick began walking across the room to retrieve them, when he spotted a sandwich bag on the floor which contained marijuana. In one of the bags on the table, Orrick found five more bags of marijuana and in another he found a red glass smoking pipe commonly used for smoking methamphetamine. As he was walking back toward his sergeant, Orrick noticed an open bag on the bed with a lot of prescription bottles in it. When asked, Smith claimed the bag and consented to Orrick's search of it. Orrick found an STP oil can in the bag and noticed that its false bottom was partly unscrewed. Inside, he found three packages of cocaine."

Let's assume for the moment that such evidence, if put before a jury, would result in a criminal conviction for some form of controlled substance violation.  That's not the issue in this case.  The issue in this case is whether this evidence can get before a Jury.  And when the State tried to convince the trial court that the evidence should go before a Jury, the trial court said no.  Last Friday, the Court of Appeals agreed.  Why?  The issue is whether the police had any right to be in the room and look through the items which caused them to find the controlled substances.  As the Court explained:

"the State overlooks the issue of the entry of the three officers into the occupied hotel room without either probable cause, exigent circumstances, or consent. At the time Orrick went across the room to retrieve what he deemed to be abandoned three bags on the kitchen table, the most he had was a reasonable suspicion that Hamby had given a false name and that Smith might be under the influence of cocaine. At that point, no illegal substances had been seen by the officers, nor had any consent been given for their entry into the hotel room, as conceded by Orrick. Orrick acknowledged that he had not asked Smith or Hamby if they had had visitors to their room before retrieving the bags. He further acknowledged that “I don't know if he [Smith] ever gave us permission to go into the room.” It was on his way to retrieve the bags that he noticed the baggie containing marijuana on the floor of the room."

Whether you agree or disagree with the outcome of the case, wouldn't you like to know about these decisions that are happening in your highest levels of state government?  Rather than being riled up over a candidate being "soft on crime," doesn't it make more sense to know exactly why some seemingly guilty people go free?  Or, looked at from another direction, isn't the result here exactly the kind of result that makes people proud to live in a country where we are free from unreasonable intrusions into our lives by law enforcement?  

One other note:  the underlying events happened in July 2008.  It's been four years.  Consider those sorts of delays when you are pondering whether to cut budgets for the judicial branch.