The SF Gate has a new story about a Pacifica, CA man who had his case overturned, due to a warrantless search of his home in 2005. Here's a snip:

Over the objections of John Hua, who lived at the apartment, police entered and found two marijuana cigarettes in the living room, 46 marijuana plants in a bedroom and an illegal cane sword on a bookshelf, the court said. After a San Mateo County judge upheld the search, Hua pleaded no contest to cultivating marijuana and possession of the cane sword and served a 60-day jail sentence, his lawyer said.

In defense of the search, prosecutors argued that police had reason to believe there was more than an ounce of marijuana elsewhere in the apartment - enough to subject Hua to a possible one-year jail sentence - and that Hua or others might be committing felonies by handing marijuana cigarettes to each other.

Sorry officer, just because you smell Marijuana doesn't mean you can bust in, guns blazin'. Who polices the police? The judge!

Two Humboldt County sheriff's deputies were involved in the fatal shooting of a suspect in a marijuana grow-op search on Wednesday. The officers were put on "administrative leave" as punishment, here's a snip:

The sheriff's department says the person who was killed confronted the deputies with a shotgun on land owned by the Pacific Lumber Company near Larabee Valley, about 30 miles east of Fortuna. One of the deputies fired his service weapon, striking the suspect.

This kind of thing happens a lot more than you'd think, we had police shoot and kill a teenager in my town this summer. The details on this story are not very clear, he did have a shotgun to protect his crop, but was he threatening the officers in any way?