Patterico's Pontifications

11/22/2006

Is the Search Warrant in the Atlanta Shooting Case “Public Record”?

Filed under: Law — Patterico @ 10:34 pm



In the Atlanta case where the 92-year-old was killed after shooting at police serving a warrant, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says of the warrant in the case:

The basis for the search warrant was not known because State Court Administrator Stefani Searcy refused to release a copy of the warrant Wednesday. State law considers all such documents public record but Searcy cited “office policy” as her reason for withholding the warrant.

(Emphasis added.)

Radley Balko quotes the above passage and says:

I find this rather disconcerting. A woman is dead. Three cops were shot. There are serious questions about how and why the warrant was issued. And despite the fact that the warrant is already public information, we still don’t get to see it? Exactly whom do the police, the DA, and the courts serve?

(Emphasis in original.)

I’m not as certain as Balko and the Atlanta newspaper that search warrants are public record in Georgia. I’m certainly no expert on the issue, and I’m open to correction if I’m wrong. But I believe I have located the relevant Georgia statute, and it may well exempt such documents from disclosure:

50-18-72.
(a) Public disclosure shall not be required for records that are:

. . . .

(3) Except as otherwise provided by law, records compiled for law enforcement or prosecution purposes to the extent that production of such records would disclose the identity of a confidential source, disclose confidential investigative or prosecution material which would endanger the life or physical safety of any person or persons, or disclose the existence of a confidential surveillance or investigation;

(4) Records of law enforcement, prosecution, or regulatory agencies in any pending investigation or prosecution of criminal or unlawful activity, other than initial police arrest reports and initial incident reports; provided, however, that an investigation or prosecution shall no longer be deemed to be pending when all direct litigation involving said investigation and prosecution has become final or otherwise terminated;

Search warrants are obviously not “initial police arrest reports” or “initial incident reports.” They are, however, records of law enforcement agencies in pending investigations. They appear to be exempt on that basis alone.

Furthermore, search warrants often contain information from confidential informants — information that, if publicly released, could result in the informant’s being hurt or killed.

For these reasons, here in California, not every search warrant is public record. Not only that, portions of the affidavit, and occasionally the entire affidavit, are sometimes not only withheld from the public — they’re even withheld from the defense. And for good reason.

Say a confidential informant gives an officer information about drug sales from a house. Based on that information, an undercover officer buys illegal narcotics from someone in the house. Based on that buy, officers obtain a search warrant and find piles of drugs in the house.

If the prosecution is not going to rely on the testimony of the confidential informant to make its case, and the informant can’t offer any information that might aid the defense, then there is no point in releasing the informant’s name. All that would do is endanger the informant’s life, for no discernible reason. So California law requires that the defense make a strict showing to obtain such information, and disclosure rarely happens.

Is this public information? Not here.

I suspect it’s the same in Georgia. And the statute quoted above appears to indicate that I’m right.

Does the search warrant affidavit in the Atlanta case contain any information from a confidential informant? I don’t know, and I’m wagering that Balko and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution don’t either. But I’d be willing to bet that it does. If a cop made an undercover buy at the house, as reports suggest, they had to have a reason for doing that. It could be that they simply observed suspected narcotics sales through surveillance. But in my experience, search warrants based on mere surveillance are rare. It’s much more common that information will come from an informant, who has told police that the location is a good house to buy dope from.

So I’m not sure the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Radley Balko are correct to claim that the search warrant in this case is public record. If any reader has expertise in this area, please share it.

47 Responses to “Is the Search Warrant in the Atlanta Shooting Case “Public Record”?”

  1. The 92 Year Old Criminal…

    But I tell you what. If I have someone, ANYONE shooting at me, I WILL fire back at them. I will not take a bullet and be put six feet under just because the shooter is a 92 year old women. No effin way.
    And for you idiots on both sides of the aisle to …

    Flopping Aces (986d71)

  2. Can you not understand, sir, the evil in all this?

    Billy Beck (79bd23)

  3. I don’t know for a fact whether it was evil for the woman to fire at the cops. There’s a good chance it was, since they apparently announced their presence, so she very possibly knew she was firing at cops. But not necessarily. Perhaps it was just a tragic mistake on her part.

    That’s what you meant, right?

    Patterico (de0616)

  4. […] UPDATE x3: Balko, relying on a newspaper report, is now claiming that search warrants are public information in Georgia. Maybe they are, but it doesn’t look that way to me. I discuss the issue here. […]

    Patterico’s Pontifications » Libertarians Jump the Gun in Story of Shooting in Atlanta (421107)

  5. No, it’s not what I mean, and you know it.

    I had done you the courtesy to ask you a serious question and I did it respectfully. You know it. And what I got for my trouble was a demonstration that you are not to be taken seriously.

    I understand now what I had only suspected before.

    Billy Beck (79bd23)

  6. OK, here’s your answer:

    The word “evil” is silly in this context.

    If the reports are true, the officers did their jobs, got shot at, and defended themselves.

    End of story.

    If you’re going to live at a drug house, be careful about shooting at people who say they are cops.

    Patterico (de0616)

  7. Do you know what a “context” is?

    Mine includes what others here have pointed out to you, which is something that the people who founded this nation never, ever would have permitted. Yours does not, and that’s a big part of why you are not to be taken seriously. And you can sit there and tap out your imperious little “end of story”, but that won’t make it so, by a long shot.

    You have large things to learn, and I think you’re going to have a very hard time at learning them.

    Billy Beck (79bd23)

  8. I am inclined to think that the warrant, itself, should be a public record, and that it can only be “held” until it is served. The documents that produced the warrant (which is what I suspect the fuss is about) I can see being “non-public”, but those targeted by the warrant are not the public.

    Is “targeted” the proper term?

    htom (412a17)

  9. “that’s a big part of why you are not to be taken seriously. And you can sit there and tap out your imperious little “end of story”, but that won’t make it so, by a long shot.”

    Billy, are you by any chance an Army PIO ? Or an Army PINCO ?

    You have that same superior tone based on nothing at all.

    Mike K (dfe6aa)

  10. Billy, do you know what being a “pompous ass” is?

    You accuse Patterico of being imperious, but can’t restrain yourself from offering up your own dose of dripping condescension? Don’t sit there on your fat behind and officiously opine about the “evil” that you maintain has been done here, when the facts of this case haven’t even come out yet.

    Or rather, go right ahead… we’ll probably all get a big kick out of it.

    TheNewGuy (2e7a0f)

  11. The evil was done before the SWAT team ever put on their gear back at the house. The rest is just consequences.

    Kyle Bennett (54b9b0)

  12. It is unfortunate that we have a new class of junkie in this country – law enforcement and prosecutors engaged in the INSANE war on some drugs. Combined with asset forfeiture, these people have become dependent upon the criminal class the assert they want to stamp out. That our blog host has chosen the life of a junkie is a shame. But then, the junkie never realizes their infirmity until it’s too late.

    In honor of his recent passing, I give you Milton Friedman’s Open Letter to William Bennett (which Bennett, and the rest of the powers that be, ignored). Our host would probably view Friedman as naive or a fool

    +++++++++

    An Open Letter to Bill Bennett
    by Milton Friedman, April 1990

    In Oliver Cromwell’s eloquent words, “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken” about the course you and President Bush urge us to adopt to fight drugs. The path you propose of more police, more jails, use of the military in foreign countries, harsh penalties for drug users, and a whole panoply of repressive measures can only make a bad situation worse. The drug war cannot be won by those tactics without undermining the human liberty and individual freedom that you and I cherish.

    You are not mistaken in believing that drugs are a scourge that is devastating our society. You are not mistaken in believing that drugs are tearing asunder our social fabric, ruining the lives of many young people, and imposing heavy costs on some of the most disadvantaged among us. You are not mistaken in believing that the majority of the public share your concerns. In short, you are not mistaken in the end you seek to achieve.

    Your mistake is failing to recognize that the very measures you favor are a major source of the evils you deplore. Of course the problem is demand, but it is not only demand, it is demand that must operate through repressed and illegal channels. Illegality creates obscene profits that finance the murderous tactics of the drug lords; illegality leads to the corruption of law enforcement officials; illegality monopolizes the efforts of honest law forces so that they are starved for resources to fight the simpler crimes of robbery, theft and assault.

    Drugs are a tragedy for addicts. But criminalizing their use converts that tragedy into a disaster for society, for users and non-users alike. Our experience with the prohibition of drugs is a replay of our experience with the prohibition of alcoholic beverages.

    I append excerpts from a column that I wrote in 1972 on “Prohibition and Drugs.” The major problem then was heroin from Marseilles; today, it is cocaine from Latin America. Today, also, the problem is far more serious than it was 17 years ago: more addicts, more innocent victims; more drug pushers, more law enforcement officials; more money spent to enforce prohibition, more money spent to circumvent prohibition.

    Had drugs been decriminalized 17 years ago, “crack” would never have been invented (it was invented because the high cost of illegal drugs made it profitable to provide a cheaper version) and there would today be far fewer addicts. The lives of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of innocent victims would have been saved, and not only in the U.S. The ghettos of our major cities would not be drug-and-crime-infested no-man’s lands. Fewer people would be in jails, and fewer jails would have been built.

    Columbia, Bolivia and Peru would not be suffering from narco-terror, and we would not be distorting our foreign policy because of narco-terror. Hell would not, in the words with which Billy Sunday welcomed Prohibition, “be forever for rent,” but it would be a lot emptier.

    Decriminalizing drugs is even more urgent now than in 1972, but we must recognize that the harm done in the interim cannot be wiped out, certainly not immediately. Postponing decriminalization will only make matters worse, and make the problem appear even more intractable.

    Alcohol and tobacco cause many more deaths in users than do drugs. Decriminalization would not prevent us from treating drugs as we now treat alcohol and tobacco: prohibiting sales of drugs to minors, outlawing the advertising of drugs and similar measures. Such measures could be enforced, while outright prohibition cannot be. Moreover, if even a small fraction of the money we now spend on trying to enforce drug prohibition were devoted to treatment and rehabilitation, in an atmosphere of compassion not punishment, the reduction in drug usage and in the harm done to the users could be dramatic.

    This plea comes from the bottom of my heart. Every friend of freedom, and I know you are one, must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence. A country in which shooting down unidentified planes “on suspicion” can be seriously considered as a drug-war tactic is not the kind of United States that either you or I want to hand on to future generations.

    mitch (55069c)

  13. I have to agree with you on this, Patterico. In fact, I am fairly certain most states have the same restrictions on such warrants. The Feds certainly do.

    I want to know how a 90-something woman was killed in a shootout with police over anything. What is being overlooked is that four policemen were shot in this incident, apparently all four at the very time they entered onto the premises to deliver the warrant. Is everyone certain it was the woman doing the shooting from inside? How could four policemen allow a sole gunman to gun them down that way? Imagine the speed, accuracy and determination that requires. Surely, none of these policemen had their weapons drawn. How many police were present to begin with? Were any of the injured officers able to return fire (the answer is “yes” if these were the only officers present)?

    I smell a movie-of-the-week out of this.

    Tragic as it seems now, there may be a raging debate by the producers on whether to include a laugh track or not.

    prairiemain (6ea671)

  14. Sorry, but I don’t buy the siren song that legalization will end all of our troubles, and the law enforcement issues are only part of the story.

    If the libertarians (with whose positions I am generally sympathetic, believe it or not) can get the government out of the healthcare business, then and only then would I consider the legalization route. The medical costs and illness associated with alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs are already astronomical, and legalization can only contribute to the pie. I’m generally in favor of people choosing to drink, smoke, not wear seatbels or helmets, etc… as long as they don’t simultaneously demand that others bear the cost of their decision. It is because the government has injected itself into the business of healthcare (and used legal fiat to shift the costs), that gives various groups justification to restrict personal freedoms, based on the argument that if they’re being forced to pay, they want a say.

    We should all have learned this as teenagers: as long as you’re living under your parents’ roof and they’re paying the bills, you don’t get to do whatever the hell you want. I don’t know at what age we unlearn this important lesson, but it clearly happens at some point.

    First things first; ensure that taxpayers aren’t going to be shafted with the cost for those who choose to addict themselves. Do that, and I think a lot more people would be open to the idea.

    (Sorry for the OT diversion)

    TheNewGuy (2e7a0f)

  15. Patterico: Are you blind to the fact that this was a home invasion? This was homicide. This was reckless.

    RJN (e12f22)

  16. If the libertarians (with whose positions I am generally sympathetic, believe it or not) can get the government out of the healthcare business, then and only then would I consider the legalization route.

    I don’t disagree. Government has no business in healthcare

    mitch (55069c)

  17. Patterico……….#4 …that was a good one

    senorlechero (360f45)

  18. Are you blind to the fact that this was a home invasion?

    He’s not blind. By his definition (and unfortunately “the law’s”), this was a lawful execution of a search warrant. “Home invasion” cannot possibly be a descriptor of what happened. Oh well, the distorted view of a voluntary junkie. Too bad for those on the receiving end.

    If you’re going to live at a drug house, be careful about shooting at people who say they are cops.

    Anyone can say they’re cops – Saying so doesn’t necessarily make it so.

    mitch (55069c)

  19. #14…….Prairiemain…..that’s the point I’ve been making for two days……….something here is not right. The “facts” of this incident do not make sense.

    senorlechero (360f45)

  20. Anyone can say they are cops but if they do, we treat them more seriously in criminal law courts. It constitutes an extra offense, often called impersonating an officer. The remedy isn’t to tell citizens to ignore that someone claims to be the police and shoot away.

    If my home were invaded by people claiming to be police and I shoot in self-defense, I would be grateful to be alive and to have killed the bad guys. But if I guess wrong and hurt real policemen, I have to bear the consequences of that mistake. Gunowners are supposed to know this and if they don’t, they shouldn’t be gunowners and/or they shouldn’t use their guns.

    DRJ (8c00f0)

  21. I agree with Mitch. The government has no business in health care. Also I agree with Mitch on his views of killing baby seals, the meat can be given to starving Africans.

    Tony (cfee12)

  22. Because we don’t have the facts, let’s make a couple of reasonable assumptions:

    1. The 92 year old women didn’t think she was shooting cops. She thought she was protecting herself from home invaders. This is more likely than “Hey, a bunch of cops are here – I bet I can shoot them all”.

    2. The cops were following procedures, and responded when they were shot at. This is more likely than “Hey, after the donut shop, let’s go shoot a 92 year old”.

    This tragedy is already water under the bridge. It is like friendly fire death in wartime – if you go to war, they will happen, but you work very hard to minimize them.

    Patterico, do you think the war on drugs is worth the costs of heavily armed raids on suspected drug houses?

    Do you think we are doing enough to reduce the friendly fire costs of these raids?

    TomHynes (c41bdd)

  23. […] Balko claims that, according to me, it shows his “disregard for the facts” for him to rely on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for the proposition that the search warrant is a public record. Again, I’d like for him to show me where I said that. In my post suggesting that the search warrant in this case may not be a public record, I was modest and restrained in my claims — precisely because I have not done enough research to reach a firm conclusion that refutes the statement in the paper. […]

    Patterico’s Pontifications » Balko Distorts the Facts In a Lengthy Screed About How He Doesn’t Distort the Facts (421107)

  24. You are pontificating beyond your means.
    The evil here is the police assault and invasion of a private home, and consequent murder of an elderly woman who was attempting to defend herself from what was to all appearances a group of armed thugs. Whoever participated in that murder, such as the policemen themselves, or aided and abetted it, such as the “confidential informer” and the detectives who prepared the warrant, should be prosecuted. And as for protecting the informant–he gave bad information that directly led to someone’s death. Why should we be concerned with protecting him? He obviously is of no value as a souce of credible information. He should be punished. If his fellow low lifes deliver the punishment, so much the better. The example will encourage others not to assist the drug police in their war on people.

    Billy, don’t try to teach him. Mr. Patterico is obviously among those of whom the Gospel says, who who hath no freedom, even that freedom which he hath shall be taken away.

    kishnevi (db6433)

  25. kishnevi,

    What is your basis for believing an informant gave “bad information”?

    I’m thinking it’s Radley Balko.

    Am I right??

    Patterico (de0616)

  26. senorlechero,

    What do you think of the video I posted of the 72-year-old man who shot the cop in Texas, and the theory that cops are more likely to allow themselves to be shot by someone elderly?

    Patterico (de0616)

  27. TomHynes,

    I have a post about this. In essence, I can answer with a question: do you think the war on traffic violations is worth the costs of dangerous traffic stops at which both officers and civilians are often killed?

    Patterico (de0616)

  28. Also I agree with Mitch on his views of killing baby seals, the meat can be given to starving Africans.

    Hey – don’t put words into my mouth!

    🙂

    Let the Africans starve – the meat belongs to the people who harvest the seals.

    mitch (55069c)

  29. Patterico:
    92 y.o. woman, no drugs. It’s SELF-EVIDENTLY bad information. If not, then it’s bad cops with the wrong address. Either way, they didn’t check the facts before invading. Nobody needs protecting here but Kathryn Johnston…and it’s a little late in her case.

    [“No drugs”? Where do you get that? — P]

    Jeffrey Quick (398b00)

  30. JQ, thank you for answering Patterico before I could.

    Patterico, that there were no drugs is also self evident. If there had been drugs, the drug-war addicts would have been trumpeting that fact all over the place.

    [Police claim they found suspected illegal drugs, which are being tested at the crime lab. — P]

    kishnevi (447573)

  31. [Police claim they found suspected illegal drugs, which are being tested at the crime lab. P]

    I can claim that I saw OJ with Elvis in O’hare airport the night Ron and Nicole were murdered too……doesn’t make it true.

    [As I suspected. Your mind is made up. If the crime lab says there was cocaine in the house, you’ll crack wise about how you can’t trust the authorities. Nothing will ever satisfy you. You’re like an OJ juror. Facts be damned. You will never change your view. — P]

    dksuddeth (ac44fb)

  32. Patterico, don’t you get it? The cops have a vested interest in this case, and nothing they say can be trusted unless independently verified. It’s no wisecrack: it’s an elementary rule of investigation: interested parties can be expected to omit facts inconvenient to them, and invent “facts” convenient for them. And at this point, for all we know, the suspected drugs are simply an open box of baking soda, or a bunch of prescription medicines.

    What you have yet to understand is that there is no real difference between criminal gangs and the police, except that the latter have the authorization of the institutions which exert power over modern society–the police being the primary means by which that power is exerted–and that the police are generally inclined to use only low level extortion and threats for maximal effect. But they have as little regard for life or property as any burglar, mugger, or hitman.

    Die Polizei sind nie unser Freunde

    kishnevi (c18dfe)

  33. What you have yet to understand is that there is no real difference between criminal gangs and the police

    I cannot have a rational debate with anyone holding that point of view. Comment away, but don’t expect me to waste my time responding.

    I don’t think police are perfect, and my upcoming post with a use of force expert will make clear that there are probably shortcomings inherent in the tactics in this case. But someone who equates police with street gangs is not someone with whom I can have a rational discussion.

    Patterico (de0616)

  34. [As I suspected. Your mind is made up. If the crime lab says there was cocaine in the house, you’ll crack wise about how you can’t trust the authorities. Nothing will ever satisfy you. You’re like an OJ juror. Facts be damned. You will never change your view. — P]

    This is not true, but I can probably assume that you won’t change your view of that either. I’m trying real hard to wait until all the facts are in, but I’m not ready to jump to the authorities side every single time, like some people. Maybe because you’re job requires you to automatically defend the police story, but I usually see authorities get away with murder, when on its face, it’s obvious that the authorities made a serious mistake. The death of Sal Culosi is a prime example of that casual acceptance.

    dksuddeth (ac44fb)

  35. But someone who equates police with street gangs is not someone with whom I can have a rational discussion.

    perhaps you should try living a few months in the trenches of chicago or new york city sometime. You are destined to fail trying to prove that the police are there as upstanding people who will protect and serve over their image as street gangs when people who have that idea are always accosted by them.

    dksuddeth (ac44fb)

  36. Maybe because you’re job requires you to automatically defend the police story, but I usually see authorities get away with murder, when on its face, it’s obvious that the authorities made a serious mistake.

    Like most people, you have no idea what my job requires.

    It’s not what you just said.

    Patterico (de0616)

  37. Like most people, you have no idea what my job requires.

    If I remember, you’re a prosecutor, correct?
    Therefore, your job requires you to prosecute those that have committed crimes against the state. You have to work closely with law enforcement officers, right? This has been known to bleed over in to giving those officers statements greater weight over that of supposed defendants, or civilians in general, and you’ve shown that in your statements over this case alone. Am I wrong in any of this?

    dksuddeth (ac44fb)

  38. I thought you said my job requires me to “automatically defend the police story.”

    You’re sort of dancing away from that. Which is wise, because it’s wrong.

    What I have continually said in this case is that we need to see what the facts show. What I will not do is simply assume that the police did wrong, without knowing the facts. I do not equate police with criminal street gangs, and frankly, I think anyone who does has a screw loose.

    Am I saying police are perfect? No. But anyone who makes that equation is either being ridiculously flip, or doesn’t have the slightest clue what criminal street gangs actually do. I see the results of their actions constantly and can’t abide the sort of ignorance that would cause someone to make that kind of ridiculous comparison.

    Patterico (de0616)

  39. dksuddeth,

    Do you live in the trenches of Chicago or New York?

    I don’t, but I work in the trenches of L.A. I have an idea what street gangs do. They murder people in cold blood every week. They rape and rob. On a huge scale.

    It’s an idiot comparison to say police are just like them.

    Patterico (de0616)

  40. Patterico, if you haven’t noticed, we’re talking about a murder in cold blood right here, committed by police. The only question is whether it was justifiable, excusable, or negligent homicide–or homicide with malice aforethought. Being a prosecutor (if you are one) you must be aware that the latter actually requires very little real intent to be accounted malice aforethought.

    Also, if you haven’t noticed, the police routinely rob people. It’s called civil forfeiture. But I suppose a prosecutor would be bound to toe the party line and deny that armed robbery is armed robbery. But that is what civil forfeiture is, however dressed up it may be in the theatrics of judicial proceedings. And the non lethal violence police routinely use on unarmed civilians would do any member of the Bloods or Crips proud. Apparently, you share in the common delusion that just because violence and fraud is committed under the authority of the law, it is okay. It’s not. No one can give another person permission to commit violence against another person, and no form of law can do so either. Only the rights of self defense can justify it.

    Even if you don’t believe they are morally the same as a street gang, you have to admit that the police are human, and will lie, cheat and steal if they think it necessary to protect themselves and their comrades, just like most people. To assume that they are being honest in a case where they have major incentives to be dishonest is a failure of intellect.

    kishnevi (630deb)

  41. Patterico, if you haven’t noticed, we’re talking about a murder in cold blood right here, committed by police. The only question is whether it was justifiable, excusable, or negligent homicide–or homicide with malice aforethought. Being a prosecutor (if you are one) you must be aware that the latter actually requires very little real intent to be accounted malice aforethought.

    Justifiable, excusable, or negligent homicide is not murder. I don’t just play a prosecutor on TV. I am one.

    Also, if you haven’t noticed, the police routinely rob people. It’s called civil forfeiture. But I suppose a prosecutor would be bound to toe the party line and deny that armed robbery is armed robbery. But that is what civil forfeiture is, however dressed up it may be in the theatrics of judicial proceedings. And the non lethal violence police routinely use on unarmed civilians would do any member of the Bloods or Crips proud. Apparently, you share in the common delusion that just because violence and fraud is committed under the authority of the law, it is okay. It’s not. No one can give another person permission to commit violence against another person, and no form of law can do so either. Only the rights of self defense can justify it.

    Spoken like someone utterly ignorant of the true nature of street gangs.

    Even if you don’t believe they are morally the same as a street gang, you have to admit that the police are human, and will lie, cheat and steal if they think it necessary to protect themselves and their comrades, just like most people. To assume that they are being honest in a case where they have major incentives to be dishonest is a failure of intellect.

    Can’t debate with you on a rational level. Sorry. Your fault, not mine.

    Patterico (de0616)

  42. “Billy, don’t try to teach him. Mr. Patterico is obviously among those of whom the Gospel says, who who hath no freedom, even that freedom which he hath shall be taken away.

    Comment by kishnevi — 11/23/2006 @ 4:00 pm ”

    Billy doesn’t try to teach. Billy considers all of his opinions to be self-evident truisms. If someone disagrees, he holds that someone in contempt and starts the insult-engine.

    wally (660b98)

  43. kishnevi,

    What is your basis for believing an informant gave “bad information”?

    I’m thinking it’s Radley Balko.

    Am I right??

    You sir, have egg on your face.

    Its really amusing to watch you and fellow travelers like Orin Kerr attempt to climb down from your previous positions; which as far as I can tell only exist because you all think you can never a target of a similar raid. But remember this…confidential informers do not disciminate when it serves their interest.

    FedkaTheConvict (3c2ebb)

  44. You sir, have egg on your face.

    I completely disagree. This kishnevi person asserted as a matter of absolute fact:

    And as for protecting the informant–he gave bad information that directly led to someone’s death.

    It wasn’t labeled speculation. He asserted it as fact. Based on the facts he know, he did not have a basis to say that, other than his stated belief that “there is no real difference between criminal gangs and the police” — one of the most ridiculous statements I have ever seen made on this blog.

    It is silly to call revising one’s opinion based on new facts “climbing down from” a position — especially when my position all along was that we needed to wait for the facts!

    Patterico (de0616)

  45. A search warrant is issued and subsequently filed with the courts. State open records laws do not have jurisdiction over the judicial branch. Therefore, the search warrant is public record and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution posted a copy to it’s website.

    http://alt.coxnewsweb.com/ajc/pdf/searchwarrant.pdf

    Bob Reist (2e1766)

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