The last of three officers who lied to cover up the lies they told a judge to get the no-knock warrant they used to kill 88 year old Kathryn Johnston in 2006 has been convicted in Fulton County Superior Court. He was sentenced to 4.5 years in jail for making false statements about the incident. His two sidekicks pleaded guilty to manslaughter and other charges last year and will serve ten and twelve year prison terms.
None of this brings Kathryn Johnston back to life. None of this changes the insane war on drugs that has mutated into a war on the Constitution and the American people.
We all know most peace officers are honest and do their job properly. But the cop you have to deal with — is he a good one or a bad one? Did he lie to a judge to get a warrant? Will he shoot you and then plant drugs in your house while you bleed to death? Will he lean on a drug informant to tell lies to corroborate the ones used to get the warrant? That’s what the three cops who killed Kathryn Johnston did. One corrupt cop throws all police under suspicion.
It is some small comfort that the perpetrating cops have been punished, although five years seems a mild price to pay for killing a harmless old lady. And it’s some comfort that a federal probe into chronic civil rights violations by the Atlanta PD is underway.
But it is an outrage that no-knock warrants remain a law enforcement tactic. It is infuriating that the unwinnable war on drugs remains the cause of untold police corruption. It is profoundly sad that Kathryn Johnston will not be the last victim of the war on drugs.
The traditional American view of criminal justice was that it was better to let a hundred guilty people go free than punish one innocent person. The war on drugs says that it is better to kill a hundred Kathryn Johnstons than let one penny of asset forfeiture proceeds go unclaimed by local police — where the money will fund even more drug raids that will kill even more innocents.
Nationwide since 2000, police no-knock and/or drug raids have left 21 people dead. Four of them were in Georgia. All too often the dead were innocent bystanders, or the unlucky victims of incorrect addresses on no-knock warrants. All too often no law enforcement personnel pays any price for the carnage they cause.
In addition to Kathryn Johnston, the Georgia victims include Xavier Bennett in DeKalb County, Lynette Gayle Jackson in Riverdale, and Joseph Whitehead in Macon.
Libertarians believe there is no such thing as a victimless crime. If there is no victim, there is no crime; consensual drug use by adults should not be against the law. If citizens can be trusted with the vote, why can’t they be trusted to make their own decisions about recreational drug use? Along with that, those who choose to use drugs must be held responsible for their actions while under the influence of intoxicants, just as drunks cannot claim diminished capacity in court.
No-knock raids are particularly noxious. When the only apparent difference between home invaders and police is the badges in the cops’ pockets, it poses a question about the rule of law: why are police allowed to do something so dangerous that would be a crime if done by a citizen? The rationale is to surprise criminals before they can dispose of evidence, but the empirical reality is that innocent people die while the supposed crime of drug abuse remains undeterred.
Worst of all is the corruption of federal and local law enforcement caused by the funds looted through asset forfeiture laws. When police accuse someone of drug crimes, their property is confiscated, with the proceeds split among the police jurisdictions participating in the raid. If the accused person survives and is acquitted in court, he can sue the government to try to get his property back. Often he cannot afford the legal fees to fight a police department that has all the resources of a city, county, or state behind it. At that point the government has turned into an extortionist.
If you are outraged about Kathryn Johnston’s death and the light punishment given to her killers-in-blue, contact the Libertarian Party of Georgia. You also might want to look at statistics from the libertarian Cato Institute, and from Bob Barr’s client The Marijuana Policy Project.
