Court approves laxative searches
State justices OK practice to find drugs
By DERRICK NUNNALLY
[email protected]
Posted: May 18, 2006
Reversing a state Court of Appeals ruling, the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday approved Milwaukee police officers' use of laxatives in their 2002 search of a man who swallowed a bag of heroin during a drug bust.
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By a 5-2 margin, the court found that police didn't violate the constitutional right against unreasonable searches when they gave Tomas R. Payano-Roman, now 36, cups of a liquid laxative called "Go Lightly" every 20 to 30 minutes so they could retrieve the drugs from his stool to use as evidence. Plainclothes officers investigating a tip had spotted Payano-Roman in the 1500 block of W. Mitchell St. April 12, 2002, and they saw him swallow a bag while they approached him.
After the recovered drug was allowed as evidence, Payano-Roman pleaded guilty to possession of heroin and was sentenced to 60 days in the Milwaukee County House of Correction.
In the court's majority opinion, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley wrote that the search was reasonable in part because it involved medical professionals - Payano-Roman had been taken to Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital in Wauwatosa after the arrest and handcuffed to a bed - and because the importance of using the drugs as evidence outweighed the intrusion for Payano-Roman.
"Had the officers been unable to recover the heroin, the government's case against Payano-Roman would not have been as strong," Bradley wrote.
"At the same time, it cannot be ignored that Payano-Roman's situation was self-created insofar as he swallowed the baggie of heroin in an apparent attempt to conceal or dispose of evidence."
In a dissent joined by Justice Louis B. Butler Jr., Chief Justice Shirley S. Abrahamson wrote that the laxative-obtained evidence shouldn't have been allowed because police didn't try to obtain a search warrant during the six hours that passed between Payano-Roman's arrest and when the first dose of laxative was administered.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=425031
State justices OK practice to find drugs
By DERRICK NUNNALLY
[email protected]
Posted: May 18, 2006
Reversing a state Court of Appeals ruling, the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday approved Milwaukee police officers' use of laxatives in their 2002 search of a man who swallowed a bag of heroin during a drug bust.
Advertisement
By a 5-2 margin, the court found that police didn't violate the constitutional right against unreasonable searches when they gave Tomas R. Payano-Roman, now 36, cups of a liquid laxative called "Go Lightly" every 20 to 30 minutes so they could retrieve the drugs from his stool to use as evidence. Plainclothes officers investigating a tip had spotted Payano-Roman in the 1500 block of W. Mitchell St. April 12, 2002, and they saw him swallow a bag while they approached him.
After the recovered drug was allowed as evidence, Payano-Roman pleaded guilty to possession of heroin and was sentenced to 60 days in the Milwaukee County House of Correction.
In the court's majority opinion, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley wrote that the search was reasonable in part because it involved medical professionals - Payano-Roman had been taken to Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital in Wauwatosa after the arrest and handcuffed to a bed - and because the importance of using the drugs as evidence outweighed the intrusion for Payano-Roman.
"Had the officers been unable to recover the heroin, the government's case against Payano-Roman would not have been as strong," Bradley wrote.
"At the same time, it cannot be ignored that Payano-Roman's situation was self-created insofar as he swallowed the baggie of heroin in an apparent attempt to conceal or dispose of evidence."
In a dissent joined by Justice Louis B. Butler Jr., Chief Justice Shirley S. Abrahamson wrote that the laxative-obtained evidence shouldn't have been allowed because police didn't try to obtain a search warrant during the six hours that passed between Payano-Roman's arrest and when the first dose of laxative was administered.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=425031
