The Saturday article about the secret “special inquiry” belonged on the front page of the paper, not on the last page of “B” section. (“State lawyers challenge secret court proceedings.”) The end-run prosecutors use to ignore the Fourth Amendment’s requirements and guarantee that no warrants shall be issued, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, could never survive a public court challenge. (Except under the Roberts court, but then, they make up the law as they go along.)
I should hope that every prosecutor and judge shown to have used this will be disbarred by the American Bar Association. They have kept this “special inquiry” a secret because they know it’s wrong. They use it to go fishing in peoples’ lives and records to see if they can find evidence of any wrongdoing, not to protect people from being publicly humiliated for something they didn’t do, as they claim.
This law has been on the books for 41 years, and after all that time it took a defense lawyer’s sharp eyes to catch a hint that something was curious to bring it to light? I cannot praise attorney Robert Thompson of Pasco or Gene Johnson, a journalist for the Associated Press, enough for bringing this to our attention. I just hope others are willing fight this and not let this fade into the background again.
Glen Meyer
Marysville
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