all right check out the website at thecivilrightslawyer.com and in the most recent post you'll see a series of federal court orders from west virginia showing a troubling pattern of these drug task force police officers obtaining illegal search warrants which are subsequently thrown out of court in fact a federal judge just the other day mentioned this and referred the matter to the u.s attorney's office to the federal prosecutor to investigate just what in the world's going on because in this particular case which reuters reported on just a few days ago the warrant was thrown out and the standard is is that if the police officer mis ends up misleading or would mislead a magistrate into signing a warrant where there's no probable cause then the warrant is illegal is thrown out and there's a potential there is a civil rights violation there as well so the the old federal prosecutor's office apparently this was revealed in this order sent two federal investigators to talk to the state court level magistrate judge who issued that illegal warrant to get him to say well that wasn't the reason the misleading information wasn't the reason i signed the war and now it was brought back to federal court on a motion for reconsideration saying look we would like you to reconsider that this was an illegal warrant that this police officer lied and we're not we don't want the evidence to be entered into evidence it can still be suppressed but we're just worried about the career of this law enforcement officer because if he's found to have lied to a judge that could be a problem for a police officer and now this federal judge who was presented with this is just apparently beside himself that not only do you have this pattern of police officers lying to get warrants to get illegal warrants but now you have the the you have federal investigators going to question a judge about why he or she signed a warrant the court pointed out that that is completely improper for investigators to go question a judge and also for a judge to entertain those questions in the context of why an illegal search warrant was issued i mean it is just it is just an outrageous situation and the federal court in this case ordered the new u.s attorney the new federal prosecutor to investigate just what in the world was going on and this is what reuters has been reporting about in recent days and there was just an article in a in the west virginia record here in west virginia so i've got that court order up on the website and it's a fascinating read and i also obtained all of the other court orders that are referenced in this court order all the other supreme cases of suppressed illegal search warrants so if you go to the website the civil rights lawyer dot com you can review those yourself i have also attached a case that i litigated that also involved a drug task force search warrant that was illegally obtained by police officers misrepresenting facts slash lying to a judge to get a warrant in that case two federal judges found that a police officer had lied one was in the criminal case where the the federal prosecution was thrown out due to an illegal search warrant and then the second order was the subsequent section 1983 civil case that i filed after the criminal case was dismissed to seek money damages which we got when we ended the case in a settlement that was the the keith sizemore case and i've also put that up on the website again this is the most recent post so everything that you want to read about police officers lying to get a search warrant you can check out in the most recent post on my website and if you just stop and think about it for a second how bizarre and how dangerous that is that you have police officers involved in the war on drugs these drug task forces who apparently don't care at all about the constitution don't care at all about whether they're lying or not to a judge to get a warrant there are some officers who don't bother to get a warrant and then there are officers who get a warrant and they lie to get it this is very troubling and it's something that's ongoing right now and it all has to do with the so-called war on drugs and the fact that we've allowed our politicians to fund these drug task forces which is all about money it's a multi-jurisdictional thing where you have the state police the charleston west virginia police department you might have sheriff's departments and you have federal law enforcement officers in some of these and they all combine forces using taxpayer money and they have these you know little gang units that they set up and there's a troubling pattern of these sorts of units lying and being caught lying to get these warrants um so i've linked the media stories i've posted the actual court orders themselves in full including the one that i was involved in and do you think do you think that any criminal defendants were advised that the police officers involved in their case were caught lying to a judge that's that should be known as a brady list and that's what's supposed to happen because if you're a criminal defendant or a lawyer representing a criminal defendant in and you're having to cross-examine a police officer and there's a jury who is supposed to assess the credibility of the police officer wouldn't it be nice to know that that police officer had been found by a federal court to have lied to a judge under oath wouldn't it wouldn't that be helpful to know isn't that the sort of information that could get you an acquittal that could get you even out of prison if you've already been convicted based on the testimony of that officer this is the sort of thing that undermines the integrity of our entire criminal justice system and far as i know including in the case that i worked on there was no brady list that i know of created where criminal defendants or lawyers or public defenders or whatever were advised that this officer has been caught lying under oath that is not information that has been shared by prosecutors why that's a rhetorical question obviously we know why so take a look at these cases yourself it's just it's just one of those things where you have to take the time to read them and like i was asked today by a group of students that i i talked to in in washington dc over zoom you know what can you do if a police officer lies to get a warrant what can you do well if it's a criminal case you can you can you can get your case dismissed you can get the evidence suppressed anything obtained by an illegal warrant is you know fruit of the poisonous tree and can be suppressed there's also a civil cause of action for violation of of constitutional rights if the police officers search your home with an illegal warrant that's subsequently thrown out well what has taken place a violation of the fourth amendment the police can't search your home without a valid search warrant and if it's an illegal search warrant that now is a fourth amendment violation so not only would they be liable for money damages under section 1983 but they also will be and should be denied qualified immunity why because police officers can't claim qualified immunity where they're violating a clearly established law that an objectively reasonable police officer would know can they really make the argument that as a police officer they didn't know that they couldn't lie to a judge under oath could they really make the argument that an objectively reasonable police officer wouldn't know that they can't lie to a judge of course not therefore they can't get qualified immunity so something can be done about it so the purpose of this video is just to direct you to my blog at thecivilrightslawyer.com check out the last post that has all the the pudding where the proof is and that is each of these decisions in west virginia and if it's happening in west virginia i'm sure it's happening elsewhere so all the law is all the law that's out there on on frank's versus delaware and and the um the intricacies of illegal search warrants due to police misrepresentations are all found in those cases and this is a really fantastic federal judge who authored a lot of these decisions including the the main one that's basically blowing the whistle here so i'd encourage you to check it out it's all very well written and i look forward to seeing if there actually is any investigation that takes place here and and what if any accountability actually occurs [Music]