Legal Question in Civil Rights Law in California

Re: Head shop raid

Your question is more insightful than you realize. "How can they do this?" I do not quite know how to answer this question. The federal government is an arogant group that believe they can do whatever they dam well please.

The short answer to your question may be that they did not have the authority to seize your property. In this situation, the government must have had some evidence that they were required to present to a judge in order to get the warrant. The judge must have agreed with the cop that your store was some how involved in the illegal sale of drugs and or paraphenalia.

Just because some cop said it to a judge does not make it so. There would have to be a thorough analysis of the process by which the police obtained the search warrant.

The government through its agents illegally seize property all of the time. I have worked on cases of this nature in federal court and have sued on behalf of my clients for their justice and freedom. In order to get your property back you are going to have to retain a civil rights attorney and quite possibly a criminal attorney.

I am familiar with the Torrance Police Department and the judges that issue warrants in that city. If you have any questions feel free to contact me.

Re: Head shop raid

Thanks for your posting, and I'm sorry to hear about the police raid on your business.

Fourth amendment law is a huge subject for the question you've asked. The first and foremost principle affecting development and interpretation of Fourth Amendment law is the warrant requirement. While not explicitly written into the Constitution, it is perhaps best stated in the oft-quoted passage from a United States Supreme Court decision:

"Searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment - subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967)"

Because of this presumption against the validity of warrantless searches, an examination of the constitutionality of any specific search first must consider whether a warrant was obtained. If a warrant was obtained its constitutional validity may also be challenged.

While there remains a number of exceptions to the warrant requirement, they are not within the scope of this discussion, and the best advise I can give you is to have a lawyer look at the affidavits in support of your search warrant and see if you have any defenses in that area, or in other parts of your case.

While at another firm, I handled a large number of cases where the City of Torrance tried to close down a number of massage parlors, and I can tell you that they often overstep their bounds, knowing that many don't have the money for an attorney to challenge their Amendment and affect the validity of a search warrant.

Best of luck, and if you have any other questions, or want more information, please feel free to contact my office at 1-877-568-2977 (toll free), or send me an email. I'm happy to help in any way that I can.