It’s nice to see the courts not making excuses for warrantless searches. I suspect Montana law enforcement will be more careful about warrants after having two cases tossed in relatively short order.
Sanjay Talwani reports:
For the second time in a month, the Montana Supreme Court has thrown out a conviction because prosecutors used recordings made by a confidential police informant without a search warrant.
Dallas Edward Reichmand, 53, was found guilty in 2008 in Butte-Silver Bow County for a pair of August 2007 sales of morphine tablets to a police informant who was wearing a recording device.
After that conviction but before sentencing, the high court threw out a different case involving warrantless recordings, citing privacy protections in the Montana Constitution. In a 6-1 decision Oct. 27, it applied that ruling retroactively to the Reichmand case, shooting down the conviction.
Read more in the Helena Independent Record.