Colorado Supreme Court refuses to order book store to turn over sales records

Associated Press / SFGate

[RCW2001]

Monday, April 8, 2002
©2002 Associated Press

URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2002/04/08/national1025EDT0540.DTL

(04-08) 07:25 PDT DENVER (AP) --

The Colorado Supreme Court refused Monday to order a book store to turn over its sales records to police as part of a drug investigation.

In a 53-page decision, the judges said police erred when they went after the records to establish what books a suspect had purchased.

The decision overturns a Denver district judge who ordered Tattered Cover Book Store owner Joyce Meskis to tell police who purchased two books on drug manufacturing from her store.

Meskis argued that the order violated her customers' First Amendment rights.

Attorneys for police and prosecutors said the investigators had no other way to prove who owned the book, which they said is critical to their investigation.

Police sought the records after finding an envelope from the bookstore outside a mobile home they had raided. Inside the home were a methamphetamine lab and the drug-making how-to books.

©2002 Associated Press  

[coloradan]

Bump

[Rowdee]

Hoorah....one for the good guys.

[freedomcrusader]

I'm glad they ruled the way they did, but I wonder what their ruling would have been if it had been books about bomb or gun making.

[Mfkmmof4]

Oh thank God!! So what if someone is reading those books they are written to be read.

[TLI]

One ruling at a time, apparently, is the best we can hope for in the current "guilty until you can prove your innocence" legal world. 

Gosh, hasn't the "war on drugs" just absolutely cured all American ills?

BELCH!

[justshutupandtakeit]

They must have read the books without leaving fingerprints.

[Mr. Bird]

I'm neither gladdened or saddened by this, but I sure hope it's not used as some sort of wide-ranging precedent. Philosophically, I thought the warrant was legit. How does the implication of expression (the owner's defense in this case, under the First Amendment) differ here from attempting to link a murderer to a specific purchase of apparrel? I'm thinking of Bruno Magli shoes, specifically.

I understand that possession of the book(s) is not a crime, but doesn't the existence of a meth lab provide a mitigating reason for attempting to make the link? If a kidnapper composes a ransom note in heiroglyphics and the police discover a book on the subject in a suspect's car, isn't that evidence, to be deemed relevant or not by a jury?

[Ecliptic]

How may books on heiroglyphics do you think exist and should everyone who owns one be a suspect?? This is circumstantial evidence and is why a case is difficult to be made with such evidence.....

[Mr. Bird]

Circumstantial evidence is not invalid evidence. In my example, do you believe discovery of the book on heiroglyphics is irrelevant? I don't, and I don't think that discovery of a book illustrating how to construct a meth lab is either. A judge apparently agreed, by signing off on the warrant. How does the fact that the piece of evidence is a book change its value as evidence? For crying out loud, the defense in the OJ trial was allowed to discredit a cop (Fuhrman) based on things he said (deemed racist). Speech, while protected as an act, can still be evidence. This ruling seems to be hinging on that mythical right of privacy.....

[KeepUSfree]

From what I recall from the original article, they didn't actually find a "meth lab", they found "things that could be used to make meth" - which, I guarantee, about 70% of the population has in thier house (they are common items and meth is easy to make).

[Tauzero]

"I'm glad they ruled the way they did, but I wonder what their ruling would have been if it had been books about bomb or gun making."

Bump to that.

[kitchen]

No need to wonder. Roy Romer was governor for a long time.

[PatrioticAmerican]

Excellent!

[tdadams]

Attorneys for police and prosecutors said the investigators had no other way to prove who owned the book, which they said is critical to their investigation.

Tough noogies. Without the constraint of the courts, I'm sure there's nothing the police and prosecutors would see as out of bounds in order to get a conviction. They have to be held in check.

An opposite ruling would have certainly had a chilling affect on free speech, if every bookstore owner and publisher thought they may be complicit in aiding a criminal act for printing or selling questionable material.

[HiTech RedNeck]

that mythical right of privacy

As in the 4th Amendment?

[HiTech RedNeck]

An opposite ruling would have certainly had a chilling affect on free speech, if every bookstore owner and publisher thought they may be complicit in aiding a criminal act for printing or selling questionable material.

This is possible; it also would chill the distribution and perusal of unpopular opinions because the sales of the associated material would be considered a legal fishbowl. Had this gone the other way, this also would impact Free Republic; Jim Rob could be forced to provide the mapping between freeper IDs and email addresses simply because a freeper talked about meth labs (or various banned guns, etc.)