Does the Buck stop here?

[madamesilverspurs]

A while back I posted a snippet about our ultra-Republican D.A. selling T-shirts to help pay for his defense against an ACLU suit (involving methods used in a case involving alleged illegal aliens):
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5002644

Since then, our local Weld County judges recused themselves, which is why a judge from neighboring Larimer County is mentioned in the story:




Buck's Election Vehicle Skidding Out of Control?

by: Colorado Pols
Wed Mar 11, 2009 at 08:32:02 AM MDT

Republican Weld County D.A. Ken Buck, who stepped into the spotlight last week by expressing interest in a run for U.S. Senate in 2010, is in the middle of a high-profile investigation of over 1,300 alleged illegal immigrant workers who are accused of using false Social Security numbers to seek employment, while using federal "ITIN" numbers to (legally) file their taxes.
A case with obvious political overtones, revisited by many in the wake of Buck's sort-of announcement of future political aspirations, sure to galvanize both support and opposition from voters on both sides of the aisle.

Unfortunately for Ken Buck, it's a case that may be in the process of disintegrating under allegations of abuse of power, and an investigation so broad and sweeping it's being successfully challenged in court as a "fishing expedition." As the Greeley Tribune reports:


After a day and a half of testimony, Larimer District Court Chief Judge James Hiatt ordered that all information used in Operation Number Games to arrest suspected illegal immigrants in the past few months will have to sit locked up, untouched.
Hiatt ordered the temporary "freeze" on the operation - from sharing information, to investigating, to pursuing suspects - to preserve the peace, so to speak, while he decides whether the search warrant that led to more than 1,300 people being identified as suspects was carried out lawfully...

The ACLU has sued Weld District Attorney Ken Buck and Weld Sheriff John Cooke on behalf of Amalia Cerrillo, the tax preparer whose files were raided last October while deputies searched for suspects committing identity theft. The ACLU claims the search warrant was too broad in its scope, amounting to a fishing expedition. In all, 5,000 client files were seized and copied by deputies.

Weld District Court Judge James Hartmann agreed when he issued a ruling in one of his criminal cases on Monday stating the search violated the suspect Ramon Gutierrez's Fourth Amendment rights against unlawful search and seizure. Hartmann also threw out the search warrant because there wasn't probable cause...

In his reasoning for a freeze, Hiatt argued that more harm could come to suspects whose tax information is being used against them, especially in the event that investigators visit suspects' employers - acts that attorneys argued have become catalysts for employees being fired.

We're pretty far from the end of the road here, as this is a temporary ruling and other decisions mentioned above are certain to be appealed to at least the Colorado Supreme Court. And it's also worth pointing out that even if the whole thing ends in disaster for Buck, there will still be a portion of Colorado voters who will lionize him for "going after the illegals."

But as several election cycles have proven, candidates branded as single issue anti-immigration fanatics can't win, certainly not statewide, and frequently damage more reasonable Republican candidates on their inevitable way to ignominy (see: Dave Schultheis, Tom Tancredo). Colorado voters also have this annoying penchant for getting all emotional about the, ah, Constitution.

Something tells us D.A. Buck will come to regret having this sordid business mixed up in the same news cycle as the words "I'm thinking about running for Senate," though he probably didn't think so a few weeks ago. We didn't think he was a serious contender for Senate anyway, but now?

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Just for kicks, you can find more stories about this at www.greeleytribune.com