In this, she was not alone — attorneys, advocates, lawmakers, even the lawyer who argued before the nine justices on Shannon Blake’s behalf, were all surprised that the court would take the case of a woman with drugs in her jeans pocket to such lengths.
“This just came out of the sky one day,” said Vomacka, a defense attorney based in Tukwila. Her reaction? “Stunned.”
For advocates of drug policy reform and those in the world of criminal defense, the ruling “was a much-needed nail in the coffin on the war on drugs,” said Ali Hohman, director of legal services at the Washington Defender Association. Meanwhile, many prosecutors, law
