Not that this really matters much to us anymore, but the Moscow-Pullman Daily News is reporting tonight that the marijuana charge against former WSU basketball player DeAngelo Casto has been dropped after a judge determined the police evidence had been obtained illegally.
To recap, police looked into the kitchen window of Casto's apartment because it was missing a screen, they believed they saw him rolling a joint, they knocked on the door and asked Casto to bring them the marijuana, which he did. In the days after the citation, Casto's attorney, Timothy Esser, told anyone who would listen that these charges would go nowhere because of circumstances of the search -- "This case is never going to get to first base," he said.
Esser argued immediately that this was, for all intents and purposes, a warrantless search -- in Washington, he said, police have to advise you that you do not have to bring them anything, which Pullman police did not do in this instance. Esser has characterized it as an "end-around" the law, and apparently the judge agreed.
Thus, the career of DeAngelo Casto comes to an end ... almost.
He's stopped attending classes to train for his professional career full time in Las Vegas, which means he's not going to pass his classes this semester. Given that Casto's academic standing has always been characterized as tenuous, it's probably safe to assume the Fs or Ws or whatever he's going to receive this semester will leave him no longer on pace to graduate. This is a problem for WSU's APR score, which receives a substantial penalty when a player leaves school in poor academic standing, which is measured by whether a player is making minimum progress towards a degree.
How much of a problem it is remains to be seen. The new APR scores, which will factor in all of last year's transfers, won't come out for another couple of months. Although anytime a player leaves before graduating it hurts the APR, last year's transfers shouldn't cause too much trouble, since all were reportedly in good academic standing when they left.
Additionally, it's a four-year rolling score that the NCAA uses for any potential penalties. So, as long as Klay Thompson follows through with finishing out the semester (as he's said he will) and Casto's the only one leaving in poor academic standing, it shouldn't be a huge deal. But this is something that will bear watching.