Come on drug warriors and big government types...defend this. Remember, no complaining will be allowed when this happens to you or someone you care about.
Pre-crime
He wasn’t on the list of protected curriers. They were just eliminating the competition.
What if the compartment was for hiding his porn stash from his girlfriend? Or, his beer from his freeloading friends? What if he just wanted some place to try to conceal his valuables while traveling?
So, anything that “conceals” a space in your vehicle is assumed automatically to be drug related and thus punishable? So, if the spare tire well in the trunk is empty......am I violating the law in Ohio?
How far we have fallen. Many of our founding fathers were smugglers living under the tyranny of the English overlords. Substitute “New England” for “England” and you know that we are in the same predicament.
If there are obvious wires running to a compartment, then it is de facto, not a hidden compartment.
Wasn’t it Louissianna where if you got stopped with a couple of thousand dollars in your pocket they took the money and said it was drug money?
The precedent on this type of horsepoo was set by things like....
1. “Prima fascia (sic?)” laws.....making the possession of something or commission of an act illegal WITHOUT any need to show intent to commit a real crime.
2. “Ignorance of the law is no excuse” horsepoo. Back when THE LAW was the 10 Commandments and 10 Amendments....this might of held some water. Assumption is that the person DOES know, but is merely lying about his ignorance to avoid punishment. HOWEVER, how many Indians were hung because in some of their many cultures there was no concept of “owning land” or upon finding something unattended supposed that it was abandoned? Is this any different than the white man’s law of salvage?
3. Drug paraphernalia horsepoo laws.....you can be sent up the river on drug charges for having a corncob pipe and BIC lighter if you left your tobaky on the dresser when you headed out to the bar.
4. Possession of criminal tools horsepoo laws.....screwdrivers, hammers, axes, etc....are “criminal tools” if found by a zealous enforcement type that wants to show you where the smoky bear poos in the woods.
....and it goes on.
They couldn’t tag this guy by his car/license and location and wait until he actually BREAKS A REAL LAW? Instead they MAKE UP A LAW for him to break.
Reeks of ex-posto facto and a bills of attainder.
We are one step short of just being YOU being illegal.
It is f%$king evil.
It has happened before....it is happening now.
DO NOT CONSENT.
Defend your liberty.
Not your comfort.
This story is along the same line as getting busted for possession of ziplock bags.
If you let people have secret compartments in their car, they might use them to hide Jews.
Another victim of the WOD. Now it is illegal to even LOOK like you MIGHT smuggle drugs. When will it end?
I used to have a 1973 Jeep Renegade with a hidden compartment under the driver’s seat. The only Jeep I have ever seen one on.
I knew a twenty-something who drove a near comical wreck of an old Mazda. To add to the comedic value of his ride he affixed a Mercedes three-point star emblem to it. He got a ticket for altering the marque of the vehical. Apparently there is a law on the books in some states that makes it a crime to obscure the make of your car.
This is a police state, they just let you live here. Maybe.
Ohio Ping
Norman Gurley, 30, is facing drug-related charges in Lorain County, Ohio, despite the fact that state troopers did not actually find any drugs in his possession.
Ohio passed a law in 2012 making it a felony to alter a vehicle to add a secret compartment with the “intent” of using it to conceal drugs for trafficking.
Gurley is the first actual person arrested under the law. WKYC in Northeast Ohio covered the arrest,
I would say understand this if a drug dog hit on the compartment...but other than that...ridiculous
The cops need to get the arrest numbers up, so they arrest people who haven’t commited a crime. They’re usually normal people without a lot of money, and they can’t fight the charges, and there are no ‘civil rights’ lawyers waiting to help them out.
Well in my state the cops would do about 5 illegal anal probes and a surgery to discover no drugs.
Next up “man arrested for having a rectum which could be used to hide drugs”. Oh wait... Never mind.
“But, Your Honor, I only installed that secret compartment so that I could smuggle Mexicans over the border”.
“CASE DISMISSED!”