Posted on 08/20/2006 8:57:44 PM PDT by FreedomCalls
Eighth Circuit Appeals Court ruling says police may seize cash from motorists even in the absence of any evidence that a crime has been committed.
A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that if a motorist is carrying large sums of money, it is automatically subject to confiscation. In the case entitled, "United States of America v. $124,700 in U.S. Currency," the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit took that amount of cash away from Emiliano Gomez Gonzolez, a man with a "lack of significant criminal history" neither accused nor convicted of any crime.
On May 28, 2003, a Nebraska state trooper signaled Gonzolez to pull over his rented Ford Taurus on Interstate 80. The trooper intended to issue a speeding ticket, but noticed the Gonzolez's name was not on the rental contract. The trooper then proceeded to question Gonzolez -- who did not speak English well -- and search the car. The trooper found a cooler containing $124,700 in cash, which he confiscated. A trained drug sniffing dog barked at the rental car and the cash. For the police, this was all the evidence needed to establish a drug crime that allows the force to keep the seized money.
Associates of Gonzolez testified in court that they had pooled their life savings to purchase a refrigerated truck to start a produce business. Gonzolez flew on a one-way ticket to Chicago to buy a truck, but it had sold by the time he had arrived. Without a credit card of his own, he had a third-party rent one for him. Gonzolez hid the money in a cooler to keep it from being noticed and stolen. He was scared when the troopers began questioning him about it. There was no evidence disputing Gonzolez's story.
Yesterday the Eighth Circuit summarily dismissed Gonzolez's story. It overturned a lower court ruling that had found no evidence of drug activity, stating, "We respectfully disagree and reach a different conclusion... Possession of a large sum of cash is 'strong evidence' of a connection to drug activity."
Judge Donald Lay found the majority's reasoning faulty and issued a strong dissent.
"Notwithstanding the fact that claimants seemingly suspicious activities were reasoned away with plausible, and thus presumptively trustworthy, explanations which the government failed to contradict or rebut, I note that no drugs, drug paraphernalia, or drug records were recovered in connection with the seized money," Judge Lay wrote. "There is no evidence claimants were ever convicted of any drug-related crime, nor is there any indication the manner in which the currency was bundled was indicative of drug use or distribution."
"Finally, the mere fact that the canine alerted officers to the presence of drug residue in a rental car, no doubt driven by dozens, perhaps scores, of patrons during the course of a given year, coupled with the fact that the alert came from the same location where the currency was discovered, does little to connect the money to a controlled substance offense," Judge Lay Concluded.
The full text of the ruling is available in a 36k PDF file at the source link below.
Source: US v. $124,700 (US Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit, 8/19/2006)
Nope,
it's broke,
why else would it keep asking me for a loan?
Guilty of what?
There was no truck.
I reject your #4 in that we know he didn't have a credit card to rent a car with, so he had to have also paid cash for the plane ticket.
We don't know that. He claimed to have no friends with credit cards to rent a car on the trip out, but he was in a rented vehicle for the trip back.
Care to explain?
If folks don't like the law then they should get off their couch potatao a$$es and change them. Motorists get what they deserve when they allow dogs to sniff their persons and their cars on traffic stops. Welcome to fifth reich.
Sounds like Gonzales could not produce the person offering a truck for sale nor did those associates provide the courts with reasonable documentation of where the money came from either.
Who rented the car?
Who was selling the truck?
Did the person selling the supposed truck ever hear of this guy?
Could anyone show the bank slips where the money came from?
Sounds like cartel money to buy drugs or some form of money nobody ever paid taxes on.
Did everyone who came forward for this guy show their pay stubs of how this money was supposedly sourced?
Sounds like drug money, or untaxed money to me.
And it sounds like drug money to them. That's why they're so upset.
He went to meet with a friend in Chicago who knew someone with a truck for sale. When his friend picked him up at the airport, his friend told him the truck had already been sold. So why would he know the seller's name? He never met him. The deal fell through before he got to see him.
LOL
You are losing sight of the fact that he initially won his case. He provided the court with all the information they needed ("credible and plausible" was what they said) to find in his favor. It was the appellate court that reversed the decision. Normally an appellate court sends the case back for review if they find a flaw in procedure. They don't usually review to establish facts. If they do, they aren't allowing him a chance to add additional information that would corroborate his story and that IMO deprives him of due process.
Apparently everyone who was ready to allegedly turn the $125.000 in cash over to this phantom for his imaginary truck has forgottten his name and address as well.
Why is that funny? I've done exactly that. I went to buy a car from a third party that my brother-in-law knew. It was a garage that he used all the time. He was friends with the guy who owned from when they were in high school together. I never met him before. My brother-in-law and I were discussing my wife needing a car, and he suggested his friend who often resold cars he had worked on. My wife and I drove four hours up to meet the guy, look over the car, and buy it. I never met the guy beforehand and could not tell you his name now if you asked. I wrote a check out for $2400 and after we stayed for the weekend, my wife drove home in the car (a Taurus).
Remember, he initially gave a "credible and plausible" story and convinced a court of his side of the facts.
Carrying cash wrapped in aluminum foil home hidden in a cooler in the back of car rented for you by someone whose name you didn't know after your "brother-in-law" forgot the name and address of the "third party"?
That's one heck of a story!
One the courts found "credible and plausible."
He rented a car because he expected to drive the truck home instead. He wrapped the money in aluminum foil and put it in a cooler to hide it because his friend told him that it might get stolen if he didn't. Turns out his friend was right!
What was this "controlled sample of currency." Not a wad within an order of magnitude as large as the bundle in question. Anyhow, what should control if drug residue is really an issue is lab tests afterwards, not the dog.
One the courts just rejected.
He rented a car because he expected to drive the truck home instead.
Wrong. He testified that neither he nor any of his "friends" had a credit card to rent a vehicle to go there.
You seem to hoping to stumble across a point to make.
Good luck finding it.
You are just making stuff up now. Did you even read the case? He flew to Chicago to purchase the truck. He expected to drive a new truck back to his home. When the deal fell through, and his friend told him to be careful someone might want to steal that amount of money, then he decided to rent a car to drive home in since he didn't have a truck.
Wonder what the reputation was of the first judge he had?
Could be why they went this far.
It will deserve further inspection for sure.
I.e. you admit you're wrong and blame it all on me.
The point being that a drug dog is hardly likely to respond to seven bills when given a bundle of $124,700 beside them even if both stacks carry an equal amount of drug residue per bill.
It was the sole piece of evidence presented to support the government's case. So it is relevant how it was determined.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.