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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)
RE: Illegals in particular don't use banks and deal in cash.
That was then, now banks cater to them.
( No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo!)
A few years back the Kansas City Star ran a six part series about asset forfeiture and several of the law enforcement agencies that profit handsomely from it. Some agencies even let individual officers keep a portion of the take. Chilling stuff.
You don't know much about the way a lot of independent truckers do business do you? Some of them are ornery, independent minded mavericks who don't always go by the same rules the rest of us do. Quite a few deal mostly in cash, sometimes large amounts of cash.
I know because I used to buy and sell used cars, trucks, and RVs for a living way back in the early 1980s after Carter's economy put me out of my previous business, and I dealt with truckers quite often. Once a scruffy looking old guy who smelled like a wet dog brought a paper bag of bills into my office and counted out $24,000 in 100 dollar bills to pay for a vehicle. That may not be the smartest thing to do if you travel around the country a lot, but he wasn't breaking any law by doing it.
( No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo!)
See 86
( No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo!)
No matter who is in power they can ruin your life in a second.
Seize your cash (WoD)
Seize you property (Kelo)
For no reason at all
"You're papers please"
Ridiculous. When just having cash is taken as evidence of a crime, then there is something far wrong with how we are doing things.
( No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo!)
( No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo!)
Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
ping
( No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo!)
Have you tried transferring any money post 9/11? Expect major delays in transfering your money.
oops sorry i didnt see you wanted to be added to my list until after i pinged the story. your added now though.
I have been making reasonable arguments throughout, so please do me the courtesy of skipping the insults right now.
Cash transactions are one thing when the amount is not excessively large and the parties that one is dealing with are well-known or otherwise have verifiable, established ties to the community or local area. As a businessman, you are putting yourself at potential risk in two ways if you deal with just any Johnny-out-of-town with a duffel bag full of cash: you could end up hurting your own reputation and you could end up with legal or bureaucratic hassle later on down the road. One is running the risk that the purchaser acquired that large amount of cash in some illegitimate way; why put your hard-earned reputation at risk for someone you don't know?
Additionally, if word gets around that one deals with large amounts of cash, then that will increase one's risk for being a victim of either burglary or robbery. That seems like common sense; I'm surprised that no one has mentioned it before.
I'm sure that any of us here at Free Republic could, if we were facing the possible loss of $125 grand, be able to satisfactorily demonstrate that we came by that money honestly. You may say that one shouldn't have to, but the fact is, that if such an amount was acquired legally, then one is certainly capable of demonstrating that. Since it appears that the men in this case did not do that, then it follows that they couldn't, and thus it is more than likely that such money was not acquired legally.
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