Posted on 12/04/2017 10:53:15 AM PST by reaganaut1
The national revulsion against abusive civil asset forfeiture has not kept police from trying to pocket as much as they can from people who are innocent of any wrongdoing. A recent case shows how police can pressure motorists into waiving their right to contest seizure of money during a highway traffic stop.
Phil Parhamovich is a musician who lives in Wisconsin. For years, he’s been saving money for a music studio for his band – “The Dirt Brothers” – and had accumulated $91,800 by early 2017. He doesn’t much trust financial institutions and did not want to leave that large amount in his apartment, so he took the cash with him on a trip to Salt Lake City back in March. It was hidden inside one of the band’s large speakers.
He was driving along I-80 near Cheyenne, Wyoming on March 13, when he was pulled over by a state trooper because he wasn’t wearing his seatbelt. Phil answered the officer’s questions politely, but was soon ordered to get out of his vehicle and into the patrol car. The officer then began asking him questions that had nothing to do with his driving. After Phil said he was a musician, the officer probed him with questions about his band and its tour.
Then came the crucial, compound question that troopers probably practice, which went like this: “Is there anything in your vehicle that I should know about, such as guns, drugs, large amounts of cash, amphetamines, heroin, cocaine, marijuana, PCP, LSD, etc.?”
Questions like that, as the Institute for Justice notes in this release regarding the case, “are designed to be confusing because they group perfectly legal activities – like carrying large amounts of cash – with illegal ones – like trafficking in illegal drugs.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
That's depressing.
Thought that was the case. They should immediately charge anyone affiliated with this horrendous violation of the Constitution.
” a jumpy cop can arrest you, or possibly shoot you, with little provocation.”
Black Lives Matter BS
Cops have become nothing more than a bunch of road pirates
I don’t know why I haven’t seen you around for a while, but I’m glad your here. I saw your name on some older threads/posts I went though.
It is robbery. How does this idiot's cash relate to the "crime" of not wearing a seat belt? They're not interrelated and taking the man's sh!+ under that statute is aggravated robbery, plain and simple.
“It is high past time that Congress and the Executive branches come together to kick the Supreme Court in the teeth.”
The executive and legislature are the ones that wrote seizure laws in the first place. The courts are willing accomplices, but the other branches are the bad actors.
Civil asset forfeiture is Constitutional. It was used by our Founders who knew a thing or two about the Constitution they had written.
The problem is the widespread abuse of it. Like this example.
That says nothing.
Ordering this guy into his patrol car IS an arrest and requires a Miranda warning and the guy should have immediately requested to talk to his lawyer. You are not required to answer cop in a custodial interrogation (arrest) if you request a lawyer until your lawyer is present.
That’s not being “smart “ with a cop, but it is being smart and exercising your constitutional rights.
You should listen to this - informative and entertaining...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EZPGXHOj7M
“Now they are just rogue tax collectors with a gun and a license to steal. “
Just like Mexico! Free gas, free car, free bullets and a badge. Now, go out there and earn your living! American cops need to learn the Mexican term “pinche idiotas!”
“That was dumb as hell.”
But is wasn’t a crime!!!
Great video link, thanks.
1st Rule! Never talk to the cops.
2nd Rule! Never talk to the cops.
3rd Rule! Never talk to the cops.
Thanks!
Plenty of drug warriors (armchair division) on the FR.
“Statutory innocent owner defenses provide a check on the seizure power, although this burden lies with the owner, not the government.”
That is what is entirely wrong about such seizures. The burden of proof concerning the property SHOULD HAVE TO FOLLOW and be no less necessary, as far as seizures, as is the burden of proof about a crime itself. A mere accusation and arrest for a “crime” does not constitute the end-definition that an individual committed a crime because no court process has PROVED the individual guilty. The property cannot stand PROVEN guilty ahead of the individual.
The Supreme Court precedents permitting these seizures should be overturned. The property should not be able to be considered “guilty” by mere police accusation alone. It must require proof of that guilt, which must follow, not precede, conviction of the individual in court.
The seizure laws as they are now should be scrapped.
Without a conviction of an individual, their property should not be allowed to become the possession of the arresting agency or the prosecutors, in any fashion. The most they should be able to do - with strict terms of how any property qualifies - is to place the property in a custodian account held by a court, the same court where the individual will be tried, if they are tried.
If the individual is released without conviction, with or without a trial, the court should be required to immediately release their property. The law should not require the individual in that case to prove again anything, or to have to request return of the property. The request, by law, should be required to be made by the arresting agency, if there was no trial, or the prosecutors if there was. They should be liable for a civil suit and damages if they fail to make those requests.
bfl
And “immediate release” should be within 14 days. No more.
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