Then there is the appalling case of Donald Scott, a 61-year-old wealthy California recluse. Scott lived on a $5 million, 200-acre ranch in Malibu adjacent to a large recreational area maintained by the National Park Service. Tragically for him, in 1992 the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department received a false report that Scott was growing several thousand marijuana plants on his land. It assembled a team—including agents from the Los Angeles Police Department, the Park Service, the D.E.A., the Forest Service, the California National Guard and the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement—to investigate the tip, largely through the use of air and ground surveillance missions. Despite several unsuccessful efforts to corroborate the informant’s claim, and despite advice that Scott posed little threat of violence, the L.A. Sheriffs Department dispatched a multi-jurisdictional team to conduct a military-style raid. On October 2, 1992, at 8:30 A.M., thirty officers descended upon the Scott ranch with high-powered weapons, flak jackets, dogs, a battering ram and what purported to be a lawful search warrant. After knocking and announcing their presence, they kicked in the door and rushed through the house. There they saw Scott, armed with a gun in response to his wife’s screams. With Scott’s wife watching in horror, agents fired two bullets into Scott’s chest and killed him. They found no marijuana plants, other drugs or paraphernalia anywhere.
Following Scott’s death, the Ventura County District Attorney’s office conducted a five-month investigation of the raid. The seventy-page report found that there was no credible evidence of present or past marijuana cultivation on Donald Scott’s property. It found that the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department knowingly sought the search warrant on legally insufficient information, and that much of the information supporting the warrant was false while exculpatory evidence was withheld from the judge. The report concluded that the search warrant “became Donald Scott’s death warrant,” and that Scott was needlessly killed.
The targeting of Donald Scott, and the massive multi-jurisdictional police presence, cannot be explained as any kind of crime control strategy. Rather, as the District Attorney’s report concluded, one purpose of this operation was to garner the proceeds expected from forfeiture of the $5 million ranch. The investigation found that as they invaded the property, the officers—with two asset forfeiture specialists in tow—were armed with a property appraisal of Scott’s ranch, a parcel map of the ranch marked with the sale price of a nearby property and instructions to seize the ranch if at least fourteen marijuana plants were found.
Nicholas Gutsue, executor of the Scotts estate, notes that Scott had repeatedly refused to sell his scenic 200-acre ranch to the National Park Service, which wanted to make it part of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. Gutsue suspects that a deal was struck: After the raid, the police would seize the $5-million ranch under federal forfeiture law, which allows the government to take property used to commit a drug crime. The Park Service would buy the land, and the other participating agencies would share the proceeds. Gutsue notes that Park Service rangers took part in the raid, along with county, state, and federal drug warriors.
So, with all of that evidence, was Mrs. Scott able to sue? What was the outcome in this case?