Mother with 4 kids stopped with $237,000 cash in Rosenberg

[INVAR]

One person's "reasonable," may be another person's "unreasonable"

Many very fine citizens think it is "reasonable" to seize the funds associated with criminal activity.

So do most courts.

God forbid for you the day soon comes when many very fine citizens think it is "reasonable" to seize your home, your wealth and your property because you are white and guilty of the crime of White Privilege because of your skin color and heritage.

It will be fun to listen to people like you squeal in outrage when the "courts" will be in agreement with them, and you have no standing whatsoever, because you empowered the precedent that you must prove your innocence from any charges levied at you.

As you said - one person's "reasonable" will one day be your "unreasonable" - and then - too bad for you.

[RAT Patrol]

Huh?  That is what our court system is all about.  You could paint any arrest in that way.  They are innocent until proven guilty so....what?  No holding them or requiring bail?  When there is enough suspicion then you get what you get.  The lady was stupid to play so loose with that much money in the first place.  We are a nation of laws and if you break them, you pay.  Our legal system is set up where you get your day in court and the burden of proof is on the prosecution.  But suspicious activity will land you in the middle for a while.   It is a process.  You guys want to blame law enforcement for noticing and acting on the suspicious behavior.  Is it perhaps because you don't like drug laws in the first place?

[DB]

Yep. Criminal activity, proven beyond a reasonable doubt, in a court of law.

That hasn't happened there.

It is not a requirement of Civil Asset Forfeiture laws. No person need even be charged with a crime. The asset is taken with the presumption that the asset is 'guilty' of being the result of illicit activity or used there in, and no proof is needed beyond that suspicion for the government to keep it.
Contrary to the presumption of innocence of a person, the asset is deemed 'guilty' and taken, and the only recourse is for the owner to sue the government to get it back, a proposition which is expensive and has no guarantee of returning the asset, even to someone who is innocent.


If the policeman wants to search your vehicle and you decline, is that probable cause? That is what the whole dog sniff is for--to get probable cause.

Some consider it so, because otherwise, you wouldn't have anything to hide.

As someone who commonly had a 1 ton van full of gear, computers and scientific equipment, and personal effects on the way to and from well sites, the last thing I needed would be for someone who had no regard for the contents of that vehicle, on which my making a living depended, dragging my stuff out on the side of the road and digging through it without regard for sensitive equipment. That, and when traveling from a well, I had commonly worked between 12 and 24 hours prior to loading up and driving home. Tired, but not to the point of falling asleep at the wheel, I might not be so patient, diplomatic, nor really see the need for someone to go digging through my stuff on a fishing expedition.
 
Argue with that, though, and now you are "resisting" or "interfering with an investigation", so protesting that 'there is nothing to find' is a crime, too. Now, you can be arrested for a chargeable offense.

Those who watch the shows like "Cops" may be inured to the fact that obviously the people being patted down, having their cars searched, handcuffed and having their pockets turned out invariably are doing something illegal. Yeah, what's the fun of showing mom and pop getting shook down and not getting arrested for drugs or paraphernalia? It makes for lousy reality TeeVee, but the message that gets across to the average viewer is that somehow this only happens to the guilty, never to innocent people. In the meantime, those same TV watchers will be subtly convinced this only happens to bad guys and never to people who are conducting legitimate business or simply in transit. 

If there is a reason, some probable cause other than being suspicious of everyone as a profession and seeing something they don't understand, that's one thing. Picking people at random isn't probable cause. Taking their stuff without charging them with a crime isn't right, and without convicting them, there is no standard of proof that anything is the result of illegal activity other than "suspicion" by someone who is paid to be suspicious. That's a far cry from "beyond a reasonable doubt".

I'll just add that with current asset forfeiture laws law enforcement has a strong incentive to find and take your money whenever they can. They often get to keep it and use it for their own uses. If it is fought in court, it doesn't come out their budget. That incentive further corrupts the entire process. It turns law enforcement into legalized highwaymen.

[DB]

Huh?  That is what our court system is all about.  You could paint any arrest in that way.  They are innocent until proven guilty so....what?  No holding them or requiring bail?  When there is enough suspicion then you get what you get.  The lady was stupid to play so loose with that much money in the first place.  We are a nation of laws and if you break them, you pay.  Our legal system is set up where you get your day in court and the burden of proof is on the prosecution.  But suspicious activity will land you in the middle for a while.   It is a process.  You guys want to blame law enforcement for noticing and acting on the suspicious behavior.  Is it perhaps because you don't like drug laws in the first place?

Arrests are made by evidence someone broke the law. Not suspected of breaking the law without evidence.

What law did she break as evidenced by her car stop.

[roamer_1]

You guys want to blame law enforcement for noticing and acting on the suspicious behavior.  Is it perhaps because you don't like drug laws in the first place?

No, I am objecting to amounts of cash being suspicious behavior.

If I were still a player, and went over to the big car auction in WA, I would surely be traveling with 50 to 100 k in cash. And all I have to do is get pulled over and searched by a cop and suddenly all my cash is seized? That is nothing but bullshit.

[the_doc]

Many very fine citizens think it is "reasonable" to seize the funds associated with criminal activity.

So do most courts.

"Many fine citizens" don't realize what is at stake in this.  Creeping Socialism is Creeping Tyranny.  Police departments, in fact, have been plausibly accused of raising phony suspicions against guys they don't like in order to seize assets for their departments--and there is no meaningful oversight to block this where it needs to be blocked, i.e. at the very start.

***

You don't seem to understand fully why so many of us on TBR are outraged over CAF.  This is seen in the fact that you finessed the argument in your post by talking about the manifestly appropriate seizure of funds associated with criminal activity.  You have actually created a straw man argument.  The problem is that we are not talking about "mere" criminal activity.  We are talking about suspected criminal activity, which under Common Law is not criminal activity at all.    The activity may be presumed criminal activity under Admiralty Law, but our Framers did not envision Admiralty Law being used in this way against regular citizens.  The legal requirement of due process for all regular citizens should be understood as slamming the door on the abusive application of Admiralty Law (which got really bad under the Socialist FDR).

And the fact that our courts don't always seem to be worried about the whole thing is not a proper argument.  Our courts have been straying away from the intent of our Framers for a very long time.  And it is getting worse--because more than half of our federal judges are progessivists.  Well over 30 percent of federal judges (forty percent?) are Obama appointees. 

[DB]

Huh?  That is what our court system is all about.  You could paint any arrest in that way.  They are innocent until proven guilty so....what?  No holding them or requiring bail?  When there is enough suspicion then you get what you get.  The lady was stupid to play so loose with that much money in the first place.  We are a nation of laws and if you break them, you pay.  Our legal system is set up where you get your day in court and the burden of proof is on the prosecution.  But suspicious activity will land you in the middle for a while.   It is a process.  You guys want to blame law enforcement for noticing and acting on the suspicious behavior.  Is it perhaps because you don't like drug laws in the first place?

Police can be suspicious a particular person murdered someone else. Without actual evidence of that they cannot arrest them for that crime. It is how our legal systems works. Evidence is finding blood, the likely weapon used, etc... Absent those things they have no evidence regardless of their suspicions.

Carrying cash is not a crime. If you want it to be, pass a law that says so. Let people know what the threshold of legally carrying cash is so they can have some clue when law enforcement will take it or not.

If someone unknown to you wants to buy your $150,000 collector car, are you going to take a check? A wire transfer? You do know that the bank can later reverse those things, even the wire transfer, when they determine that the source of the money was fraudulent. Lots of people use cash at auctions and specialty transactions, especially when trying to get a better deal. When the cash and item change hands the deal is complete without further complications.

[Smokin Joe]

Huh?  That is what our court system is all about.  You could paint any arrest in that way.  They are innocent until proven guilty so....what?  No holding them or requiring bail?  When there is enough suspicion then you get what you get.  The lady was stupid to play so loose with that much money in the first place.  We are a nation of laws and if you break them, you pay.  Our legal system is set up where you get your day in court and the burden of proof is on the prosecution.  But suspicious activity will land you in the middle for a while.   It is a process.  You guys want to blame law enforcement for noticing and acting on the suspicious behavior.  Is it perhaps because you don't like drug laws in the first place?

What drugs? What proof?
This person was searched after someone got the doggie to give them probable cause and the money was found then.
Did the dog alert for 'drugs'? Probably, but that doesn't mean this had anything to do with drugs. With that much currency, just the contamination on the bills was likely enough for them to get a reaction from the drug dog.

As for "drugs" read this:

In a study reported in Forensic Science International, A.J. Jenkins, at the Office of the Cuyahoga County Coroner (Cleveland, OH), the author reports the analysis of ten randomly collected one-dollar bills from five cities, and tested for cocaine, heroin, 6-acetylmorphine (also called "6-AM"), morphine, codeine, methamphetamine, amphetamine and phencyclidine (PCP). Bills were then immersed in acetonitrile for two hours prior to extraction and subjected to Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis. Results demonstrated that "92% of the bills were positive for cocaine with a mean amount of 28.75 ± 139.07 micrograms per bill, a median of 1.37 μg per bill, and a range of 0.01-922.72 μg per bill. Heroin was detected in seven bills in amounts ranging from 0.03 to 168.5 μg per bill: 6-AM and morphine were detected in three bills; methamphetamine and amphetamine in three and one bills, respectively, and PCP was detected in two bills in amounts of 0.78 and 1.87 μg per bill. Codeine was not detected in any of the one-dollar bills analyzed". The study confirmed that although paper currency was most often contaminated with cocaine, other drugs of abuse may also be detected in bills.[4][5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_currency

Now, once again, with feeling....

Civil Asset Forfeiture Laws DO NOT require that the owner of the asset be convicted, nor even charged with a crime. The assumption is that the asset is 'guilty' of being something derived from illicit activity or used in illicit activity, and the asset is deemed forfeit, confiscated , and the proceeds from the sale of the asset are distributed, in part to the agency which confiscated it. The asset need not be anything illegal, in and of itself.

In order for an person not charged with, or found not guilty in court of any charges, to get their property back, that person must sue the confiscating jurisdiction to get the asset back. There are no guarantees that the expenses incurred will result in the return of the original asset. While impounded property may be returned after someone accused is exonerated, NO property seized under Civil Asset Forfeiture Laws is automatically returned to the owner, and often, there are no charges to be cleared of and no trial involved in the seizure of the asset. There is a distinct difference in the legal treatment of "impounded property" and assets seized under Asset Forfeiture laws.

Small confiscations of cash are commonly not challenged, for economic reasons (costs more to sue than the amount taken), not because anyone is guilty. A few thousand dollars can be taken before the cost of getting the asset back is at break-even with the legal costs to do so, and that is a risk, because absolutely nothing is guaranteed in court.

We like to think that is all fair and that, but sometimes it just isn't.

As I said up thread. I'm all for the death penalty for those who deal illicit drugs. Give 'em a trial, get the verdict, march 'em to the yard, I'd volunteer for the firing squad. I can't recount the cost to my family over this sh*t, nor can I adequately express my contempt for the pushers out there in any language. Profanity is inadequate.
But I am still not willing to throw our 4th, 5th, and 14th Amendment Rights out the window and create major incentive for corruption of LEOs to fight this.

[Smokin Joe]

I'll just add that with current asset forfeiture laws law enforcement has a strong incentive to find and take your money whenever they can. They often get to keep it and use it for their own uses. If it is fought in court, it doesn't come out their budget. That incentive further corrupts the entire process. It turns law enforcement into legalized highwaymen.

Precisely. Creating an environment that encourages police to act lawlessly (will all of that money be logged in under CAF? that's a fair amount of paperwork). Smaller seizures of a few hundred dollars won't be fought--lawyers cost too much. Ka-Ching!
While most may well be honest officers, the temptation will always exist to just shake people down and 'score' (especially 'out of staters' who likely won't be back through).
We talk about the 'culture of corruption', but this sort of law just fosters it.

[INVAR]

Huh?  That is what our court system is all about.  You could paint any arrest in that way.  They are innocent until proven guilty so....what?  No holding them or requiring bail? 

You have to be charged with a crime in order to be held.  Lots of people who get pulled over get charged with having drug paraphernalia or drugs ON them, because having drugs on you is illegal, so they get charged with possession and arrested.

When there is enough suspicion then you get what you get.  The lady was stupid to play so loose with that much money in the first place. 

Suspicion is not a warrant for arrest without evidence.  What was she charged with that enabled the money to be confiscated?

We are a nation of laws and if you break them, you pay. 

What law was it exactly that she broke that she was charged with that granted the cops authority to confiscate her money?

Our legal system is set up where you get your day in court and the burden of proof is on the prosecution.  But suspicious activity will land you in the middle for a while.

Please cite for us where that is located in the Constitution- that we get to go to limbo on suspicious activity without evidence and without being charged with a crime.

It is a process. 

Yes.  A process that leads to tyranny.

You guys want to blame law enforcement for noticing and acting on the suspicious behavior.  Is it perhaps because you don't like drug laws in the first place?

It is because I learned firsthand how backwards and corrupt our law enforcement, courts and system is.

I no longer have blind faith and trust in the government and their agents that you do.

Government has proven itself lawless and corrupt and so have their agents.  They have broken the covenant and I for one will never trust them again.

I guard my liberty that jealously.

[TomSea]

I commend Law Enforcement on this again, we don't know the particulars, so all of this is idol speculation. If one wants to bring up the hot dog seller, that's valid, there is not enough here to know.  The Border Patrol may have wrongfully confiscated that one gent's truck, mentioned earlier in the thread.

And the drug task force has as one of its duties as in fact, to prevent laundering and the flow of currency where needed.

The specific goals of Houston HIDTA are to "create, broker and nurture multi-agency task force approaches for the measurable disruption and dismantling of narcotic, money laundering and drug gang organizations."

https://www.ncjrs.gov/ondcppubs/publications/enforce/hidta2001/hous-fs.html

For all we know, this does not qualify as a civil asset forfeiture; and no one will be putting down the men and women in blue who protect us down on such flimsy proof while I'm around.  They are trying to prevent the inflow of contraband in the USA.

No proof has been offered that this is definitely civil asset forfeiture.

[DB]

What law was it exactly that she broke that she was charged with that granted the cops authority to confiscate her money?

They just don't get it no matter how many times it is spelled out in detail it seems...

[INVAR]

They just don't get it no matter how many times it is spelled out in detail it seems...

They don't want to, because this kind of behavior by the State is a desired action that they do not consider to be tyranny, but a necessary action to give them the illusion of safety against the circumstances they fear.

Until of course this precedent of tyranny and confiscation of property without charges and due process is visited upon them.  But they will have enabled it to become an institution.

[TomSea]

She might be low on the totem pole, taking the goods to Mr. Big; maybe they don't care to charge her over this. Maybe she makes a deal to help them catch the higher ups.

[Smokin Joe]

She might be low on the totem pole, taking the goods to Mr. Big; maybe they don't care to charge her over this. Maybe she makes a deal to help them catch the higher ups.

Right.

If this is drug money, and they release her, how long do you think she will live?