Guilty until proven innocent. Or just guilty. It worked for dictators, why not for us?
Federal Appeals Court: Driving With Money is a Crime
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.
Here’s a link to a pdf of the court brief.
You can always count on American courts to uphold lousy police work. Expanding repression is just part of the whole package, nowadays.
Seig Heil, Mein Furher!
Ja, JUST an arrest on”suspicion” MUST mean he’s guilty!!!
It’s a heartbreaker. It used to be a capitalist country, not a fascist country.
Why didn’t they go to a bank and get a cashier’s check?
Oh wait, most latino residents of this country don’t trust the banks. Besides, then it would mean that they have to show this sum of money to the government, and there would be questions of taxiation.
Give it 20 years, and all of these type situations will be over… The new Latin MAJORITY in the U.S. will take over the government LEGALLY. They are already organized in the southern U.S. Is this a bad thing. Well, who knows. As a white guy, who’s grandparents emmegrated from Eastern Europe writing this, I think I need to encourage my children to learn Spanish. It should be easier for them to learn than Russian or Chinese at least!
The Latino population is experiencing some of the same bigotry that the Irish, Italian, Russian, Polish, etc. experienced back from the 1800’s and early 20th century. How quickly we forget.
You have to understand that cash purchases undermine the great American way, the pursuit of happiness through huge credit balances, high interest rates, penalty fees, and personal debt.
Get your head around it boys. This is a police state. If you want to keep your property now days you are going to have to be smarter than the cops. Fortunately, that isn’t hard.
Since it has been the fashion of the government to engage in hyperbolic “wars” against various things over that past 40 years, I don’t see why the relevent executive agencies haven’t used the President’s special “war powers” more agressively against these kinds of scum. We should have built an off-shore detainment camp for suspected drug traffickers a long time ago.
Man… In a situation like this… I can only say one thing.
That’s just F’ed up…
Nothing more should even need to be said… I used to be proud of this country.
Not since the Ohio National Guard murdered students at Kent State have I been so ashamed to be an American.
does anyone know what the limit is?
When does a sum of cash become a ‘large’ sum of cash?
“When does a sum of cash become a ‘large’ sum of cash?”
I am pretty sure it is only $10,000. I saw a show on tv once where the “suspect” was found carrying $9,980. Not enough to be seized. So the cop threw in $20 of his own money. Viola! Confiscation!
As far as drug sniffing dogs, I sometimes wonder if the government doesn’t add drugs to the ink used to print the money thereby guaranteeing a hit if large amounts of cash are bundled together. 🙂
#10…That’s part of the problem. There is no limit. Depends on how the cops feel that day.
In General, this is the sort of thing you get when you keep electing Republicans and Democrats over the decades. In the future, everything that is not prohibited will be manditory. Some things of course will be both.
For this one, sign me
Winston Smith
3,
NOt a big step to take…
THIs is CRAP…
I know independant truckers that Have $100,000 in arms reach, not to mention a CORPORATE Visa/MC with LOTS more on it..
This is just STUPID bull crap.
It used to be that any transaction of $10k or more had to be reported. Now, it’s $5k.
Lots of info here: http://www.fincen.gov
This sort of thing makes me very concerned for the USA and it’s claimed “innocence until proven guilty” and widely claimed vaunted personal freedoms.
How can one possibly respect either the law or those who are sworn to uphold it (police, prosecutors and judges) when this kind of arbitrary “lawmaking” is done in such a capricious way? The fact that this finding comes from a Circuit Appeals Court makes this even worse. Much worse.
The founding fathers of our Republic would be appalled at such convoluted and specious reasoning. This is the kind of rationale that turns the police into little more than pirates working the highways as armed, uniformed representatives for a criminal organization. “You’ve got too much”, or “You’ve got more than me”, or “You’ve got something that I want” are the same rationale that all shades of crooks and thieves use to “confiscate”, even if we call the band of brigands “government”.
I can maybe understand the cops getting it wrong (what with the confused dog, and all), but trained, law-educated jurists are supposed to be there to ensure that justice is done. This was NOT justice. It was, and is, an outrage.
This is the sort of thing that makes it embarrassing to admit to being an American. I only wish it were the only example, but it is not. How can we possibly lecture the rest of the world about morality and integrity when our own basic institutions have got it so wrong? The only glimmer of hope (and that is all that it is – a glimmer) is Judge Lay’s dissenting opinion. Once again I find myself weeping for the ideal that was America.
An embarrassed and disappointed American,
RB Young
At least the strong dissent will give him grounds to appeal this travesty.
In the next 20 years, there will be a revolution. if this country keeps going the way it is, the people will not stand for it any longer. ‘nough said.
such a nice picture… sad to see it attached to such a lousy story…
oh, and Eric, I find your projection optimistic, 20 is too soon
#17 #In the next 20 years, there will be a revolution. if this country keeps going the way it is, the people will not stand for it any longer. ‘nough said.
Comment by Eric — 8/21/2006 @ 12:25 pm
I’d like to tell you what foolish thinking you are doing there… But I am more and more convinced that a revolution wouldn’t be such a bad thing, except for my fear of what sort of neo-conservative, theacratic government would take our current governments place…
But then again, if we find ourselves teetering on the edge of revolution, They’ll just come out with a new version of Survivor or American Idol, only in this one, losers will be fed to hungry tigers or something… We’ll all be distracted and the merging of the police state and government by corporation can continue unabated.
WELL,
we could start fixing from the TOP, that would take YEARs and not fix whats under the TOP soil…
DIg to the bottom and FIX from there…
Then put a No fly/money zone around it…
We just need to pass the FairTax. This sort of thing will be commonplace (large sums of money), and the government will get all it needs.
Quick, dig up Ben Franklin and get him hooked to a turbine! At the rate he’s spinning in his grave we could probably power the entire north east
Just thought I would brighten your day fellas………this is the same Appeals Court that will hear the appeal of the goverment against the ACLU over the warantless eavesdropping 🙂
Wanna bet on the results?
Anything over 10k is money laundering, no matter what! Why couldn’t he just put it in a bank account?
Ah, the Land of Opportunity. Just don’t bring enough money to buy opportunity if you’re not white.
Though I do salute you, John, for bringing this to everyone’s attention, I want to do more than post a comment on a blog. Is there anyone to contact to protest this? Is there a way to push this in front of more people, or get it on the news? The world should stop until this injustice is corrected.