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.” http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/12/1296.asp __________________________________________________________ This happens every day, people have property confiscated and unless they can prove (no longer innocent until proven guilty) that the property had nothing to do with drugs, they lose it without a trial, without being convicted or even charged with a crime. Here is a video from LEAP that outlines this and other issues. http://www.youtube.com/v/LayaGk0TMDc
andy i agree with you for the most part on the WOD, but this is a little misleading here. there was a huge sum of CASH, a rental car, a man who's name didn't match the rental agreement, and a dog that smelled the presence of drugs. granted i don't know how accurate drug dogs are, but i would assume they are pretty accurate. n/m i just did some research and there is question on the accuracy of drug dogs. i don't know i would like to see some definitive evidence and studies of the accuracy of well trained dogs. i would tend to believe dogs are extremely accurate, but the training is poor. anyhow...discuss
Just because someone has a suspicion of guilt doesn't make you guilty. I read that we have this innocent till proven guilty thing; I think we should stick to that precept.
I would support that a drug dog alert would be grounds for a search...for drugs. A large sum of cash in and of itself is not criminal. In any case, we are supposed to have the presumption of innocence in this country, a presumption that would require that criminal proceedings be brought in which the person in the possession of that cash was proven to have acquired it through criminal activity in order for the state to confiscate it. As it is, the state can take your money, your home, or any property simply by making the claim that it was used for "drug activity" or acquired as a result of such activity. At that point, the burden is placed on the rightful owner of the property to PROVE that such activity had not taken place. Proving a negative is nearly impossible in the first place and when combined with the furtive nature of the drug trade, proving that a house or boat or car had never been used for drug activity has about the odds of winning the lottery. Did the man warrant further suspicion? Yes, he had a large sum of cash in a car that a drug dog alerted on. However, it certainly seems that the phrases "due process of law" and "innocent until proven guilty" have been seriously perverted in the name of the drug war. The government doesn't even have to get an indictment much less a conviction to confiscate property, they merely need to make the accusation that the property was somehow involved in drug activity. Like the thread title says, just another day in the WoD.
sorry for some reason i completely disregarded the first sentence of the story. i've had a rough morning. after re-reading the story and seeing that large sums of money are automatically subject to confiscation i changed my opinion. this seems like it would make for a good supreme court case. but i am confused because the court ruled that large sums of money are subject to confiscation but in the story it made it sound like that a drug crime had to be established before they could confiscate the money.
No, a drug crime has to be merely alleged in order for them to confiscate any property. That could be your house, car, money, bank accounts, anything.
I knew this guy whose parents are immigrants. The were Legal and working and everything...I even think they're citizens now...anyhow for the longest of times, they didn't keep much money at all in bank accounts. They just didn't trust banks, and kept like $40,000 (life savings) in cash in a backpack that they took with them everywhere. There are probably a lot of old people/fobs/poor people/people who just don't know better...well not a lot, but there are definitely people in this country who carry around lots of cash FOR NO DRUG RELATED REASONS. And it would sure suck if some of these naive people get caught up in this stupid war on drugs, combined with the limiting-freedoms slant of the current justice system.
According to the statistics that I have seen, at the low end of estimates, 1/3 of all bills in circulation will test positive for traces of cocaine. Most likely if you have money in your wallet some of it would test positive for cocaine. Should that be sufficent grounds to arrest you?
Makes me want to join the police force in california park outside Jessica Alba's boyfriends house wait for them both to go out in the car pull them over and have my dog (who would be trained to bark at jessica alba) bark at her tell them that my dog alerted on Jessica as possibly being used in a drug transaction confiscate Jessica
What is interesting about this case was that the defendent wasn't Mr. Gonzales but the money itself, US v. $124,000 of Currency. While the government confiscated the money from Gonzales it wasn't a matter that Gonzales had committed a crime but that the money itself had been involved in a crime. Therefore Gonzales is innocent but he is out of the money since it was ruled that the money is guilty.
It is just outrageous. I agree with the poster above who said it is tailor made for the Supreme Court, which should toss this ruling in the dumpster, where it belongs. Keep D&D Civil.
So does the money get a court provided attorney? I mean it is money. The part where they say in the Miranda bit, "If you can not afford an attorney one will be provided you by the courts." clearly doesn't apply? Does money have civil rights? If you can just sue someone's stuff, is that not a de facto way to circumvent civil rights? I have no idea how any judge can possibly consider it to be in line with the bill of rights and the constitution but this particular legal maneuver has been around forever - I think since Reagan's second term.
^ Good questions Otto and I don't know the answer to any of them. I heard about this case on NPR and the guy doing the story said that this case wasn't unusual in regard to a piece of property being the defendent and that there have been many cases where cash, a house, a car or a boat was the defendent.
Yep, this is how they get around the "due process" and "presumption of innocence" guarantees. Since the property is not a person, it does not have those rights and as such, can be confiscated at any time. Some of the things that are being justified in the name of the WoD are unbelieveable.
