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Cops Use Traffic Stops To Seize Millions From Drivers Never Charged With A Crime

During the stop, Deputy Dove performed a warrant check and found a warrant for a Ken Smith. On that basis, Dove detained Smith. But according to a lawsuit filed by Smith, the Ken Smith on the warrant had a different birthday and was black. The pulled-over Smith was white. As the lawsuit puts it, Smith �should have been cited for speeding and let go, if there was probable cause for speeding violations.�

Instead, Smith was �unarrested� and allowed to leave with his car if he signed a waiver to surrender $13,800 in cash he had in the vehicle. The Humboldt County Sheriff�s office also seized a .40 caliber Ruger handgun from Smith, though Smith claimed he did not waive his right to that firearm.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/institu...from-drivers-never-charged-with-a-crime/

Theft and extortion under the color of law:

'Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim -- when he defends himself -- as a criminal.' - Frederic Bastiat

There are two sides to every story. I would guess that if the man was polite he would have gone about his merry way.

Maybe you should read the article

So, then in your view our Second Amendment and even our most basic property rights are dispensations from government dependent on our polite compliance to even its most petty functionaries.

Your Amerika and my America are then are very different places.

Civil forfeiture laws are against everything this country has ever stood for. Theft is theft, and gov't has no right to take anything without at a minimum proving guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt.

There just HAS to be more to this.

You can't just take someone's money like that. Even if they sign something. Has to be a crime there that links the money

Drug dealers are just going to have to start taking pay pal.

If you gents would just read the article

http://www.forbes.com/sites/institu...from-drivers-never-charged-with-a-crime/

'It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.' ~ Frederic Bastiat

We was warned!

Damn, I guess that I shoulda copied and pasted the whole thing links seem to confuse 'em.

That right there sold me

There is nothing the law about "politeness".

Much easier to jump to conclusions!

I did read the article. The Vietnamese guy there was at least some suspicion of drugs. One of the crimes you can sieze stuff for.

Bit the other guy, the one pulled over for speedin, says it was a warrant. For what I don't know, and that it wasn't his. No way to legally seize money in that case. Unless there's more to the story, or the cop is just a criminal. That's it.

Yes, that's what he means. It's a common cop attitude.

Sadly, this should go without saying, but does need saying in modern America. Very sad indeed.

I think you all are catching on. Known drug route. They shake everybody down. Bad guys can hardly cry foul, but there's a lot of good guy getting caught up in the BS. Guy's no better than the thugs he 's shakin down.

Yep. Pretty sure the church secretary was an azz hole.

What is a "shadow of a doubt"? Can you give me a proposed jury instruction for it? I'm familiar with "beyond a reasonable doubt". It's the highest burden of proof in our legal system.

Reasonable doubt, amigo!

I've litigated more than a handful of these civil forfeiture cases. Even had attorney's fees taken from me.

They're a bitch and the law needs to be changed such that due process is back at the forefront of civil forfeiture cases. They're not really even forfeitures, they're subjective,unilateral confiscations.

We have been told the right of these issues for so long, yet we continue to make and allow the same mistakes:

The men who administer public affairs must first of all see that everyone holds onto what is his, and that private men are never deprived of their goods by public men.
~ Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.)

One of the shakedown victims should pay that Sheriff a late night visit & take him for a little trip behind the woodshed.

MM

Ifin' he weren't up to no good he wouldn't have been carryin' all that cash and goin' strapped.

.^^^^^^^^^.
(sarcasm, BTW)

Did you have to go to court to get the fee's back?

'A bureaucrat is the most despicable of men, though he is needed as vultures are needed, but one hardly admires vultures whom bureaucrats so strangely resemble. I have yet to meet a bureaucrat who was not petty, dull, almost witless, crafty or stupid, an oppressor or a thief, a holder of little authority in which he delights, as a boy delights in possessing a vicious dog. Who can trust such creatures?' ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

We have long know the nature of the beast, yet we forget to leash it with adequate law and oversight.

Hell, traffic stops alone are done for no other purpose than revenue generation for the jurisdiction. Is it any surprise that this outright theft occurs?

Am I reading this right?
Then the "officer" pockets the cash?

Just makes me want to run down and register my AR!

No, the department does. At least all of the cash that is turned in...

Thats BS. At least in mexico they get to keep some of it.

As mentioned in the video below, Smith would use these proceeds to make ridiculous purchases, including a $90,000 Dodge Viper and paying convicts to build him a �party house.�

Well, there is that "all that is turned in" bit.

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My firm tried but our efforts were rejected by the Fed court. Really sucked too as drug dealers are almost always good for a large stash of cash money...a unique smelling wad of cash money, mind you.

You know stuff like this may cause vigilantes to rise up and weed out some of these police. Some may just disappear?

Was your client convicted of a crime of moral turpitude?

Relax, the ACLU is on it.

===========

No, just drug trafficking.

I can't believe they took his cash. The gall.

You can't believe it. It made me cry!

Even drug dealers get their cash up front Bob

Good god, you're obtuse.

And who's to know how much the cop kept??? My guess is as long as he turns some in, they don't care how much he keeps. I'm thinking once the dealers figure this out, stopping them with out getting shot could get more dangerous. :roll:

These listed incidents are a gross usurpation of power! I hope the court throws the book and the punitive damages are lucrative.
This is exactly what the LEO community doesn't need. In 25 years of this I never heard this taught or encouraged by any department I came into contact with.
The only time this came into play was with drug sale cases where a buy/bust was used or a search warrant was served at a location.
Any cash found and certainly this occurred, was logged into as evidence and used at trial as proceeds of the illicit sales.

What this article writes about is an illegal "shake down" by thugs with badges.

In today's society cops assume anyone with large sums of cash is up to no good. This is another lovely side effect of the war on drugs. Our government has WAY too much power of its citizens.

The government doesn't have WAY too much power, they have seized an illegal chunk of it by ignoring the Constitution. That is what needs to be reigned in.

That's the first Shawshank Redemption reference I've seen here.
Nicely placed.

Didn't read all the posts. All anybody needs to know is that possession is 9/10ths of the law.

And the cops know it.

What a brilliant legal mind you have.



Travis

Then they shouldn't take folks' money.

LMAO! Good one.

Traffic Cops get worse and more intrusive yet:

GOP congressman demands answers on potentially unconstitutional federal study that collects motorists� bodily fluids

The survey is supposed to be voluntary, but the tests are being conducted by police officers in uniform, causing some motorists to complain that they do not feel they have any choice in the matter. Moreover, the Associated Press reported, the surveyors use something called a �passive alcohol sensor� that tests drivers� breath for alcohol content before they formally consent to the survey.

In November, the NBC affiliate in Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas reported that motorists felt they had been railroaded into taking the tests.

�I gestured to the guy in front that I just wanted to go straight, but he wouldn�t let me and forced me into a parking spot,� Kim Cope told NBCDFW in November 2013, who said she �finally did the Breathalyzer test just because I thought that would be the easiest way to leave.�

�As the motorist came to a safe stop in the bay,� and before the drivers had consented to participate or been told what they were being asked to participate in, �the data collector recorded basic demographics based on observation (e.g., the number of passengers, use of a safety belt by the driver, and the gender and ethnicity of the driver)� � so that we would have descriptive information of potential subjects who refused.�

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/03/12/g...s-motorists-bodily-fluids/#ixzz2voJ40HFx

The drug war is the tool to take your Liberty, anyone who thinks taking "drug" money is OK is a stool for the Tyrannical.

Government is legally authorized organized crime.

Government may start out harmless enough but it will always be taken over by criminals soon or later.