From: Roy Badami Date: Fri, 2 Jul 93 16:48:43 BST Message-Id: <11255.9307021548@wundt.harlequin.co.uk> To: sfraves@techno.Stanford.EDU Subject: Well this has nothing to do with raves... ...but every time i read about civil forfeiture in the US, i just can't believe that a so-called civilized nation can behave like this. I used to think that the reason civil rights protestors were so vocal in the US ws because you had so few rights left. Now i've changed my mind. You have *no* rights left. Thank the War On (some) Drugs for that. This is part or a long article that appeared in talk.politics.drugs ... I'm affraid the US is out of control, both internally and externally, and no-one seems to care.... is it too late for sanity to prevail...? Cosmic Roy ----------- INCIDENTS * Willie Jones is the black owner of a landscaping service who paid for an airline ticket in cash. This "suspicious" behavior caused the ticket agent to alert Nashville police. (1) A search of Jones and his luggage yielded no drugs. However, he did have a wallet containing $9,600 in cash on which a police dog detected traces of drugs (apparently true of 97% of all currency now in circulation). The cash was promptly seized despite protestations that it was intended for the purchase of shrubbery from growers. No arrest was made. However, the seizure nearly drove Jones out of business. He is unable to purchase the $960 bond necessary to mount a challenge. (2) * Jacksonville University professor Craig Klein's new $24,000 sailboat was subjected to a fruitless drug search by U.S. Customs Service Agents. In their 7-hour search, the boat was damaged beyond repair. The engine was chopped up with a fire axe, the fuel tank was ruptured and 30 holes were drilled in the hull. Mr. Klein sold the ship for scrap. (3) * Billy and Karon Munnerlyn owned and operated an air charter service. In October 1989, Mr. Munnerlyn was hired to fly Albert Wright from Little Rock, Arkansas to Ontario, California. DEA agents seized Mr. Wright's luggage and found $2.7 million inside. Both he and Mr. Munnerlyn were arrested. Though the charges against Mr. Munnerlyn were quickly dropped for lack of evidence, the government refused to release the airplane (The charges against Mr. Wright, a convicted cocaine dealer, were eventually dropped as well.). Mr. Munnerlyn spent over $85,000 in legal fees trying to get his plane back. Though a Los Angeles jury awarded him the return of his airplane -- he had no knowledge that he was transporting drug money -- a U.S. District Judge reversed the jury's verdict. Munnerlyn was forced to declare bankruptcy and is now forced to drive a truck for a living. He eventually spent $7,000 to buy his plane back. However, the DEA caused about $100,000 of damage. The agency is not liable for the damage, and there is no way (4) that Mr. Munnerlyn can raise the money to re-start his business. * A 61-year old California man, Donald Scott, was shot dead in front of his wife when 30 local, state, and federal agents attempted to serve him with a search warrant enabling them to inspect his 200-acre ranch in Malibu for cultivated marijuana. He had brandished a handgun during the confusion of the early morning raid. The Ventura County District Attorney's office found that: Upon receiving information from the informant, [Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy] Spencer originally thought that thousands of marijuana plants might be growing at the ranch. Efforts to confirm the presence of marijuana were unsuccessful. He was unable to see marijuana from the top of the waterfall and the Border Patrol did not see any plants during two attempts to do so. [DEA Special] Agent Stowell claimed to see only a relatively few plants, based solely on their color, but was unwilling to be the basis for a search warrant without corroboration. It is inherently unlikely that Agent Stowell could see marijuana plants suspended under trees in a densely vegetated area through naked-eye observations from 1000 feet. His failure to take photographs is unexplained,and when the warrant was executed, no evidence of cultivation was found. Based on all of the evidence, it is the District Attorney's conclusion that there was never marijuana being cultivated on the property as reported by Stowell. Real property used to cultivate marijuana may be forfeited under federal law. "It is the District Attorney's opinion that the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department was motivated, at least in part, by a desire to seize and forfeit the ranch [adjacent to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area] for the government." (5) * Police found five hundred marijuana plants growing on a retiree's 37-acre farm. Delmar Puryear, who had retired with a disability and could not farm, insisted that he knew nothing about the plants. A jury apparently believed him, finding him innocent of state criminal charges. Despite this acquittal, the federal government refused to drop its efforts to seize the farm until Puryear agreed to pay $12,500. (6) * Michael Sandsness owned two gardening supply stores in Eugene and Portland, Oregon. Among the items sold were metal halide grow lights, which are used for growing indoor plants. The grow lights can be used to grow marijuana, but it is not illegal in itself to sell them. Because some marijuana gardens which were raided by the DEA had the lights, the agency began setting up a case to seize the business. The DEA began sending undercover agents to the stores who tried without success to get employees to give advice on growing marijuana. Finally, agents engaged in a conversation with an employee, and asked him for advice on the amount of heat or noise generated by the lights, making oblique comments suggesting they would want to avoid detection and making a comment about High Times magazine but never actually mentioning marijuana. The employee then sold the agents grow lights. The DEA then raided the stores, seizing inventory and bank accounts. Agents approached the landlord of one of the stores and told him that if he did not evict the tenant, the building would be seized. The landlord reluctantly evicted them. While the forfeiture case was pending, the business was destroyed. Sandsness was forced to sell the inventory not seized in order to pay off creditors. (7)