{"id":19195,"date":"2024-02-26T07:52:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-26T12:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=19195"},"modified":"2024-02-27T13:36:03","modified_gmt":"2024-02-27T18:36:03","slug":"highway-robbery-is-the-law-of-the-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/02\/26\/highway-robbery-is-the-law-of-the-land\/","title":{"rendered":"Highway Robbery Is the Law of the Land"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Highway Robbery Continues to Be the Law of the Land<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/h2>\n

by James Bovard<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Seizure fever is toxifying law enforcement across the nation. For more than thirty years, federal, state, and local government agencies have plundered citizens on practically any harebrained accusation or pretext.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You could be at risk of being pilfered by officialdom anytime you sit behind a steering wheel. Between 2001 and 2014, lawmen seized more than $2.5 billion in cash from sixty thousand travelers on the nation\u2019s highways\u2014with no criminal charges in most cases, according to the Washington Post<\/em>. Federal, state, and local law enforcement have institutionalized shakedowns on the nation\u2019s highways to the point that \u201cforfeiture corridors are the new speed traps,\u201d as Mother Jones observed.<\/p>\n

Police can almost always find an excuse to pull someone over. Gerald Arenberg, executive director of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, told me in a 1996 interview, \u201cWe have so damn many laws, you can\u2019t drive the streets without breaking the law.\u201d The Washington Post<\/em> reported that police set up \u201crolling checkpoints on busy highways and pulled over motorists for minor violations, such as following too closely or improper signaling,\u201d and \u201clooked for supposed \u2018indicators\u2019 of criminal activity, which can include such things as trash on the floor of a vehicle, or abundant energy drinks.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Tenaha, Texas, authorities confiscated $3 million from motorists passing through East Texas. The names of the court filings capture Tenaha\u2019s rapacity, such as State of Texas v. One Gold Crucifix<\/em>. \u201cThe police had confiscated a simple gold cross that a woman wore around her neck after pulling her over for a minor traffic violation. No contraband was reported, no criminal charges were filed, and no traffic ticket was issued,\u201d the New Yorker<\/em> noted. If drivers \u201crefused to part with their money, officers threatened to arrest them on false money laundering charges and other serious felonies,\u201d an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit charged. Tenaha police stopped a twenty-seven-year-old black man who worked as a chicken slicer in an Arkansas Tyson plant and fleeced him of $3,900 after accusing him of \u201cdriving too close to the white line.\u201d After the police warned Jennifer Boatright that they would take custody of her children if she refused to surrender the thousands of dollars she carried to buy a used car, she burst into tears and thought: \u201cWhere are we? Is this some kind of foreign country, where they\u2019re selling people\u2019s kids off?\u201d The American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit and the Texas legislature compelled the town to cease the abusive seizures in 2012. However, most victims never got their property back.<\/p>\n

In 2016, Muskogee County, Oklahoma, deputy sheriffs hit the sirens and pulled over a forty-year-old Burmese refugee driving down Highway 69 for a broken taillight. Eh Wah, a naturalized US citizen living in Dallas, was the manager for a Christian rock band that had been on tour raising more than $50,000 for a Thai orphanage and a Christian college in Burma. Police found the money and a drug dog alerted, so the money was seized\u2014even though Wah had papers documenting his mission and the source of the income. No drugs were found on Wah\u2019s vehicle, but a Muskogee deputy later insisted, \u201cThe fact that in this particular case we didn\u2019t find drugs doesn\u2019t mean it was a false hit\u201d by the dog. Wah was interrogated and threatened for six hours; he was told, \u201cYou are going to jail tonight.\u201d It was a terrifying experience for someone whose English was shaky and who fled a nation where the police were tyrannical. The sheriff\u2019s department kept the money but let Wah travel on. Five weeks after he left Oklahoma, Wah was charged with \u201cacquiring proceeds from a drug activity, a felony.\u201d The primary \u201cevidence\u201d was the dog\u2019s alert. The Oklahoma perfidy was torpedoed by Dan Alban, an Institute for Justice attorney who has thwarted many outrageous cash seizures. Alban took Wah\u2019s case and told the Muskogee Phoenix<\/em> that the timing of the charge suggests, \u201cThey were trying to strong-arm Eh Wah so that he would give up the money in the civil forfeiture case in exchange for a plea deal in the criminal case.\u201d On the same day the Washington Post<\/em> published an article on the case, Muskogee County dropped the charge and promised to send a full refund.<\/p>\n

Perverse incentives propel plunder. Police in many states use confiscated property to pay their own salaries, bonuses, and vacations. A Missouri police chief said that forfeiture money was \u201clike pennies from heaven .\u00a0.\u00a0. that get you a toy.\u201d Federal agencies partner with local and state law enforcement to enable them to evade state laws limiting seizures of private property. Under a program euphemistically called \u201cequitable sharing\u201d (which sounds better than \u201cshared plunder\u201d), local and state law enforcement agencies retain most of the property they seize when they team up with the feds.<\/p>\n

In South Carolina, police keep 95 percent of the assets they commandeer. Drivers\u2019 cash is routinely seized after they are stopped for picayune offenses. As the Greenville News<\/em> reported,<\/p>\n

Ramando Moore was cited for having an open container [of alcohol] in Richland County in 2015; he lost $604. Plexton Denard Hunter was pulled over for a seatbelt violation in 2015 in Richland County and had $541 seized. Tesla Carter, another seatbelt violation, this time in Anderson in 2015. She lost $1,361.<\/p>\n

Most police seizures of cash involved less than a thousand dollars\u2014a trivial amount for serious drug traffickers. \u201cBlack men .\u00a0.\u00a0. represent 13 percent of the state\u2019s population. Yet 65 percent of all citizens targeted for civil forfeiture in the state are black males,\u201d according to a 2019 investigation by South Carolinian newspapers.<\/p>\n

In Phelps County, Missouri, police have seized millions of dollars in cash and property from people traveling on Interstate 44. Two-thirds of Phelps County forfeiture victims have Hispanic names. Phelps County deputies justify seizures simply by asserting that the owners are shady characters\u2014with evidence such as \u201cdriving a rental vehicle .\u00a0.\u00a0. bloodshot eyes, nervousness or even air fresheners hanging from the rearview mirror.\u201d Drivers were commonly stopped for failing to signal before changing lanes, another tell-tale sign of drug trafficking. Phelps County police \u201calmost never file state criminal charges against those whose cash they seize, nor does it make big drug seizures during these stops targeting cash,\u201d reported a 2020 investigation by St. Louis Public Radio.<\/p>\n

In 2021, the feds partnered with local police to commence robbing armored cars. Though thirty-six states have legalized marijuana for recreational or medical use, federal law continues to prohibit engaging in cannabis transactions. Local police in California and Kansas began stopping and searching armored cars owned by Empyreal Logistics, which transported cash from licensed marijuana dispensaries. More than a million dollars was taken and split between local and federal lawmen. The Federal Bureau of Investigation justified the seizures because the proceeds were derived from narcotics crimes or money laundering\u2014even though state law in California explicitly permits the transport of money from legal cannabis operations. In May 2022, the feds and California police departments agreed to return the seized money after Empyreal signed a settlement declaring, \u201cSan Bernardino deputies are not highway robbers as previously reported in the media.\u201d Alas, the official statement did not deter a local paper, the Riverside Press-Enterprise<\/em>, from summarizing the resolution: \u201cThe San Bernardino County Sheriff\u2019s Department has agreed to stop operating like highway robbers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forfeiture is a rigged game in which low-income Americans suffer worst. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in 2017, \u201cThese forfeiture operations frequently target the poor and other groups least able to defend their interests in forfeiture proceedings.\u201d Similarly, Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Willett declared in a 2014 dissent, \u201cCivil forfeiture .\u00a0.\u00a0. now disproportionately ensnares those least capable of protecting themselves, poor Texans who usually capitulate without a fight because mounting a defense is too costly.\u201d \u201cDue process\u201d in forfeiture cases often depends solely on the media coverage an abuse receives. Sporadic government defeats are no consolation to forfeiture victims who cannot afford a lawyer to fight for their rights<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Almost two hundred and fifty years ago, Arthur Lee of Virginia aptly proclaimed, \u201cThe right of property is the guardian of every other right, and to deprive the people of this, is to deprive them of their liberty.\u201d But increasingly, private property is something that officialdom merely tolerates until they concoct some pretext to seize it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

If police can detain and plunder Americans as they please whenever people drive down the road, all the other rights and liberties in the Constitution are of scant consolation. And if politicians and the Supreme Court don\u2019t care enough to end the forfeiture travesty, all their other claims of devotion to freedom are not worth a tinker\u2019s damn.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Highway Robbery Continues to Be the Law of the Land by James Bovard Seizure fever is toxifying law enforcement across the nation. For more than thirty years, federal, state, and local government agencies have plundered citizens on practically any harebrained accusation or pretext. You could be at risk of being pilfered by officialdom anytime you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19198,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[904,4018,1190,539,4022,4028,451,2599,4029,4024,4021,4027,47,238,45,2779,2045,4020,4026,4017,4025,4019,4023,257,833],"class_list":["post-19195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-aclu","tag-arenberg","tag-arthur-lee","tag-asset-forfeiture","tag-burmese","tag-clarence-thomas","tag-constitution","tag-dan-alban","tag-don-willett","tag-drug-dogs","tag-eh-wah","tag-empyreal-logistics","tag-fbi","tag-forfeiture","tag-freedom","tag-institute-for-justice","tag-missouri","tag-muskogee","tag-phelps-county","tag-robbery","tag-south-carolina","tag-tenaha","tag-thai","tag-virginia","tag-washington-post"],"yoast_head":"\nHighway Robbery Is the Law of the Land - 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \\\"the roving inspector general of the modern state\\\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \\\"one-man truth squad.\\\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \\\"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\\\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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