Ethics

Small Victory in Asset Forfeiture Case

By Ed Brayton

Here's a small bit of good news from a crazy asset forfeiture case out of Indiana. Balko explains:

In January of last year, Smelley was pulled over in Putnam County, Indiana for an unsafe lane change and an obscured license plate. After a drug dog alerted to Smelley's car, police seized $17,320 in cash Smelley had brought with him. According to court records, Smelley says he was en route from Michigan to St. Louis, where he planned to use the money to purchase a car for his aunt. Even though Smelley later produced a letter from a Detroit law firm confirming that the money was part of a settlement from a recent car accident, Putnam County moved forward to keep the money, on the absurd theory that Smelley could have used the money to purchase drugs at some point in the future.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on March 08, 2010 (boomark / email).