Court Says Gov't Has To Give Back $167,000 It Seized During A String Of 4th Amendment Violations
from the rare-loss-for-civil-asset-forfeiture dept
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has no good news for the lying law enforcement officers who were hoping to walk off with $167,000 of someone else's money. Two years ago, the district court ruled in favor of Straughn Gorman, who was subjected to two lengthy traffic stops in less than an hour by officers hoping to help themselves to cash he was carrying in his RV.
After stopping Gorman for a non-violation (driving too slow in the left lane), State Trooper Greg Monroe spent roughly a half-hour trying to obtain consent to search Gorman's RV. His reasonable suspicion? Gorman's use of the word "chick" to describe the girlfriend he was driving to visit and the supposedly "rehearsed" aspects of his employment history. Trooper Monroe performed an extensive background check on Gorman while hoping to prolong the stop until a K-9 unit could be deployed, but even his non-routine call to an El Paso DEA records center failed to drag out the traffic stop long enough for it to arrive.
All Monroe knew when he finally let Gorman go is Gorman had at least $2,000 on him. Monroe wasn't going to let this money get away, so he called up another officer from another agency and "relayed his suspicions." He also told the other officer (Deputy Doug Fisher) to bring a drug-sniffing dog with him. Fisher wasn't assigned to patrol the highway Gorman was traveling on, but decided that would be the best use of his time.
Fisher pulled over Gorman after his tire touched the fog line a couple of times. Another records check was run, even though Fisher already knew what results to expect, thanks to Trooper Monroe's heads-up. The drug dog supposedly alerted near a right-rear compartment of the RV. Gorman gave the deputy permission to search that area, but that wasn't good enough for Fisher. Fisher said the alert gave him permission to search the entire RV. This resulted in the discovery of $167,000 in cash, which Fisher took. Gorman was (again) free to go. Gorman was never charged with any criminal act, much less given a citation for the supposed moving violations that predicated the two stops.
The government appealed the lower court's decision, which gave Gorman back his $167,000 plus legal fees. It raised a number of defenses for its actions (which included the state's attorney omitting several facts about the two searches from its affidavits), but the Appeals Court is no more receptive of this deception and deceit than the lower court. From the decision [PDF]:
We hold that the search of Gorman’s vehicle following the coordinated traffic stops violated the Constitution and affirm the district court’s order granting Gorman’s motion to suppress. Gorman’s first roadside detention was unreasonably prolonged in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The dog sniff and the search of Gorman’s vehicle, in turn, followed directly in an unbroken causal chain of events from that constitutional violation. As a result, the seized currency is the “fruit of the poisonous tree” and was properly suppressed under the exclusionary rule.
[...]
The coordinated action at issue in Gorman’s case offers a prime illustration of the value of the “fruit of the poisonous tree” analysis. The analysis allows us to see the officers’ conduct in Gorman’s case as what it is: a single integrated effort by police to circumvent the Constitution by making two coordinated stops. When the result of one stop is communicated and, on that basis, another stop is planned and implemented, the coordinated stops become, in effect, one integrated stop that must as a whole satisfy the Constitution’s requirements. An illegal police venture cannot be made legal simply by dividing it into two coordinated stops.
This won't be the only time officers behave this way. The Supreme Court's Rodriguez decision stated traffic stops are over once the "objective is complete." This forces officers to be a bit more creative if they're engaged in fishing expeditions without reasonable suspicion to extend the stop. One "solution" is shown above: have a second law enforcement officer initiate a stop to prolong the roadside investigation without triggering the protections of Rodriguez. Another "solution" is to have K-9 units perform stops or be in close proximity, thus lowering the chances of a court finding the stop to be "prolonged."
Both of these solutions are violations of Rodriguez, even if some courts will award the government points for effort. Fortunately, there are a few courts adhering to the intent of the decision: it's not the length of the Fourth Amendment violation, it's the violation itself.
Unfortunately, anything cash-related tends to make officers bypass their better judgment and push the edge of the Fourth Amendment envelope. The good news -- at least for Straugh Gorman -- is he's getting all of his cash back, plus legal fees. That it took more than two years for this to happen is unfortunate, but to be expected -- especially in a legal system that's stacked against victims of civil asset forfeiture.
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Filed Under: 4th amendment, 9th circuit, asset forfeiture, asset seizure, law enforcement, straughn gorman
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Left lane violation
When did that stop being a violation in Texas?
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Re: Left lane violation
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Too slow in left lane
"Keep right except to pass".
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Place that money on a debit card, prepaid card, savings or checking account. They can't seize it or access it without your approval.
As many times as someone gets their cash seized, you would think that drivers would start getting smarter. Instead, this just proves how stupid these morons are for carrying that much cash with them.
That's like parking outside a store, leaving your keys in the ignition and begging for someone to steal your car.
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Texas traffic laws [was Re: Re: Left lane violation]
From the very first sentence in the second paragraph of Judge Reinhardt's actual opinion (p.3 in PDF):
(Emphasis added.)
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Re:
And if you're on the jury, any police officer is more-than-entitled to summarily execute anyone who doesn't hand over the cash pronto-tonto.
Stand and deliver!
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Isolated incidents Re:
These so-called “law officers” are nothing but murders and thieves. Highwaymen. Every last one of 'em.
They ought to be hung.
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Re:
there would be no fucking thievery in this world if you would just lock your fucking doors!
There is no excuse for getting robbed by government thug with a gun and badge!
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Re: Re:
“Monticello police officer charged with raping minor (Jun 22, 2017)
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Re:
Are you some fucking retard? Why the fuck cant we have cash on us traveling through states? Fuck you asshole
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Criminal Conduct
So many so-called laws that regulate all aspects of one's life re: what they grow, smoke, or whatever (or think), so that everything is an "us vs. them" situation, with cops in schools cuffing kids and conditioning them to life in a lockdown society, and funneling them to either the military industrial complex or the prison industrial complex (prisons for profit), with a few skimmed off the top (top equals children of the cash donating privileged class, who ancestors were likely robber barons) to become the next generation of "law makers".
I would rather take my chances with the baddies via vigilantes and group travel than run the legal gauntlet we now are subjected to.
Time to rethink this whole mess (and a lot more).
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Re:
I dearly hope you're just trolling, as the alternative seems to be placing the blame of police robbing anyone they run across on the victims. To say that this is an absurd position is putting it mildly.
Members of the public should never have to take special steps to avoid being robbed by law enforcement, and if they don't and are then it's hardly their fault for being robbed.
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Re:
BTW, leaving your key in the car and having it stolen IS STILL THEFT. The thieves do not get to keep the car free and gratis.
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No sense
I do think those police officers behaved appallimgly but to carry that amount of cash? Imagine having your car stolen or God forbid having an accident and the car setting on fire.
If I watched that amount of money burning I would WANT to die! And suppose the money was a loan? That had to be paid back? Words fail…
Cheers… Ishy
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The courts have a secret 'Anger-at-the-Police Gauge'...
Whenever the gauge fills too much, they make a ruling like this to lead the commoners to think that reform is happening and that they don't have to gun down a bunch of uniformed thugs.
(I hope I'm joking, it'd suck awfully if the courts were making these once-in-a-while rulings to stop the public blowing up rather than out of any real desire to rein in civil asset robbery.)
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Prison time
If he was travelling across state lines at any point of his journey, then it's a federal crime what the officers have done.
They need to go to the slammer for a long, long time.
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Re: Too slow in left lane
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Re: Prison time
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Re: Cash vs debit cards
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Re: Isolated incidents Re:
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Re: Re: Cash vs debit cards
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Re: Re: Cash vs debit cards
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Re: No sense
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Re: Re: Too slow in left lane
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Re: Criminal Conduct
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Re: Re: Re: Too slow in left lane
Unless that $167k was the fine for being a fuckhole in the left lane things went too far.
Now... sadly I might not be too upset with a crippling fine for being a fuckhead in the left lane either. Decisions Decisions!
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Re: Re: Re: Cash vs debit cards
They have already reached all the lows they possible can since they rape, steal, and murder people without regard. It really is not possible to get any lower than a "common brigand".
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senate bill 1241
Co-signers: Grassley, Feinstein, Cornyn, and Whitehouse. The bill has been referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
If this gets passed the man in this story, or any person carrying more than 10k in cash or who holds "unregistered" crypto currency or prepaid device could go to jail for 10 years and have all of their assets seized.
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Re: Re: Isolated incidents Re:
Sweet gig if you can get it.
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Re: senate bill 1241
Shame, 'cause those shows were humorous. Oh well, makes more programming space for all the advertisements masquerading as news.
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Traffic
> slow in the left lane)
That is a violation where I live. Failure to yield the left lane to faster traffic carries the same penalty as speeding, as does failure to maintain the minimum posted speed on a highway.
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Re: senate bill 1241
“(d) Whoever has in his control, custody, or possession any obligation or security of the United States or any foreign government from which the ink or other distinctive counterfeit deterrent has been completely or partially removed, except under the authority of the Secretary of the Treasury, is guilty of a class B felony.”.
So if someone pulls the security thread out of a $20 bill and spends it, then you receive it in change, you're guilty of a felony for possessing an obligation or security of the United States from which a counterfeit deterrent has been removed.
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Re: Re: Prison time
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Re: senate bill 1241
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Re: No sense
I'm with you there. But I consider it sad I also have to imagine police acting like an organized crime ring but with government backing and pensions, and that's the more likely option to actually have to deal with.
We pay the police in order to feel more rather than less safe carrying cash around. And "at least you are more likely to survive being robbed at gun point" is getting less convincingly true as well.
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But who controls the cops? Who writes the laws?
Put the blame where it belongs, cops are just doing what their state and federal politicians are letting them get away with.
Don't take it up with cops, take it up with politicians.
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The Invisible Hand of the Seen and Unseen*
Court Says Gov't Has To Give Back $167,000 It Seized During A String Of 4th Amendment Violations
How much did the government squander in trying to steal Straughn Gorman's money?
Italicized/bold text below was excerpted from page 12 (first paragraph last sentence) of the above court decision USA v. Gorman and $167,00.00 in cash:
In a separate order, the court awarded Gorman $146,938.50 in attorney's fees.
Gorman's legal fees alone almost exceed the value of the money the government was trying to steal.
If the courts, district attorney, highway brigands (ie the police) salaries and overhead were factored in the total sum squandered it would exceed the value of the money the government attempted to pilfer.
Just like a government run operation they can't even steal with out losing money.
(*) Adam Smith and Frederic Bastiat
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Smith.html
http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/ba sEss1.html#Chapter%201
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Re: Re: Too slow in left lane
Uniform Vehicle Code
See http://www.mit.edu/~jfc/right.html
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Re: Texas traffic laws [was Re: Re: Left lane violation]
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Re: Re: Re:
So what kind of used car do you think you can purchase for $100?
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Re: Re: senate bill 1241
Or if the bill has a mark or smudge on it that obscures some micro-printing. Or a bunch of other things, also.
It sounds to me like the real objective is to make handling cash so dangerous that everybody switches to bank cards, with the bankers getting a cut of every transaction.
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Re: Re: senate bill 1241
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Noted...
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I call BS on this analysis
In my opinion this is one of the most serious violations one can commit! A 160k fine is too small if you ask me, this should be a capital offense!
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civil asset forfeiture
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