Megalextoria
Retro computing and gaming, sci-fi books, tv and movies and other geeky stuff.

Home » General Discussion » News and Politics » Man Acquitted of Crime, Cops Still Take His Cash
Show: Today's Messages :: Show Polls :: Message Navigator
E-mail to friend 
Switch to threaded view of this topic Create a new topic Submit Reply
Man Acquitted of Crime, Cops Still Take His Cash [message #285409] Thu, 05 March 2015 15:37
CyberkNight is currently offline  CyberkNight
Messages: 1606
Registered: July 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
Iowa State troopers can keep more than $30,000 in cash taken during a traffic stop, even though the owner was found not guilty, the Iowa Court of Appeals ruled last week.

In June 2012, Robert Pardee was riding in a car through Powesheik County, Iowa on I-80, when an Iowa State trooper pulled the driver over for a non-working taillight and tailgating. During the stop, state troopers found "a small amount of marijuana" and $33,100 in cash. Pardee was arrested and charged with possessing cannabis. In Iowa, first-time offenders can face up to six months in jail and/or $1,000 in fines.

One year later, a district court found him not guilty. As the criminal case proceeded against Pardee, the state also filed a civil forfeiture case against his seized cash. Despite his acquittal, first the district court and then the Iowa Court of Appeals ordered Pardee to forfeit his cash to the state.

Unlike criminal forfeiture, which does require a conviction to take the ill-gotten gains from criminals, civil forfeiture lets law enforcement seize and keep property from people without a criminal conviction, or even without filing charges.

...

In its ruling, the Iowa Court of Appeals also approved police stopping out-of-state drivers, even if the basis for that stop was a pretext. The day of his search and seizure, Pardee was riding in a car with California license plates. According to a report by the Des Moines Register, Iowa State troopers issued almost as many traffic warnings and citations to cars with California license plates as they did to Iowa drivers. A later article reported that Poweshiek County, where Pardee was searched, "appears to be the most heavily ticketed county by the interdiction teams."

Unless the Iowa Supreme Court agrees to hear Pardee's case and rule in his favor, law enforcement will get to keep his cash. State law lets police and prosecutors keep what they take through civil forfeiture. Between just 2011 and 2013, interdiction teams for the Iowa State Patrol seized $7 million in cash.

Full article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2015/03/04/m an-acquitted-of-crime-cops-still-take-his-cash/


  Switch to threaded view of this topic Create a new topic Submit Reply
Previous Topic: IRS Says It Needs $490 Million More to Implement Obamacare
Next Topic: Why Progressives Should Want Republicans to Repeal Obamacare and Close the Borders
Goto Forum:
  

-=] Back to Top [=-
[ Syndicate this forum (XML) ] [ RSS ] [ PDF ]

Current Time: Fri Apr 19 22:36:18 EDT 2024

Total time taken to generate the page: 0.01764 seconds