You're innocent but your cash is guilty

Andrew Wolfe of the Nashua Telegraph (Looked it up, Nashua's in New Hampshire-which probably explains the tone) has an article about asset seizures and the law and K9's.

Interesting stuff. The individuals cited had seizures of $22,740, $124,700 and $30,670 respectively despite spending zero guilty verdicts, and zero actual charges. Yup, the government took a total of $178,110 and didn't file a single actual charge.

How's that you ask? Because the people looked guilty and a dog "alerted" to the cash (meaning the dog acted as if it smelled drugs on the cash). Yup, a dog acted as if your property had drug smell on it, so the government can take your property. Not, the "alert" lead to the finding of drugs, not the "alert" showed the money was made of drugs, not even the "alert" lead to a confession, just that the "alert" signaled that your property may have been near drugs.

Citing the amount of cash Gonzolez carried, his efforts to conceal it, his method of travel and the drug-dog alert, the (Nebraska) court ruled that “the evidence as a whole demonstrates by a preponderance of the evidence that there was a substantial connection between the currency and a drug trafficking offense.”

"Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas" I guess. See, here because things looked bad, and the dog "alerted," the preponderance of evidence concept doesn't get you a criminal charge, it gets you "guilty" and a loss of significant assets. An alerting dog, by the way, cannot be cross examined. I did some quick research and found this about the importance of training, as well as this, plus this on false positives, there's more but you get the drift. An imperfect dog, added to imperfect appearance leads to a perfect outcome for the government.

Well, at least the NB judge used the words "preponderance of evidence" to take a man's money. The reputationaly liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was happy with "probable cause."

If this is OK with cash, is it OK for your home?

The only thing that even begins to make sense on any level is that a seizure can only occur with a guilty verdict. Period.

Finally, I would love to see some kind of data on the amount of cash and other assets seized each year in relation to guilty verdicts. My pessimistic guess is that lots of value is taken from the citizens each year, without guilt.