Pubdate: Wed, 27 Jul 2005
Source: Knoxville News-Sentinel (TN)
Copyright: 2005 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co.
Contact:  http://www.knoxnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/226

SEIZURE LAWS OUT OF CONTROL

It's probably fitting that extortion charges against two Loudon County 
deputies were dropped.

After all, they weren't the extortionists - we were.

The deputies seized $9,649 from a motorist they suspected of being a drug 
dealer. Forget the fact that no drugs were collected.

Our seizure laws don't trifle with such details as evidence. They operate 
on the great American proposition that a citizen is guilty until proven 
innocent - if the cops say so.

The ultimate irony of this case is that the charges were dismissed on a 
technicality because the victim's lawyer, Jes Beard, was allowed to present 
his client's argument to a grand jury.

"Mr. Beard was let loose in front of that grand jury with an ax to grind," 
complained the attorney for one of the officers. That, he contended, denied 
the officers the right to an untainted jury. Judge James "Buddy" Scott 
agreed and dismissed the charges.

So, to review:

Officers take a bunch of money from a citizen for drug dealing without 
charging him with drug dealing. The citizen gets mad and hires a lawyer, 
who passes that anger on to a jury of the man's peers. The citizens, in 
turn, get mad and charge the officers with extortion.

But a judge dismisses the charges because, well, the jury shouldn't have 
been so exposed to their fellow citizen's plight as to get all upset.

In the upside down world of seizure laws, it makes sense.

Just like it makes sense that the deputies were so concerned about the 
motorist's drug dealing that they seized $9,649 - but let him keep $10,000 
in a roadside game of "Let's Make a Deal."

Just like it makes sense that taxpayers had to cough up $5,000 to pay the 
legal expenses of the motorist when he successfully sued the taxpayers to 
get back his $9,649.

And just like it makes sense that the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation 
found no problem with the whole affair, even though its investigator found 
"little evidence to seize the money," and the Loudon County Sheriff's 
Office failed to report the seizure to the state as required by law.

Still, it is fitting that the charges against the deputies were dropped. 
They were just operating the same way officers throughout the state and 
nation do under the corrupt process of seizure laws.

The real crooks are we, the citizenry of Tennessee and the United States, 
who let these outrageous laws stand.
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MAP posted-by: Beth