74 sats \ 3 replies \ @freetx 11 Aug \ on: Possible Good News On Civil Forfeiture Reform news
A buddy of mine is a lawyer and he represented someone who had $40k taken from them during a traffic stop.
The crux of the police case was that the drug dog "alerted" to the presence of narcotics (there was no narcotics found, and the guy told my buddy that the money was from gambling winnings - sports betting - and that he didn't even use drugs of any kind ever).
Reviewing the body cams, there was nothing obvious the dog did....at one point the dog sort of paused for a second and cop immediately claimed "thats an alert!". My buddy, requested body cam from other stops to see if the alerts were similar but the cops said "every alert can be different".
Eventually the cops dropped the case, well they plea-bargained him down to a "non moving violation" and in exchange the cops got to keep $4k of the money, which the guy accepted because going to trail would've cost him twice that.
Quite a racket.
Unconscionable
Drug dog paused is evidence or probable cause?
Was the police a small town or large city?
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Drug dog was probable cause....the presence of money + drug dog alert was the basis for taking money. According to police, he couldn't provide an explanation for the money.
The guy did tell the cops it was winnings from sports bet, but didn't want to elaborate further as it was a non-legal sports betting group.
What really saved the guy was presence of body cams, when they started pressing on that (wanting to see evidence of drug dog alerts in other cases) the DA suddenly changed their tune and became willing to settle.
It made me view the use of K9 in such cases as very suspect, basically there is no standard of behavior and the dogs actions mean whatever the cops want its actions to mean....
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