Viral cash seizure at Dallas Love Field: Civil asset forfeiture
Texas House of Representatives spokesman Dade Phelan tweeted about the seizure and urged a Republican to pass reform during the next legislature.
DALLAS, Texas – It’s a photo on Facebook that’s not uncommon for the Dallas Police Department.
Earlier this week, the department released a picture of one of its K-9 officers, “Ballentine,” posing next to $ 106,829 in cash confiscated from a checked bag at Dallas Love Field Airport.
“We have to get him some goodies! K-9 Officer Ballentine is doing it again! On December 2nd, 21st, the Lovefield Interdiction Squad confiscated over $ 100,000 with the help of Ballentine. Good job, Ballentine! ”Read the caption.
It didn’t take long, however, for the image to become a discussion point on Reddit, Twitter, and among Republican lawmakers across the state over civil asset decay.
According to investigators, on December 2, Ballentine alerted his colleagues to a checked bag in Dallas Love Field. The suitcase only contained blankets and two large bubble envelopes with the money.
The suitcase owner, a 25-year-old Chicago woman who was stopping over at Love Field, was neither arrested nor charged.
However, a department spokesman said that Special Investigations Division detectives did a follow-up investigation before confiscating the money and said federal officials would also investigate.
However, the spokesman did not provide any information about what was being done during the investigation.
RELATED: K-9 Officer Helps Officials Seize Over $ 100,000 at Dallas Love Field
The final result? So much cash in your suitcase is incredibly lazy, but there’s no law that says you can’t travel with that much money.
Texas civil asset confiscation laws allowed officials to seize the money, and those laws are quite hospitable to law enforcement.
These laws are in place to hit criminals hard if they are caught red-handed in illegal activity – to hamper their operations.
For example, if police arrest a suspected drug dealer in his car with drugs and lots of cash, they can seize all three of them to ensure that the dealer can no longer engage in any further illegal activities when he gets out of jail.
However, the police can also seize property, including cash, if they believe it will eventually be used in a crime. It does so even when no crime is committed, as in the case of the $ 106,829 confiscated from Love Field.
The owner of property that has been seized by the police or government agency must hire an attorney and challenge the seizure in a civil court to get the property back.
Even then, the property owner has to prove that his belongings have nothing to do with criminal activities. If this fails, cities and authorities can use seized cash in their households.
You can also use money from the sale of confiscated property to help meet budgets.
Texas law enforcement officials made more than $ 50 million in 2017 from confiscating people’s property, according to the Texas Tribune.
And an analysis by the Washington Post found that between 2001 and 2014 law enforcement officers seized $ 60 billion from people who were never charged with anything.
A Lubbock man is trying to get his savings back, worth approximately $ 87,000, after being taken for “smelling like drugs” during a routine Nevada traffic stop.
Both parties also support the reform of civilian property deterioration.
As D Magazine’s Peter Simek put it so eloquently in his Wednesday article on the subject, “For Democrats, it’s a criminal justice issue. For Republicans, these laws are an abuse of personal freedom.”
Texas MP Matt Schaefer, a Republican from Tyler, drafted a bill during the last legislature that makes property seizure a more complex police challenge.
“The state has the lowest possible burden of proof why it should seize property,” said Schäfer. “There’s a preponderance of evidence. So if the evidence is just a little above the other side, the state will win every time.”
Schaefer’s bill would have increased this burden of proof to “clear and convincing,” which means that there is a high and far more likely probability that the evidence is true than it is.
“That is the highest burden in civil courts – if you want to take someone’s property away, you have to present your case with clear and convincing evidence,” said Schäfer. The bill never made it onto the governor’s desk, however.
But Rep. Dade Phelan, Speaker of the Texas House, wants Schaefer to resubmit his or a similar bill during the next session.
He went to Twitter and asked Schaefer to “saddle up” on the reform.
Saddle up, @RepMattSchaefer. The House of Representatives will again pass reform of the confiscation of civil assets. #CJreform #txlege https://t.co/NJEA24ch5o
– Dade Phelan (@DadePhelan) December 8, 2021
Schaefer admitted that he believes the majority of law enforcement agencies are not abusing civil asset forfeiture laws, but said the police should be more than willing to face a greater burden of proof as to why they are the property of take from someone.
“Nothing will change in our business activity,” said Schäfer. “Here in Tyler and Smith Counties, they don’t seize assets unless they believe they have strong evidence that the property was involved in criminal activity.”
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