A Minnesota couple appeared in an Iowa courtroom on Tuesday to try to recover the $48,000 that was taken from them by the Iowa City Police Department on what the couple alleges is a “forfeiture corridor” — a stretch of roadway in which police officers often stop vehicles to check for drugs, illegal weapons and those engaging in suspicious activities.
Trouble for the couple — Tiffani D.S. Barber and Kearnice C. Overton, of St. Paul, Minn. — began on March 16, when they were driving back to the Twin Cities with Overton’s four children after looking at properties owned by Overton’s cousin in Rock Island, Ill.
Officer Michael Clark stopped the couple’s vehicle on Interstate 80 in Davenport for speeding. While Overton’s vehicle was stopped, two additional officers and a K-9 unit appeared on the scene. The police dog reportedly indicated to his partner that the dog smelled something suspicious, allowing the police officers to search the vehicle.
Though the dog could have smelled drug residue or detected the presence of some other illegal substance, it should be noted that the validity of drug-sniffing dogs has been called into question in recent years, especially as former police drug dog trainers have come forward and explained that handlers train dogs to falsely alert officers so a search can occur.
The officers found a gym bag in the trunk with $44,000 in cash and another $4,000 in cash in Overton’s jacket. Suspecting that the money was from the sale of illegal drugs or profits from other sort of illegal activity, police confiscated the cash in a practice known as civil asset forfeiture. No drugs or weapons were found in Overton’s car.
While the Fourth Amendment was intended to protect Americans from unlawful search and seizure, a loophole in the law allows law enforcement to seize cash, stocks, real estate, vehicles, guns and other property. This loophole also allows them to keep any property believed to have been obtained or used in some sort of criminal activity — even if an individual is not charged or arrested for their involvement in any sort of crime.
Overton claims he had intended to use the money to buy two properties from his cousin in Illinois. He denies that the cash came from any sort of illegal activity and is now fighting to recover his seized property.
“This money was wrongfully seized,” Overton said, according to court documents. “I was not arrested, nor were any charges lodged against me in connection with this money. This money was in no way connected to any criminal activity.”
Although Overton is pushing back, the police department hasn’t backed down. According to local news reports, Iowa City Police Sgt. Vicki Lalla says she can’t discuss specifics of the case. She has, however, said that the officer’s decision to seize the cash was largely based on the fact that “[i]t’s very unusual for people to be out and about with that much cash on their person or in their car.”
In other words, the police argue that Overton must have been involved in something illegal — such as drug trafficking — to be traveling with so much money.
Fighting against forfeiture
It’s rare for individuals to fight a police department against an asset-seizure, but it’s not unheard of. As Sarah Stillman reported in the New Yorker in August, since property isn’t protected by the same rights as an individual — for example, the right to an attorney or presumption of innocence — hiring a lawyer and paying court fees to recover assets often costs more than the assets were worth. In Washington, D.C., for example, it costs up to $2,500 to challenge a police seizure in court.
Though the ability to seize any property in a person’s vehicle — including cash — sounds unlawful, according to Ret. Chief of Police for the Seattle Police Department Norm Stamper, who is also a member of the organization Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, officers have strong financial incentives for seizing property. Officers can keep any cash they seize. They can also put any other property up for auction and keep the profits.
As Steve Westbrook, the executive director of the Sheriffs’ Association of Texas, told Stillman, budgets are tight for police departments all across the United States right now, making civil asset forfeiture “a valuable asset to law enforcement, for purchasing equipment and getting things you normally wouldn’t be able to get to fight crime.”
Though the scramble for additional sources of revenue is not unique to police departments in any one part of the country, Stamper says civil asset forfeiture is more commonly practiced in Midwest and Southern states than in states with more progressive drug laws such as California, Oregon and Washington state.
When asked whether Kearnice Overton may be correct in his assessment that police officers were conducting a sort of forfeiture trap on I-80, Stamper said he couldn’t say for sure, but given that Overton was never charged with a crime, he says Overton’s assertion may be correct.
Stamper called asset seizures a “frightening behavior.” He went on to explain that the practice raises concerns about the frequency and types of constitutional violations in which law enforcement engage. This isn’t something just a handful of individuals are doing, he says, but a practice that has been institutionalized.
Particularly as the war on drugs comes to an end in the Midwest, Stamper says reactionary forces will likely do what reactionary forces do: react. This may result in a surge in the number of individuals who have assets seized by police.
“I think it’s safe to say police officers will use every trick in the book to carry out their defined mission,” Stamper said, explaining that for some officers, their mission is to do God’s work and stop the legalization of drugs such as marijuana.
The question that Stamper says needs to be answered is whether this practice is legal, and he expects some “significant” Supreme Court tests of the practice in the near future.
“There is no provision in the Constitution that bars police officers from lying, trickery or deceit,” he said, adding that there is not one word about forfeiture in either the First or Fourth Amendments — parts of the Constitution that officers are most likely to dishonor.
In the meantime, even if someone is doing nothing wrong, carrying large sums of cash on road trips may not be a good idea. After all, the Supreme Court made it even easier for police to stop an individual and search a car last month, when it issued a ruling that allows law enforcement to stop and search a vehicle solely based on an anonymous 911 tip.