A friend of mine got $40k from a dead grandfather. She took the check to the bank, let it clear, pulled all $40k in cash and took it home so her and her girlfriend could roll in it.
After a night of sex on a bed of cash, they found most of it and returned it to the bank.
About a month later she and her girlfriend vanished to Europe and were never seen again. 
This is an excellent point, and should be reiterated: while it may not be illegal to carry a large amount of cash, according to the Eighth Circuit Appeals Court, “[p]ossession of a large sum of cash is ‘strong evidence’ of a connection to drug activity.” So the police can legally rip it out of your hands and keep it.
I wonder what constitutes a “large sum of cash.” Certainly $125,000 in cash would be a “large sum” to me, but heck, so would $2000.
(bolding mine)
For some reason, your post cheered me up enormously! 
I have always wondered how these seizures get around the due process clause. Can any of you lawyers explain that?
On a related hijack, I see that Nevada has a ballot issue that will allow sales of up to 1 oz. of marijuana. A CNN article noted that the Feds would probably not allow this. How they get around the 9th and 10th amendment issues in their prosecutions?
Thanks,
Rob
If you’re a suspected drug dealer, and your money was earned that way, they can keep it and get you on tax evasion, blah, blah, blah. However, if you can prove you earned it legitimately, you can walk around with a gazilion bucks on you and no one can do anything.
The quick and dirty answer is because it falls under the rules of civil procedure like an ordinary suit for damages and as such is subject to different rules and a lower standard of proof than would be required in a criminal proceeding where you would be subject to imprisonment. That’s not to say that they can get away with anything; the federal civil forfeiture statute used to hold that the government just had to make a showing of probable cause and then you had to prove the money wasn’t subject to forfeiture by a preponderance of the evidence. Some of the circuit courts of appeal grumbled that this might be unconstitutional, and Congress changed the statute to put the preponderance burden on the governement.
The modern views of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments shows that they don’t usually hold much water in constitutional challenges, and they don’t trump the Supremacy Clause. Por exemplo:
“The [Tenth] amendment states but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered. There is nothing in the history of its adoption to suggest that it was more than declaratory of the relationship between the national and state governments as it had been established by the Constitution before the amendment or that its purpose was other than to allay fears that the new national government might seek to exercise powers not granted, and that the states might not be able to exercise fully their reserved powers.”
U.S. v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100 (1941). The Ninth is treated similarly; it’s more a rule of legal construction rather than an actual source of rights, the effect being that we can’t be denied fundamental rights just because they aren’t specifically enumerated.
No and this is a funny article about how you shouldn’t carry more than maybe a few grand on you, either.
The Feds can prosecute as normal since the interstate commerce clause gives Congress the power to override state laws. However this would mean that the FBI would have to do all the work regarding investigation and arrest of the suspects and not the Nevada police.
Regarding the first question, I stiill wonder why it is even legal for the government to file suit against the property rather than the individual and also why this forfeiture can happen outside of criminal court. At least now the burden of proof is on the government to show that my property is ill-gotten.
Regarding the second part, if the 9th and 10th amendments are pointless, then how does Art I, Sec. 9 grant Congress the authority to pass such laws? I understand if there is interstate commerce or federal property involved or something, but does the federal government have the right to enforce proscription against intrastate marijuana cultivation and sale? If so, under what authority?
Thanks,
Rob
I’m a big supporter of the marijuana ballot issue (I think it’s Question 7) and hope it passes (although I’ve never smoked marijuana in my life; I just believe our current system is pretty crappy), but it seems to me that it would be a lot easier for the feds to say something like “Look, Nevada state government, I know your ballot issue calls for you to set up a legal, regulated, taxed system for distribution of marijuana, but if you even think about actually doing that, we’ll withhold every dollar of federal money that normally goes to Nevada” rather than actually sending in federal agents and prosecutors to arrest and try potheads.
It’s a legal fiction, kind of like how we treat corporations as as if they were people. The idea is that you’re not actually punishing any person for a crime (although most courts recognize that there is a punitive aspect), you’re instituting an action against the property itself as a remedy for the harm that has been done. It’s admittedly weird, but without it we wouldn’t get gems of jurisprudence like 2174 Obscene Devices v. State of Texas, 33 S.W.3d 904 (Tex.App.–Houston [14th Dist.] 2000, no pet.)
The Commerce Clause allows the Feds to regulate intrastate commerce in some circumstances. The landmark case in that regard is Wickard v. Filburn. 317 U.S. 111 (1942). Filburn was an Ohio farmer who was growing more wheat on his property than federal law allowed. He argued that none of the wheat was leaving his farm, he was just using it to bake bread and feed his livestock, so there’s no interstate issue. SCOTUS rejected his argument, saying that even though Filburn’s activity was completely intrastate, the area being regulated (wheat production) was one that substantially affected interstate commerce when taken as a whole.
So the modern view of the Commerce Clause is that Congress can regulate the channels of interstate commerce, instrumentalities of interstate commerce and persons and things traveling in interstate commerce, or activities that substantially affect interstate commerce government, like our pal Filburn. That means Congress can regulate and even criminalize conduct that occurs wholly within a single state if it can demontrate a rational basis for concluding that there’s a substantial affect on interstate commerce. Some crimes haven’t cut the mustard (SCOTUS threw out the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 in U.S. v. Lopez and the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 in U.S. v. Morrison), but regulating drug possession and distribution on a large scale qualifies. Their most recent take was this case:
“Unlike those at issue in Lopez and Morrison, the activities regulated by the CSA [Controlled Substances Act] are quintessentially economic. “Economics” refers to “the production, distribution, and consumption of commodities.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 720 (1966). The CSA is a statute that regulates the production, distribution, and consumption of commodities for which there is an established, and lucrative, interstate market. Prohibiting the intrastate possession or manufacture of an article of commerce is a rational (and commonly utilized) means of regulating commerce in that product. Such prohibitions include specific decisions requiring that a drug be withdrawn from the market as a result of the failure to comply with regulatory requirements as well as decisions excluding Schedule I drugs entirely from the market. Because the CSA is a statute that directly regulates economic, commercial activity, our opinion in Morrison casts no doubt on its constitutionality.”
Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1 (2005).
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This is not legal advice but-if you are concerned about a CTR or similar filing for a cash transaction over $10000- do not, fergawdsake “structure” or split up the cash to avoid the filing of a CTR or similar reporting document. Having a CTR filed on you is no big deal- but structuring your cash transactions so as to avoid a CTR is a Federal Crime. See the Bank Secrecy Act, T31 US Code.