At least in Washington.
As drug dealers go, Thomas Roos was not very crafty.
During the summer of 2005, Roos, then 24, was arrested four times in four months, usually passed out behind the wheel in cars loaded with drugs, cash, cellphones and a drug-dealing ledger.
He was so blatant about it, in fact, that drug investigators in Snohomish County believed his parents should have yanked the keys to their cars. When the parents didn’t, the officers seized the vehicles under drug-forfeiture laws.
That action led to an unusual question for the state Court of Appeals: Should parents be punished for the actions of a wayward son?
The three-judge panel this week said yes, rejecting Alan and Stephne Roos’ argument that they were unwitting victims, and all but chastised them for not exercising more tough love.
The ruling cost the Rooses, of Bothell, their 2004 Nissan Sentra and a 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle “muscle car,” as well as more than $34,000 in attorney fees to fight what their attorney deemed a ruling that “stretches the bounds of logic.”
After one arrest his mom told him not to drive the Nissan and his dad bought steering locks for both the cars, but it wasn’t enough. In the next two months he was arrested twice - once in the Nissan and once in the Chevelle.
The court’s interpretation of drug-forfeiture laws could open up a Pandora’s box for future cases.
Drug-forfeiture laws, which are intended to take the profit motive out of drug-dealing, exempt “innocent owners” from property seizures. But that exemption doesn’t apply to people who “stick his/her head in the sand,” the appeals court ruled.
What is sticking your head in the sand? And will government officials get to make up a definition as they go along?
Sweet, I can’t wait.
UPDATE: Thanks to Derek in the comments for doing actual research and finding evidence that Thomas’ parents may not have been as innocent as they claimed. I’ll quote Derek in full here.
So here’s the court’s actually holding: “We hold that a claimant may not successfully invoke the innocent owner exception to prevent forfeiture of a vehicle where the claimant knew or should have known that the vehicle was being used to acquire possession of controlled substances.”
Here’s the evidence cited that they “should have known,” if not that they actually knew.
“If you know that your son was convicted of delivering a controlled substance as a juvenile, your son is being very secretive, your son is not living at home, your son has been stealing mail and erasing voice mail messages for over two years, your son is unemployed, and as of July 3, 2005, your son has been arrested twice since June 10th with drugs and large sums of cash on his person, how can you ignore the reality and claim to be an innocent owner when he is later arrested and your property is seized?”
Alan testified that he gave Thomas permission to use the vehicle. Thomas testified that he used the Nissan on a daily basis, and sometimes kept the vehicle for several weeks at a time. [A] registration renewal form for the Nissan, bearing the handwritten notation, “For Tom,” was recovered pursuant to a prior search.
At a minimum, the information Alan and Stephne did possess, including Thomas’s past and present problems with drugs and his unemployed status, would have led a reasonable person to further inquire into the Nissan’s use in order to ensure that the vehicle was not being used for an illegal purpose.
The important context is that property the drug dealer uses is forfeited by default, unless you prove the exception of an “innocent owner.”
Derek also makes a nice point that “sticking your head in the sand” is not the Pandora’s box I made it out to be.
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