APPEALS COURT CONFUSES EVIDENCE AND SUSPICIONS

Americans have gotten used to the sometimes otherworldly decisions
that come out of the federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San
Francisco, which has a reputation as a leftwing hothouse. Yet we
can't recall a decision that the 9th Circuit has recently made that
comes close to the lunacy expressed by the 8th Circuit in the Midwest.

In essence, the court ruled last month that anyone driving with large
quantities of cash must be assumed to be guilty of something, and
that the government can take that cash from its owner. No evidence of
wrongdoing need be found for the police to take the money and run.

In 2003, Emiliano Gomez Gonzolez was pulled over by a state trooper
in his rental car for speeding along a Nebraska interstate highway.
Gonzolez handed the trooper a Nevada license, and the car's rental
contract. However, a different man's name was on the contract. After
Gonzolez told the officer that he had never been arrested, the
officer checked with his dispatcher and found that Gonzolez had
indeed been arrested for a DUI earlier that same year.

Those suspicions led to a search of the car, which led to the
discovery of $124,700 in cash in a cooler. Later, as the court
explained, a drug-sniffing dog named Rico got a scent of drugs on
some of the cash and in the rental cars, but no drugs, drug residue
or drug paraphernalia were found.

The government claimed that "the dog's alert, along with the large
amount of cash that was seized, the circumstances of Gonzolez's
travel, and Gonzolez's initial false denials that he was carrying
cash or that he had a criminal history, showed that the currency was
substantially connected to a drug transaction," according to the
court analysis. Friends and relatives of Gonzolez testified that they
had given him money from their savings so that he could buy a
refrigerated truck for their produce business, and Gonzolez said he
didn't mention the cash to officers because he was "scared" and he
said he had no arrest record because he didn't think a DUI was
considered a crime.

A district court ruled in Gonzolez's favor, stating that his
explanation was plausible and that the government did not provide any
proof that he was involved in the drug trade.

That seems obvious to us. Just because someone is involved in
suspicious activity doesn't mean he has done anything wrong. In this
country, the government is supposed to have proof before denying a
person his liberty or his property. The government could not
prosecute Gonzolez on drug charges, given the lack of evidence, yet
it claimed authority to keep his money, anyway.

The 8th Circuit has now reversed the district court. It argued that
"possession of a large sum of cash is 'strong evidence' of a
connection to drug activity." But this is absurd. We thought that in
this country the government needed evidence, not just suspicions.
Where is the proof that a crime was committed?

This is one of the more foolish, unjust decisions we've seen in a
while. Let's hope the case goes on to the Supreme Court.