[News] The Cash Cops of Tenaha

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/moses10192009.html
October 19, 2009


Bizarre License on Highway 59


The Cash Cops of Tenaha

By GREG MOSES

It was Friday of the last day of August, 2007 when Arkansas resident 
James Morrow attempted to mind his own business while driving 
peaceably through Tenaha, a small East Texas town in Shelby 
County  south of Shreveport and Longview. According to a federal 
lawsuit (Morrow v Tenaha) filed by the American Civil Liberties Union 
there was "no legal justification" for what happened next.  Morrow 
was stopped by Tenaha Deputy Marshall Barry Washington and asked to 
step out of his car.  Deputy Washington then searched Morrow's car.

Then Deputy Washington was joined at the scene by Shelby County 
Precinct Four Constable Randy Whatley who searched the car with a 
dog.  Following two searches of his car, Morrow was asked by Deputy 
Washington if he had any money, and he said yes, he was carrying 
about $3,900 in his wallet.  Deputy Washington promptly seized $3,969 
from Morrow, confiscated his two cell phones, and arrested him for 
"money laundering."

"Washington had no reason  to believe Plaintiff Morrow was guilty of 
money laundering," says the federal lawsuit.  "Defendants Washington 
and Russell  told Plaintiff Morrow they would hold him  prisoner and 
prosecute him for money  laundering unless he would agree to 
forfeit  the $3969.  Under this duress and these threats, Defendants 
Washington and Russell coerced Plaintiff Morrow  to execute documents 
memorializing the forfeiture, and released him, and warned him to not 
hire  a lawyer or try to get his money back."  The "money laundering" 
charges were subsequently dismissed.

Morrow is a black African American and the lead plaintiff in a case 
involving eight motorists who claim they were stopped and stripped of 
their cash for no other provocation than driving or riding through 
Tenaha while black.  The cars they all drove were either rented or 
displayed out-of-state license plates.

On August 13, 2007, Deputy Washington lifted $50,291.00 from two 
black African Americans from Washington D.C. and Maryland who were 
traveling through Texas together.

"Washington threatened Plaintiffs with charges of money  laundering 
and  lengthy sentences if they would not execute documents allowing 
the seizure or if they otherwise contested the seizure," says the lawsuit.

"Washington did not  charge Plaintiffs with any criminal offense, nor 
did he have legal justification to do so." On June 11, 2008, Deputy 
Washington confiscated $13,000 from a black African American from Wisconsin.

"Washington threatened to bring money laundering charges against 
Plaintiff, and to prosecute him on those charges, if he did not 
execute documents permitting Defendant Washington's seizure and 
forfeiture of the money," says the lawsuit.  "Under this coercion, 
Plaintiff signed the documents." On April 18, 2007, Deputy Washington 
stopped and detained another pair of black African American 
motorists, Linda Dorman and Marvin Pearson, both from Ohio.  While 
under detention they were questioned by Shelby County District 
Attorney Investigator Danny Green.  He asked them if they had any 
money.  According to court documents Dorman and Pearson admitted to 
having $4,500, but after Green confiscated the cash under the usual 
coercive threats, he handed them a receipt for only $4,000.  No 
charges against Dorman or Pearson were ever filed. Jennifer 
Boatwright is a white woman from Texas, but on April 26, 2007 she was 
driving down Highway 59 near Tenaha with Ronald Henderson, a black 
African American.  They were stopped and detained by Deputy 
Washington, then questioned by Washington and D.A. Investigator Green.

"Green threatened to bring money laundering charges against 
Plaintiffs Boatwright and Henderson,  and to take their children and 
put them in foster care if Plaintiffs would not sign papers prepared 
by Defendant Green to authorize the seizure," says the 
lawsuit.  "Under coercion, Plaintiffs Boatwright and Henderson 
complied."  They handed over $6,000 in cash.  No charges were ever 
filed against them.

"Now, under Texas law, if you are pulled over and accused of a real 
crime, police are permitted to take money and other valuables that 
you might have used in your crime, or received from your crime," 
explains CNN correspondent Gary Tuchman in a May, 2009 blog post at 
AC360. As Tuchman explains, the forfeiture law is intended to take 
bad money and put it to good use, but after an extensive public 
information request, the CNN team discovered that District Attorney 
Lynda K. Russell has collected an estimated $3 million in forfeiture 
funds to purchase such things as $195 for Tootsie Pops, Dum Dums, and 
Dubble Bubble that she contributed to a poultry festival, $524 for a 
popcorn machine and popcorn, $400 for barbecue catering, and at least 
two checks totaling $6,000 to a local Baptist church.

"But this one, this check, really stands out," reports Tuchman in an 
archived transcript of the story.  "This is the check the DA wrote 
for $10,000 and paid directly to police officer Barry Washington for 
what are described as investigative costs."

With camera rolling, Tuchman asks Russell and Washington for 
comments, but they both refuse on account of pending litigation.  In 
federal court documents the defendants deny the charges, claim to 
have no knowledge of alleged facts, claim immunity as officials, and 
ask that the case be dismissed.

Republican D.A. Russell was elected by 53 percent of the vote against 
a Democrat opponent in 2000, according to official numbers posted by 
the Texas Secretary of State.  In 2004 she increased her general 
election share to 59 percent against her predecessor, Democrat Karen 
S. Price, who tried to stage a comeback after a failed effort to get 
elected in 2000 as a Republican District Judge.  In 2008, D.A. 
Russell ran unopposed.  No one that year could have made a campaign 
issue of the federal suit that was filed after the Spring primary but 
before the Fall general election. During the summer of 2009, lawyers 
battled over discovery motions.  Plaintiffs are trying to certify a 
class action lawsuit and therefore want volumes of video and 
documentation well beyond the eight named cases.  On August 20, 
Federal District Judge T. John Ward largely granted ACLU requests for 
more materials and clarified the legal path to possible class action 
certification.

On the defense side, attorneys argued that they should be allowed to 
discover "travel itineraries, calendars, journals, or other documents 
reflecting schedule and/or any travel; all credit card 
bills/receipts; all receipts for hotel, gas, meals, rental cars; and 
photographs  from any trips and  of any items  seized."  Judge Ward 
agreed, but only if the records were "readily available."

Lawyers for the police and D.A.'s office also wanted plaintiffs to 
turn over bank records, income tax returns, and employment records; 
in an apparent attempt to revisit the "money laundering" charges that 
were never filed in the first place.  It was a scary request 
supported by scary argumentation: "In other words," argued lawyers 
for the Shelby County law enforcement establishment in their federal 
filings, "even if the initial traffic stop lacked probable cause, the 
forfeiture action could proceed and the State could still meet its 
civil case burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence and the 
property could still be forfeited."

The authority the cops were seeking was chilling.  They could stop 
people for no reason, take their cash, spend it, meanwhile filing no 
charges of wrongdoing.  All the while, the authorities of East Texas 
or wherever could count on a federal court order that would allow 
them to go after the banking, tax, and employment records of their 
innocent victims if they tried to get their money back.  Judge Ward 
denied those parts of discovery.

The discovery motions also revealed that collection accounts were not 
always well kept.  One front-line collector argued that he kept bulk 
numbers only and could not provide evidence of how much money was 
taken on any single occasion.  To get your money back from these 
actors, they may demand that you prove it's not contraband and then 
prove how much they took. But these East Texas law enforcers are not 
finished grasping at bizarre license to ply their trade as the cash 
cops of Highway 59.  D.A. Russell now seeks to use the forfeiture 
funds to pay for her defense.  In early October the ACLU filed a 
brief with the Texas Attorney General's Office to prevent the 
forfeiture funds from being spent to defend alleged abuse of 
forfeiture powers.

"Even if it were determined that, under other circumstances, the 
District Attorney should be permitted to use forfeited assets to pay 
for legal representation, such an action in this case should be 
prohibited because it would give the appearance of impropriety," 
argues the ACLU brief. "The Plaintiffs claim the funds were taken 
illegally.  To permit the District Attorney to use them would suggest 
that law-breakers may profit from ill-gotten gains, the very problem 
that the asset forfeiture law was created to prevent." Cash is a 
lucrative temptation.  Empowering officials to take cash money from 
passing motorists and  give it to attorneys who can help them keep it 
is a plain recipe for placing law enforcement powers in the hands of 
highway forfeiture gangs.

Greg Moses is editor of the Texas Civil Rights Review and author of 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1572304073/counterpunchmaga>Revolution 
of Conscience: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Philosophy of 
Nonviolence. He is a contributor to 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1904859844/counterpunchmaga>Red 
State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland, 
published by AK Press. He can be reached at: 
<mailto:gmosesx at gmail.com>gmosesx at gmail.com




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