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Wayne County Cops Seized Her Car Over $10 Worth of Weed. Now She's Suing.

A Detroit woman is suing Wayne County, Michigan, after police seized her car for possession of $10 worth of marijuana under the state'...

A Detroit woman is suing Wayne County, Michigan, after police seized her car for possession of $10 worth of marijuana under the state's civil asset forfeiture laws.
Crystal Sisson alleges in a federal civil rights lawsuit filed Wednesday that she was pulled over by Wayne County Sheriff's deputies this July after they surveilled her going into a Detroit medical marijuana dispensary, where she had bought a small amount of marijuana for $10. After discovering the marijuana, which is decriminalized in Detroit, the sheriff's deputies cited her for "illegally occupying a place where controlled substances are sold" and seized her 2015 Kia Soul.
Under civil asset forfeiture laws, police can seize property—cash, cars, and even houses—suspected of being connected to criminal activity. Law enforcement groups say it is a vital tool for disrupting organized drug trafficking and other crimes, but civil liberties groups say it has too few protections for innocent property owners and far too many perverse profit incentives for police and prosecutors.
To get her car back, Sisson had to pay the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office $1,200 to settle the forfeiture case, a typical practice in the county. Sisson's lawsuit, however, argues that the seizure and settlement was unconstitutionally excessive.
"Because the City of Detroit had decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana and Sisson purchased a small amount of marijuana from a medical marijuana dispensary that Wayne County allowed to operate, the forfeiture of Sisson's vehicle and/or the $1,200 settlement for the forfeiture action is an excessive penalty in violation of Plaintiff's constitutionally protected Eighth Amendment rights," the lawsuit says.
Sisson's suit is notable because the Supreme Court is currently considering a similar asset forfeiture case, Timbs v. Indiana, that revolves around the case of Tyson Timbs, whose Land Rover, worth $41,000, was seized after he sold two grams of heroin to an undercover officer. Court watchers strongly suspect the Supreme Court will incorporate the Eighth Amendment, making the Excessive Fines clause apply to states.
Sisson is only one of hundreds of Wayne County residents who've been surveilled, pulled over, had their car seized, and been forced to pay out more than $1,000 to get it back, all for visiting legal, state-licensed medical marijuana dispensaries.
Three Detroit-area residents filed a federal class-action lawsuit against Wayne County this July for its asset forfeiture program. One of the plaintiffs, Stephen Nichols, had been waiting three years for a court hearing after his car was seized. The other two plaintiffs, like Sisson, allege their car was seized after visiting a medical marijuana dispensary. As Reasonreported:
The two other named plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Adam and Ryan Chappell, are a father and son, respectively. According to the suit, the younger Chappell was borrowing his dad's car one day in July 2016 when Wayne County sheriff's deputies saw him pull into a medical marijuana dispensary in Detroit. The cops pulled him over as he left and seized the car. No marijuana was recovered from the car, and no criminal charges were filed in the case, according to the lawsuit.
[...]
Chappell was then handed a notice that the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office intended to forfeit his car, unless he paid a $900 out-of-court settlement fee or filed a claim to contest the seizure within 20 days, along with a $250 bond. (The bond requirement has since been eliminated by the Michigan state legislature.)
The Wayne County Sheriff's Office reported in 2016 that it surveilled 32 medical marijuana dispensaries, performed 634 investigatory stops of cars leaving dispensaries, and impounded 467 vehicles as part of Operation Push-Off, a local law enforcement initiative targeting drugs, prostitution, and drag racing funded by licensing fees collected from the state's medical marijuana program.
According to state reports, Wayne County law enforcement received $473,256 in Medical Marihuana Operation and Oversight Grants in fiscal year 2016 and $483,132 in 2017. Essentially, Michigan requires Wayne County medical marijuana dispensaries to pay Wayne County cops, who then rob and extort the dispensaries' customers. The mafia offers a better deal.
Of course, Michigan voters legalized recreational marijuana this November, so Wayne County cops will have to find another asset forfeiture cookie jar.

7 comments

  1. Look at the political affiliation of the Wayne County Prosecutor, Kim Worthy, and the Wayne County Sheriff, Benny Napoleon.
    This really shouldn't surprise anyone.

    ReplyDelete
  2. We should ALL be kneeling .........................
    America needs Jack-Booted-Thug police like America needs Homosexual-Pedophile priests.
    .... It is Time to reconsider "taking a knee" As much as I disagree with most of the pro-kneeler idiots ..... I disagree with the Militarized 'police" concept more. Divide & conquer ... keep White & Black from uniting to demand honest police. by instigating conflict.
    So many have written ineffective tomes on police abuse of power and of the citizens. For decades we have voiced concerns. The Militias, etc., were largely born of those concerns. More Whites are shot by police then Blacks --- https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/
    https://www.activistpost.com/2018/10/america-is-on-the-brink-of-a-nervous-breakdown.html
    Why aren't the Fans kneeling TOO?! All you FEMA camp prospects. All those worried about millions of hollow-point bullets that can store for decades.
    Free Speech ..... kneel for it.
    The police are the ones that Disrespect our Anthem and the Nation by murdering American Citizens, people's beloved pets, People shot in bungled raids on the wrong house , they murder the Rule of Law. Look at all the people being freed from false convictions based on lying police and corrupt prosecutors. Time to DEMILITARIZE the police. What became of those millions of hollow-point bullets? Those FEMA camps await, when shall you speak out?
    Yeah sure, the POLICE - --- Currently, in the U.S., law enforcement kills around 1,200 citizens per year. Ironically, that number is actually four times higher than those who die from rifles. As has been recorded, cops have killed 450 percent more people than have died in the past forty years of mass shootings.
    So now I say why are the football fans not kneeling WITH the players? After Ruby Ridge, Waco, LaVoy Finicum and the Bundy Ranch ALL fans should be joining the Players arm in arm and demanding the "police" start serving ALL the Citizens. The "Thin Blue Line" should be dismantled by any means necessary. There should be througho and objective THIRD PARTY investigations of shootings.
    The police have NO Constitutional obligation to protect you/your loved ones. The police can legally stand and watch your loved ones be beaten to death and there is NO recourse. "all that needs to be understood, and remembered is they are armed, and paid, to protect and serve the State. you are not the State. once that is thoroughly understood, the rest falls into place."
    9/11 did NOT magically transform cops into Honest Trustworthy Lawmen. Get over the misplaced school-girl "hero worship" and start demanding fair treatment of ALL Citizens.
    Former law enforcement officer Matthew Horace explained comments made in his new book, "The Black and the Blue," that describes various police officers as "time bombs waiting to explode,"
    Shooting a Citizen and then whining "I was in fear for my life" should result in immediate LIFE ban from law enforcement not a "license to kill" and if you pass the criminal investigation ---- you can go work at a Walmart where you will be safe. Shooting a harmless pet should mean immediate firing. https://thefreethoughtproject.com/category/cop-watch/
    America needs Jack-Booted-Thug police like America needs Homosexual-Pedophile priests.
    “The freedom of individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state.”— Justice William J. Brennan, City of Houston v. Hill
    What the architects of the police state want are submissive, compliant, cooperative, obedient, meek citizens who don’t talk back, don’t challenge government authority, don’t speak out against government misconduct, and don’t step out of line.

    ReplyDelete
  3. America is overdue for a Great Cleansing.
    One of the most disgusting sights is Police making a self-glorifying public display of "helping underprivileged children" at Christmas. The Criminal, JUST-US System and those police are impoverishing families with onerous fees, fines, "charges".
    The courts, prosecutors, and police are vampire parasites wrongfully convicting people too poor to afford ridiculous lawyer fees. They live by feeding off the People.
    This is the same thing the British courts used to do ---- wrongfully convict to provide free labor to Britain's penal colonies and enrich the judges. Part of the reason for the American Revolution. Now it is Judges, Prosecutors, "counselors", For Profit prisons ...... a whole "Incarceration industry" giving itself unlimited employment.
    There is a cycle in human society .... the Haves make rules more and more complicated, expensive, and entangled so that the Haves always win and keep piling up the power .... after time the HaveNots realize that and do the first thing one learns in Kindergarten ---- they throw the game table over and slaughter a bunch of the Haves. We are approaching that point now. That is good.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=exnaY0l4XsM
    America needs Jack-Booted-Thug police like It needs Homosexual-Pedophile priests.
    "The privileged have regularly invited their own destruction with their greed." -- John Kenneth Galbraith, The Age of Uncertainty

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great post.
    And I don't think there's anyway I can expound upon on it.
    Other than my own empirical evidence. I went through exactly what you described in your reply to my post.
    I wasn't cooperative with the police during questioning,and immediately requested an attorney. and it pissed them off no end.
    I ended up fighting for my life the first night they stuck me in the 10 man pod in the above article written county jail, and you guessed it, I was the only Caucasian. I did the best I could to try to terminate the cellie tormentor, a particularly large, loud, obnoxious black man with prison art he obtained in the pen in Chino Ca. (He was awaiting extradition back to Ca because he violated his parole by leaving the state). As a result of that, I ended up getting 33 days added on to my sentence in a solitary cell in SHU.
    But I told the deputies, "If you guys want to get buried in paperwork for the next year or so, go ahead and stick me back in a pod with a bunch of criminal pavement apes". (As in REAL criminals). I told them "if you don't care, I don't care either". If I wouldn't have plead out, I would have sat in that hell hole for a year awaiting a trial.
    This is how these state sanctioned parasites operate.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thank You and please share my post ---- the thing they fear is People speaking out and realizing they are not alone.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Abusive uses of civil forfeiture rules should outrage everyone in the country. They are essentially government sanctioned larceny that should get the officers and officials involved prosecuted for larceny. Several states have passed or are working on bills to reduce the abusive governmental for-profit civil forfeiture rackets. NO ONE should tolerate abuses like these, they are immoral.
    James C. Walker, National Motorists Association

    ReplyDelete