Last week, U.S. District Judge Nanette Laughrey granted summary judgement to dismiss the civil rights suit (raised under 42 U.S.C. § 1983) of Jonathan Whitworth, Brittany Whitworth, and their son. The civil rights claim stems from a February 2010 Columbia, Missouri SWAT raid that went viral…
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Monthly Archives: November 2011
Jonathan Whitworth’s Dismissed Civil Suit
Tagged with: asset forfeiture, Brian Kelly, Columbia, Jonathan Whitworth, Missouri, Nanette Laughrey, Qualified Immunity, Radley Balko, Summary Judgement, SWAT, SWAT raids
Posted in Drug War, Uncategorized
Posted in Drug War, Uncategorized
Fictitious Justice
Joe Hogsett, U.S. Attorney with the Southern District of Indiana, recently awarded Seymour Police Chief Bill Abbott and Jackson County Prosecutor Rick Poynter with checks, for $9,018.20 and $1,288.39, for their agencies’ roles in a seizure of $13,000 that…
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Tagged with: Bill Abbott, civil asset forfeiture, DOJ, equitable sharing, forfeiture, Indiana, Jackson County, January Wetzel, Joe Hogsett, Rick Poynter, seizure, Seymour Police
Posted in Drug War, federal
Posted in Drug War, federal
California’s Forfeiture Deficit
To follow up on a point John made yesterday about equitable sharing in California, I’d like to point out that law enforcement in California actually receives more income from federal forfeiture than they do through state courts. Data from the…
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Posted in Uncategorized
The Rest of the Story
I always feel validated when I see my opponents on the defensive, even if I’m not necessarily the one who put them there. So I couldn’t help experiencing a twinge of gratification when I read Lt. Chris Piombo of the…
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Corrupt Sheriff Blames Federal Forfeiture Dollars for Corruption
Former Nicholas County, Kentucky Sheriff Leonard Garrett, whom I have written about before here and here, has been sentenced for receiving money stolen from his county’s asset forfeiture fund. There’s not much new in the sentencing that we didn’t already…
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Another Prosecutor Using Forfeiture Dollars as a De-Facto Campaign Fund
San Diego City Beat requested an accounting of how San Diego County’s district attorney Bonnie Dumanis spent her office’s forfeiture funds since 2009. What they got back was a two-page, typo-filled document that apparently took Dumanis’ office four-and-a-half hours to…
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DOJ’s New Christmas List: More Naughty Than Nice
While most of the news coming out of Lanny Breuer’s November 1st appearance, before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, centered on the Fast and Furious Gunwalker scandal, it bears paying attention to why the Assistant Attorney General of…
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Tagged with: Attorney General, civil asset forfeiture, civil forfeiture, Department of Justice, DOJ, drug war, Fast and Furious, Lanny Breuer
Posted in Drug War, federal
Posted in Drug War, federal
Reflections on forfeiture, law enforcement, and governance: Part I
There are numerous stories of property seizure, law enforcement misconduct, and victimized Americans that break in the course of a given week. While we try to cover as much as we can through our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/ForfeitureReform) and this blog,…
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