A man in Wisconsin was arrested recently when police searched his motor home and and found $815,000 in cash.  The police claim that the money smelled of marijuana, but a subsequent search of the man’s home turned up nothing.  It just so happens that the man was convicted in the 1970’s for the bombing of an Army research center at the University of Wisconsin, but in this case, I don’t think that matters.

What matters to me is that a citizen was stopped by police and arrested after they found ‘too much money’ on him.  I’ve looked, and there’s nothing on a dollar bill that says “This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private, so long as they are under $10,000.00 and a drug dog doesn’t mistake this note for a MilkBone”.

The fact that the money ‘smelled of cannabis’ is immaterial to me.  The dollars in my wallet smell of motor oil at the moment.  Does that mean that the police can impound my cash because the EPA needs to investigate to see if I’ve been illegally dumping used oil in the sewers?  I can see nothing here that indicates he’s committed a crime, so why is his property being taken from him?

The only law I could find that mentions having more than a certain amount of money is Section 5332 of the 31st United States Code, and that deals with transport into and out of the United States, not within our borders.  In 2006, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals held that a drug dog alerting on a car used to transport large amounts of cash is enough cause to impound the money without any evidence of a crime on the part of the person who owns it.  That sound you heard when you read that was my eardrums blowing out with steam when I read it.  And it’s not an isolated incident.  Radley Balko has done multiple posts about police in Tennessee trolling the interstates for people to stop and search for cash.

I’m not naive, I know it’s not something you see much anymore, and I know it’s something that criminals do, especially in those amounts and packaged in that manner.  But modify the story to say “Police stopped Mr. DaddyBear and found two rifles, 2000 rounds of pistol, shotgun, and high-caliber rifle ammunition, four pistols, and three shotguns in his vehicle.  The ammunition was sealed in a series of metal cans, and police also found several hundred spent shell casings in plastic bags.  Several of the firearms smelled strongly of spent gunpowder, leading police to believe that Mr. DaddyBear was transporting weapons related to violent crimes.  A police dog alerted to the smell of explosives residue on several items in the car.  No evidence of a crime was found on Mr. DaddyBear or in his automobile, but police seized the firearms, ammunition, and automobile”  Now, was I coming back from a murder scene, or was I coming home from a really good blogshoot?  Should my property be taken from me, with little to no recourse in recovering it, because I’m doing something the police don’t care for, but not breaking any laws?

My point is this:  Failure to find evidence of a crime means the cash is clean as far as I am concerned.  Yes, it looks suspicious, and the police should note that and maybe keep an eye out for this individual to be involved in the drug trade.  But how are they going to tell if he is smuggling cash from crimes, going to buy a new house with cash, or is just a guy who lives frugally and doesn’t trust banks?  The government needs to stop taking our property and get out of our private business.