J.E.D
Gold Member
- Jul 28, 2011
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A long, but good read.
Sarah Stillman: The Use and Abuse of Civil Forfeiture
On a bright Thursday afternoon in 2007, Jennifer Boatright, a waitress at a Houston bar-and-grill, drove with her two young sons and her boyfriend, Ron Henderson, on U.S. 59 toward Linden, Hendersons home town, near the Texas-Louisiana border. They made the trip every April, at the first signs of spring, to walk the local wildflower trails and spend time with Hendersons father. This year, theyd decided to buy a used car in Linden, which had plenty for sale, and so they bundled their cash savings in their cars center console. Just after dusk, they passed a sign that read Welcome to Tenaha: A little town with big Potential!
They pulled into a mini-mart for snacks. When they returned to the highway ten minutes later, Boatright, a honey-blond Texas redneck from Lubbock, by her own reckoning, and Henderson, who is Latino, noticed something strange. The same police car that their eleven-year-old had admired in the mini-mart parking lot was trailing them. Near the city limits, a tall, bull-shouldered officer named Barry Washington pulled them over.
He asked if Henderson knew that hed been driving in the left lane for more than half a mile without passing.
No, Henderson replied. He said hed moved into the left lane so that the police car could make its way onto the highway.
Were there any drugs in the car? When Henderson and Boatright said no, the officer asked if he and his partner could search the car.
The officers found the couples cash and a marbled-glass pipe that Boatright said was a gift for her sister-in-law, and escorted them across town to the police station. In a corner there, two tables were heaped with jewelry, DVD players, cell phones, and the like. According to the police report, Boatright and Henderson fit the profile of drug couriers: they were driving from Houston, a known point for distribution of illegal narcotics, to Linden, a known place to receive illegal narcotics. The report describes their children as possible decoys, meant to distract police as the couple breezed down the road, smoking marijuana. (None was found in the car, although Washington claimed to have smelled it.)
The countys district attorney, a fifty-seven-year-old woman with feathered Charlies Angels hair named Lynda K. Russell, arrived an hour later. Russell, who moonlighted locally as a country singer, told Henderson and Boatright that they had two options. They could face felony charges for money laundering and child endangerment, in which case they would go to jail and their children would be handed over to foster care. Or they could sign over their cash to the city of Tenaha, and get back on the road. No criminal charges shall be filed, a waiver she drafted read, and our children shall not be turned over to CPS, or Child Protective Services.
Where are we? Boatright remembers thinking. Is this some kind of foreign country, where theyre selling peoples kids off? Holding her sixteen-month-old on her hip, she broke down in tears.
Read more at Sarah Stillman: The Use and Abuse of Civil Forfeiture : The New Yorker
Sarah Stillman: The Use and Abuse of Civil Forfeiture
On a bright Thursday afternoon in 2007, Jennifer Boatright, a waitress at a Houston bar-and-grill, drove with her two young sons and her boyfriend, Ron Henderson, on U.S. 59 toward Linden, Hendersons home town, near the Texas-Louisiana border. They made the trip every April, at the first signs of spring, to walk the local wildflower trails and spend time with Hendersons father. This year, theyd decided to buy a used car in Linden, which had plenty for sale, and so they bundled their cash savings in their cars center console. Just after dusk, they passed a sign that read Welcome to Tenaha: A little town with big Potential!
They pulled into a mini-mart for snacks. When they returned to the highway ten minutes later, Boatright, a honey-blond Texas redneck from Lubbock, by her own reckoning, and Henderson, who is Latino, noticed something strange. The same police car that their eleven-year-old had admired in the mini-mart parking lot was trailing them. Near the city limits, a tall, bull-shouldered officer named Barry Washington pulled them over.
He asked if Henderson knew that hed been driving in the left lane for more than half a mile without passing.
No, Henderson replied. He said hed moved into the left lane so that the police car could make its way onto the highway.
Were there any drugs in the car? When Henderson and Boatright said no, the officer asked if he and his partner could search the car.
The officers found the couples cash and a marbled-glass pipe that Boatright said was a gift for her sister-in-law, and escorted them across town to the police station. In a corner there, two tables were heaped with jewelry, DVD players, cell phones, and the like. According to the police report, Boatright and Henderson fit the profile of drug couriers: they were driving from Houston, a known point for distribution of illegal narcotics, to Linden, a known place to receive illegal narcotics. The report describes their children as possible decoys, meant to distract police as the couple breezed down the road, smoking marijuana. (None was found in the car, although Washington claimed to have smelled it.)
The countys district attorney, a fifty-seven-year-old woman with feathered Charlies Angels hair named Lynda K. Russell, arrived an hour later. Russell, who moonlighted locally as a country singer, told Henderson and Boatright that they had two options. They could face felony charges for money laundering and child endangerment, in which case they would go to jail and their children would be handed over to foster care. Or they could sign over their cash to the city of Tenaha, and get back on the road. No criminal charges shall be filed, a waiver she drafted read, and our children shall not be turned over to CPS, or Child Protective Services.
Where are we? Boatright remembers thinking. Is this some kind of foreign country, where theyre selling peoples kids off? Holding her sixteen-month-old on her hip, she broke down in tears.
Read more at Sarah Stillman: The Use and Abuse of Civil Forfeiture : The New Yorker
