Trucker’s seized money case gets a jury trial in Texas

The seizure of money by law enforcement officers to keep under civil asset forfeiture laws is getting a rare airing in court in front of a jury in Texas. At the heart of the case is a truck driver wanting to buy a second tractor-trailer to expand his business.

Ameal Woods and his partner and the mother of his two children, Jordan Davis, are hoping to get back $42,330 seized by Harris County, Texas, Sheriff’s Office deputies on May 14, 2019.

The trial started yesterday and is expected to continue tomorrow. This is a class action lawsuit aimed at ending the entrenched practice of officers seizing money on what are described as thin pretexts and when no charges are filed against the owner of the money.

Attorneys from the libertarian nonprofit law firm Institute for Justice are bringing the case pro bono on behalf of Woods and Davis.

The court is asked “to grant declaratory and injunctive relief striking down Harris County’s systematic violation of rights” guaranteed by the Texas Constitution.

Building a small trucking business

Woods and Davis live in rural Natchez, Miss. Woods has a small trucking business that he operates with his brother, Aalonzo Woods. They use one tractor-trailer, which Ameal Woods drives from Natchez, Miss., and his brother drives from Cartersville, Ga.

They decided it was time to buy a second tractor and trailer. Ameal Woods researched secondhand tractor-trailers advertised for sale in free magazines found at truck stops. He found some promising tractors and trailers in offers near Houston priced from $25,000 to $35,000.

From being around truckers, Ameal Woods understood that used trucking equipment is usually bought and sold using cash. He expected better offers in a cash transaction.

He also had a distrust of banks, from his father’s and his own experience with them. Instead, he hides cash in several places and by various means. Sometimes he uses a vacuum sealer like are used to store meat, to compress and seal the money to bury in the ground. That was how the money that was seized by Harris County Sheriff’s Office deputies was packaged.

Woods gathered $42,300 in cash to purchase a tractor and trailer. More than half of the money was his. His partner, Davis, contributed $6,500, and he borrowed $13,000 from a niece. He planned to pay back the money to both women when his trucking business picked up.

Ameal Woods had saved his share from his earnings as a self-employed truck driver, horse trainer and occasional construction worker.

Seizure of his money

Ameal Woods rented a car and was traveling west on Interstate 10 when he was stopped. Davis had stayed home with the children.

The stop was on the east side of Harris County during morning rush hour, around 8-8:30 a.m., according to a sheriff deputy’s testimony yesterday.

Woods had been following too close to a box truck, the officer said. In the filed complaint, Woods disputes this allegation, noting that as a truck driver he is very aware of the dangers of following too closely and that there was no truck. He was not issued a citation or even a warning for following too closely or for any other infraction.

Woods consented to having his car searched. Officers found two packages in the truck, one of which was vacuum sealed and wrapped in electrical tape. That one was larger than the other.

Woods told the officers that the packages contained money, not drugs. He also told the officers that he had a loaded gun in the car between the driver’s seat and the center console. The gun was legally purchased and he was the registered owner. The officers conducting the search left the gun alone, even though they later claimed they suspected the money came from drug trafficking.

The deputy testified that Woods seemed “very nervous” and took long pauses and took a deep breath before answering questions.

“It is indicative that the person is trying to come up with a lie,” the officer testified.

The officer conducting the search said, “I think this money is connected to drugs” and took the money, as Woods recounted in the filed complaint.

The money was not counted at the scene. There was no drug-sniffing dog there. The Harris County Sheriff’s Office claims a dog later detected drug residue on the money.

Woods was given a “citizen info card” that reads in preprinted type “You have filed a report for” followed by handwritten “currency seizure.” The amount was not specified. There is a $620 discrepancy in the amount Woods claims was taken and what law enforcement officers reported.

Having lost his money to the officers, Woods turned around and headed home.

Officers claimed Woods admitted to being involved in drug trafficking, the deputy testified yesterday in court. However, the admission happened when the deputy’s body cam “malfunctioned,” he testified.

Larger problem with the Sheriff’s Office?

Three overarching allegations are made in the complaint:

• Texas has no procedure for obtaining a prompt, post-seizure hearing before civil-forfeiture proceedings weeks, months or even years in the future. This makes it difficult for property owners to challenge an officer’s probable-cause determination.
• A person who asserts their innocence in civil-forfeiture proceedings is required to prove their own innocence.
• Law enforcement agencies and prosecutors can keep all of the proceeds from civil-forfeiture cases.

It this case, it took the Harris County District Attorney’s Office just 27 days to file to keep Woods’ and Davis’ money through civil asset forfeiture.

However, it took Harris County 27 months to serve Woods and Davis with notice of the state’s petition to forfeit their property. For more than two years after the money was seized, there was no communication to the owners of the money.

The money was seized in May 2019. It was not until June 2021 that an investigation was conducted, according to the lawsuit complaint. Woods and Davis received a copy of the petition and supporting affidavit from Officer Gregory Nason, who was not on the scene of the I-10 traffic stop. Woods and Davis hired an attorney

Nason is not a patrol officer; he works in an administrative role with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office. He does not conduct investigations but reviews reports to compile affidavits. His position is funded at least partially from proceeds from civil asset forfeiture cases.

Constitutional issues

Several aspects of Harris County’s civil asset forfeiture procedures suggest a pattern that Woods’s and Davis’ attorney say conflicts with the Texas Constitution:

• Attorneys for Woods and Davis reviewed 113 civil asset forfeiture petitions filed by Harris County prosecutors since 2016. All of them were based on a form affidavit written by an officer who was not present at the time and place of the seizure. All had a notation at the bottom: “Revised 03/22/2016.”
• Nasson provided written testimony in 80 civil asset forfeiture cases in a representative set of 113 cases filed between March 2016 and August 2021. He based the affidavits on other officers’ reports, which amounts to hearsay testimony, the complaint alleges.
• Nason cut and pasted several material allegations, including an allegation that sometime after the seizure a dog alerted to the presence of the odor of narcotics on Woods’ and Davis’ money.
• The very same allegation, in the very same words, appears in 79 of 113 civil­ forfeiture cases filed between March 2016 and August 2021. In fact, supporting affidavits filed in 79 of 113 cases use identical or nearly language for their last two sentences.

“As a direct and proximate result of defendants’ unconstitutional reliance on cut­ and-paste allegations and form affidavits in civil-forfeiture cases, Ameal and Jordan’s property has been unconstitutionally seized without probable cause now for 27 months,” the complaint reads.

Deliberation continued Wednesday, May 17 and is expected to continue Thursday.

Read the original complaint here.

Other seized money coverage on LandLine.Media

This case echoes another that Land Line has covered involving a Black man whose money was seized as he was traveling to buy a tractor-trailer. Jerry Johnson, who operates a small North Carolina trucking business, finally got his $39,500 back with interest in April after a two and half year battle.

Here are some tips for avoiding money being seized and put at risk of being kept by law enforcement officers through civil asset forfeiture.

For some historical perspective, read “The War on Drugs put civil asset forfeiture on steroids.” LL