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No. 127983
| In Re Forfeiture of $180,975.00 |
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| People of the State of Michigan, |
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Michael J. Bedford |
Plaintiff-Appellee, |
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(Appeal from Ct of Appeals) |
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(Van Buren - Buhl, W.) |
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| $180,975.00 In U.S. Currency, |
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Defendant, |
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| Tamika Shante Smith, |
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Karri Mitchell |
Claimant-Appellant, |
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| Todd Fitzgerald Fletcher, |
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Claimant. |
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| __________________________________________ |
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Click to view briefs in Adobe format:
Plaintiff-Appellee's Brief on Appeal>>
Claimant-Appellant's Brief on Appeal>>
Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan's Amicus Curiae Brief>>
Background
Tamika Shante Smith was stopped for speeding while traveling west on I-94 in a rental car. After a Law Enforcement Information Network (LEIN) search revealed that Smith was driving on a suspended license, she was ticketed for that offense and for speeding. The state trooper who made the stop conducted an unconsented-to search of the car’s trunk and discovered $180,975 in a backpack. The trooper seized the money; the prosecutor later filed a complaint for forfeiture. Smith moved to dismiss the action and have the money returned, arguing that the nonconsensual search of the vehicle violated her Fourth Amendment rights. Following a bench trial, the court entered a judgment of forfeiture. Smith appealed, and the Court of Appeals affirmed in an unpublished opinion on the basis of In re Forfeiture of United States Currency, 166 Mich App 81, 89 (1988), which held that “illegally seized property is forfeitable . . . so long as the probable cause for its seizure can be supported with untainted evidence, and any illegally seized property is excluded from the forfeiture proceeding.” There was such untainted evidence, the Court of Appeals said: (1) in the three months preceding the stop, Smith had rented a car at least four times for three days each time, driven each for several hundred miles, and could not recall where she had driven; (2) according to her tax records, Smith generally earned between $4,000 and $5,000 a year, and had no income in one year; and (3) expert testimony established that I-94 is a major drug corridor between Detroit and Chicago, that such transactions are almost always cash-based, that the cash usually travels west to Chicago and the drugs travel east, and that rental cars are the preferred mode of transportation. Accordingly, the trial court properly found that the prosecution had proven, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Smith was a drug courier and the money was to be used to buy drugs, the appellate court said. Smith appeals.
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