At one time about 10-12 years ago, the DA and Sheriff of Humboldty County, Nevada were particularly aggressive in seizing a traveler's cash. I seem to recall that the journalist who exposed the story and a federal case in Reno (when they stopped the wrong guy) revealed that Humboldt County budgeted for X dollars per year from civil forfeitures in order to buy new patrol cars and other equipment.
It isn't just people of color who are profiled.
That publicized case actually saved me from getting like 50k confiscated in Fallon, Nevada. I got pulled over by a K-9 Unit there about a year after that was in the news. It was one of the tiny towns with 10 different speed limit signs ranging from 75mph down to 25mph. I think I killed my cruise control at the sight of the first sign, but may have still been coasting above one of the new speed limits when the guy pulled me over late at night.
He went through the whole spiel asking me to consent to a search, to which I repeatedly said NO. Then he told me I was acting "suspicious" and he was going to have the dog sniff around. Remember: according to an awful Supreme Court ruling, "a sniff is not a search," but it can provide probable cause for a search(!). After a minute or so, Sparky started barking loudly and the officer gave him a treat (I am not making this up). Then the search began. The cop's face just lit up when he found my money.
Now, I gamble for a living and I'm traveling in
Nevada of all places, so it makes sense for me to have cash with me (even if this weren't the case, there is nothing illegal about possessing and/or traveling with cash). Furthermore, the extensive search turned up loads of evidence to support my claim: gambling books, players cards from hundreds of different casinos, tax forms from many different casinos, losing sports betting tickets, etc. Despite all this, the now large group of cops on the scene were giddily discussing their plans to seize the money. At some point I jokingly asked where all the drugs were. After all, Sparky was barking like crazy and that's what led to the search. Of course, at this point they didn't care that there weren't any drugs in the car.
Fortunately, the boss decided he'd better call the county DA at home for advice. I'm lucky that the DA woke up to take the call. Of course, I was not party to the call, but I could hear the gist of the conversation. The DA said something to the effect that if there were no drugs in the car, and there was sufficient evidence to support my claims of heavy gambling, that they should let me go and not confiscate. The original cop was disgusted by this and kept saying stuff like "I know you're up to something!" as I was trying to put my car, now in shambles after the search, back together. They never did issue a citation for speeding
My lawyer in Las Vegas later reviewed whatever tapes he could get from the police agencies involved in the stop. Some of them were "edited," most likely because of certain incriminating statements the police may have made. But he saw enough to corroborate the story I had told him. He decided not to pursue anything. He said if they took the money or if they kept me on the side of the road for longer than one hour (Nevada state law), we would have had a case. It felt like 3 hours to me but apparently it was 58 minutes or something (no wonder they were in such a hurry to leave as I was putting the car back together lol). I'm confident my lawyer would have gotten the money back had they taken it, but of course he gets to keep about 1/3 of it, so that's no bargain. And maybe we could have won a 5- or 6-figure lawsuit on top of that. But having gone through one of those lawsuits before, I can assure everyone that by far the best result for me was to simply be back on the road with my money. Lawsuits are truly awful experiences even if you win.
My lawyer's belief was that the reason the DA recommended against confiscation was the heavily publicized case from Humboldt County (NV) that cpa mentioned. Feel free to google if you want to read about that one. Lastly, apologies for the off-topic rant. Blame Barry for triggering me!
