Legalized theft

I didn't get aroung to blogging this forfeiture case when it first came up but this excellent op-ed offers a good opportunity to weigh in.

The case is about a woman from a small town in Nevada who was arrested for six plants and assorted paraphernalia. The city attorney, Dave Olsen, immediately moved to seize her home on the basis of "sending a message" to drug dealers who endanger our children. He cited drug related deaths in the community as the motivation for this ill-advised seizure.

The trouble is, the defendant, Cynthia Warren, wasn't arrested for dealing and no one has ever died of a marijuana overdose in the history of mankind. However there is a perp in Boulder City who endangered the children in town and he remains free. That would be Mr. Olsen himself.

You see, in 2004, Olsen pled no contest to drunken driving, a crime that surely has taken more lives than marijuana ever will. Anti-DUI advocates are fond of saying that, with a drunken driver at the controls, a vehicle is a weapon, surely one more dangerous than Cynthia Warren's house.

Nonetheless, it's Ms. Warren who is now forced to defend herself in this civil action. Last word goes to the author of the op-ed.

Outrage barely covers it: Regardless of what the law says, Olsen is engaging in an act of theft. Warren committed a crime, and was punished for committing a crime. Olsen's exacting a punishment for something Warren never did in the eyes of the law, making wild and untrue claims in the process. He should drop this case immediately, and if he doesn't, Boulder City fathers should find the courage to order him to stop.

In the meantime, will somebody look at seizing that motorcycle? I think we'd all feel safer if they did.