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Driver Arrested In Ohio For Secret Car Compartment Full of Nothing
schwit1 writes about the hazards of driving through Ohio in a car with a secret compartment in the trunk. From the article: "Norman Gurley, 30, is facing drug-related charges in Lorain County, Ohio, despite the fact that state troopers did not actually find any drugs in his possession. Ohio passed a law in 2012 making it a felony to alter a vehicle to add a secret compartment with the 'intent' of using it to conceal drugs for trafficking."
This is the first person arrested under the strange law.
I know Florida has had a law on the books like this for a while and I'm sure other states do as well. I get why they think they need it but it's a serious abuse of our individual rights as it essentially makes it so you are assumed guilty.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
Or is this another one of those BS laws where they bypass due process by stating in the law that "such and such" conditions are sufficient to establish it?
Does this law apply if you buy a used car and you don't even know about the hidden compartment? Surely this can't be Constitutional.
that this car is is prison.
Sent from my ENIAC
How do the LEOs know what someone's intention is? I could argue it is to store sensitive work material or items sought after by thieves. What is wrong with putting drugs in there? I have a prescription for Oxycodone before. There are plenty of junkies that would love to get their hands on that. So does this mean police can arrest someone because they think they might have intentions of doing something illegal? Are they going to compensate people for their time and legal fees for arrest based on nothing more than speculation? This is insane. I will admit I didn't RTFA.
Any lawyer worth half a shit will get this tossed out. It's a useless law for it's intended purpose, it's designed as a plea bargain tool. If they decide to use this particular case to test the legality of this law, they are going to be sorely disappointed.
I have a hidden compartment in my car it, came that way from the Factory, it were I store my spare tire and jack. So under this crazy law, would that be illegal too?
http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/law-enforcement-bulletin/October-2010/investigating-and-prosecuting-hidden-compartment-cases
One more thing...we call them the Fibbies for a reason.
After all the Tesla stories, finally one about potential car implosions!
So, next up: A law that makes it a felony for using encryption to conceal evidence of terrorism.
Now they can nail you just for using encryption with your email.
-- I have monkeys in my pants.
I don't see how they prove intent here. Empty container -- I could store guns, money, drugs, or *any other valuable item* I don't want exposed and out there for someone to heist by smashing the glass in the vehicle. I don't suppose I have a right to secure my property in any way I see fit? Intent is missing here and the prosecutor is going to have to stretch the truth quite a bit to prove his case.
Again, you need to prove intent. And in some states, the possession of "burglarious instruments" is only restricted if used in the commission of a crime. For instance, in my state, Massachusetts, there aren't any laws restricting me from carrying lockpicks, slim jims--you name it, I have it. In fact, a manufacturer of such tools is locally owned and operated. I also took a course from a third-party locksmithing school, and they happily sent me materials without any background checks, but I don't need certification to possess and carry these things.
Before someone gets on their high horse and bitches, I don't generally carry these tools around, and certainly not to break into anything. I am a member of the Locksport community, and a compartment like this in my car would be generally useful to keep nosy people from stealing my tools (not the first time someone has tried).
http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/bills.cfm?ID=129_SB_305
(I) This section does not apply to a box, safe, container, or other item added to a vehicle for the purpose of securing valuables, electronics, or firearms provided that at the time of discovery the box, safe, container, or other item added to the vehicle does not contain a controlled substance or visible residue of a controlled substance.
So it's OK to have a hidden compartment in your car as long as it does not contain a controlled substance or visible residue of a controlled substance. For the record, I still think the law is crap but it's not as bad as the article makes it out to be.
As bad as the law is, according to the law's language itself, he shouldn't have been arrested. Here's the last section of the law:
(I) This section does not apply to a box, safe, container, or other item added to a vehicle for the purpose of securing valuables, electronics, or firearms provided that at the time of discovery the box, safe, container, or other item added to the vehicle does not contain a controlled substance or visible residue of a controlled substance.
Only one section of the law mentions the word "intent" and that's in reference to actually building or installing the hidden compartment. So unless this guy also had a prior drug felony, or unless they could show he installed the compartment himself, there's no real case against him. I'm guessing he has a record though, which is why the went forward with the arrest.
Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent - Harvey Silverglate
From the Amazon synopsis
The average professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes that day. Why? The answer lies in the very nature of modern federal criminal laws, which have exploded in number but also become impossibly broad and vague. In Three Felonies a Day, Harvey A. Silverglate reveals how federal criminal laws have become dangerously disconnected from the English common law tradition and how prosecutors can pin arguable federal crimes on any one of us, for even the most seemingly innocuous behavior. The volume of federal crimes in recent decades has increased well beyond the statute books and into the morass of the Code of Federal Regulations, handing federal prosecutors an additional trove of vague and exceedingly complex and technical prohibitions to stick on their hapless targets. The dangers spelled out in Three Felonies a Day do not apply solely to “white collar criminals,” state and local politicians, and professionals. No social class or profession is safe from this troubling form of social control by the executive branch, and nothing less than the integrity of our constitutional democracy hangs in the balance.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Han: It's not mine, I'm holding for the wookie!
Chewie: Rraaaaawwwrrrr!
The planet Vulcan is the American future.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Why stop with just hidden compartments that drug runners use? I happen to know (meaning I've seen it on TV) that drug dealers keep drugs in safes, so we should outlaw those too. And safety deposit boxes too. And don't even get me started on those tricky boxes that stage magicians have, they might be used to conceal something.
Also, everybody knows that only terrorists use encryption.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.
No, legal fees are not 'taken care of if you win'. The system doesn't care if you are innocent, the system cares about the system, and obviously anyone who ends up in court has to be a scumbag, right?
For criminal defense cases, you may choose to be represented without charge by an overworked, underfunded public defender who has every interest in resolving your case as quickly as possible via plea-bargaining... regardless of guilt or innocence.
Or you may hire an attorney who is actually being paid to represent your interests, where the cheapest option available is typically in excess of a thousand dollars, substantially more for serious charges or if the case actually goes to a jury trial.
The vast majority of defendants in the American legal system do not have the financial resources to hire an attorney, which is why the vast majority of all criminal charges are settled by plea bargain. Prosecutors have every incentive to pile on the threat of every imaginable charge and use the uncertainty of the outcome of a trial as leverage to coerce a plea bargain, guilty or not, because it works, and because they are almost never held responsible for their unethical conduct even when they commit egregious acts like concealing evidence that would exonerate the accused.
Add in unconscionable levels of police malfeasance and corruption on nearly every level, and the result is a criminal justice system that is anything but just. Unless you've got plenty of money. Which is kind of the point.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
So... if I have a hide-a-key compartment under my fender, and I drive through Ohio, I would be guilty of breaking this law. Those boxes are big enough to "smuggle" drugs, certainly, though only in "criminally" personal amounts.
Wow.
are you serious? even in australia we know of racial profiling....
The US has more prisoners per capita and also more total prisoners than any other country on earth. This is a huge drag on the economy. Not only is there a massive cost for keeping all of these mostly non-violent people imprisoned, we are also deprived of their contribution to the economy. Locking someone up often destroys not just their life but the lives of their children and other family members.
Passing more laws against non-violent crimes to lock up more non-violent people is going full tilt in the WRONG DIRECTION!
FTFA:
"We apparently caught them between runs, so to speak, so this takes away one tool they have in their illegal trade. The law does help us and is on our side," says [Lt. Michael Combs with State Highway Patrol].
Lt. Combs is delusional if he thinks his "side" can possibly win their war on drugs. It is possible that outlawing secret compartments is a natural extension of the war on drugs but that just shows how idiotic and insane the war on drugs is. Even if they took away all of our remaining civil liberties, the war on drugs would still be unwinnable. How much more must the American people sacrifice for the sake of this unwinnable war?
OTOH, Mr. Gurley is lucky he was not pulled over in the state of New Mexico where at least two different people have been forced to undergo enemas, colonoscopies, and anal probing based on acting nervous after a routine traffic stop:
After Eckert was pulled over, a Deming police officer said that he saw Eckert "was avoiding eye contact with me," his "left hand began to shake," and he stood "erect (with) his legs together,"
We are wasting billions of dollars; we are destroying millions of lives; we are militarizing our civil police departments; we are trashing our civil liberties; and we are destroying at least one neighboring country all in the name of a war on drugs that is impossible to win. It is stupid, it is sick, it is insane. It must stop.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
That would explain the record crops of opium in Afghanistan.
That's not good either. Just because you don't like someone's perfectly legal job is no excuse to make them an outlaw that the State can just steal from without consequence. A government agency should have to show beyond reasonable doubt that money is proceeds of crime before taking it away like that.
FTFY.
Which is almost as stupid as being allowed to let a child carry on squawking in a public place without leaving to prevent it from annoying other people.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"