Arizona Court of Appeals reverses $39,500 civil forfeiture decision

The Arizona Courtroom of Appeals dominated on Tuesday {that a} man from whom Phoenix police seized $39,500 in money regardless of by no means submitting prison costs in opposition to him might proceed contesting the forfeiture.

The choice comes six months after Jerry Johnson’s attorneys and a consultant from the Maricopa County Legal professional’s Workplace gave oral arguments earlier than the upper courtroom as as to if the Maricopa County Superior Courtroom’s discovering that Johnson did not show the cash was his was appropriate.

Johnson had flown into Phoenix from Charlotte, North Carolina, in August 2020 to buy a 3rd semi-truck for his small delivery firm. Johnson had discovered a posting for a truck he wished at a Phoenix-based public sale and flew to Phoenix Sky Harbor Worldwide Airport with $39,500 in money — $7,500 in his carry-on backpack and $32,000 in containers he had packed in his checked baggage.

Johnson beforehand informed The Arizona Republic he selected to journey with money to keep away from incurring charges from withdrawing it exterior his normal financial institution and had discovered articles that mentioned touring with giant quantities of money was completely authorized.

However Johnson’s cash was seized by Phoenix police when officers confronted him at Sky Harbor Worldwide Airport and questioned its origin earlier than accusing him of being concerned in a money-laundering operation. Johnson mentioned the officer coerced him into signing a waiver kind indicating the cash wasn’t his, or go to jail.

Such waivers later grew to become unlawful after Gov. Doug Ducey signed a invoice that enacted sweeping reforms to the state’s civil forfeiture legal guidelines equivalent to requiring a prison conviction for the state to forfeit one’s property in civil courtroom below most circumstances.

In the course of the oral argument earlier than the Arizona Courtroom of Appeals held on Nov. 9, 2021, the three judges repeatedly questioned and criticized a Maricopa County lawyer’s argument in opposition to Johnson, one in all them at one level referring to the method of civil forfeiture, or RICO, as “distasteful.”

“I’m sorry if it appears harsh that the state ought to even have to come back ahead with proof earlier than it takes individuals’s cash away on the airport,” Presiding Choose Peter Swann mentioned on the time.

Dallen Gardner, an lawyer representing the Maricopa County Legal professional’s Workplace, argued on the time that the cash didn’t belong to Johnson, that it didn’t seem to come back from Johnson’s enterprise checking account and that he didn’t know precisely how a lot money he was carrying when police confronted him.

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“I don’t know the way a lot I’ve in my pockets,” Swann replied. “Do you have to examine it? Ought to I be apprehensive that the police are going to come back examine it? Am I going to have to clarify the place I bought it?”

Swann, who penned the courtroom’s choice dated Tuesday, mentioned the decrease courtroom erred in its ruling that Johnson had did not show the cash was his.

“The state argues that Johnson did not show possession, but when it isn’t Johnson’s cash, then whose cash is it?” Swann wrote on Tuesday. “The state did not introduce any proof of who owned the cash.”

Institute for Justice, a libertarian non-profit legislation agency that’s representing Johnson’s attraction, celebrated the upper courtroom’s choice to reverse the decrease courtroom’s preliminary ruling.

“At present’s choice factors out the plain: Jerry Johnson correctly proved possession of his cash and has the suitable to defend it in courtroom,” Alexa Gervasi, one of many attorneys representing Johnson, mentioned in a written assertion. “The scales are already tipped within the authorities’s favor in civil forfeiture, however the decrease courtroom went exterior the bounds of Arizona legislation when it pressured Jerry to show his personal innocence. We’re glad that Jerry could have his day in courtroom to defend in opposition to the unjust forfeiture of his life financial savings.”

Andrew Wimer, a spokesperson for Institute for Justice, mentioned the State has 30 days to attraction the Courtroom of Appeals’ ruling to the Arizona Supreme Courtroom. In any other case, the case will return to Maricopa County Superior Courtroom the place the Maricopa County Legal professional’s Workplace should show Johnson’s cash was related to prison exercise or return it.

It was not instantly clear whether or not MCAO deliberate to attraction the choice.

Attain the reporter Perry Vandell at 602-444-2474 or perry.vandell@gannett.com. Comply with him on Twitter @PerryVandell.

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