Recently, the Amarillo Court of Appeals reversed a defendant's conviction for money laundering, holding that there was insufficient evidence to tie the money to illegal activity. This may not appropriate for a public forum like this one, but I have had some inquiries from Highway Patrol regarding what prosecutors want to see in the way of evidence before they believe a case can be prosecuted. In the King case, the amount was $30,000, the man was on I-40 (major drug travel highway), and the dog alerted to the scent of drugs on the bag containing the money.

Janette A

If there is an accompanying chapter 59 forfeiture, use the civil rules to the maximum extent possible (deposing the defendant, interrogatories, etc.). Of course that solution is more prosecution based than law enforcement based. Money laundering cases (in my very limited experience) are very difficult, in part because of the huge number of variables (e.g. sources of the funds). On the law enforcement side, I suppose the most obvious thing would be to get as much information as possible about the source of the funds, including payor, date, etc. prior to arrest if possible. The more variables that can be removed the better. The idea being to eliminate as many possible stories the defendant may come up with at the time of trial as possible. A comprehensive interview of the defendant that covers when they got the $, where they got the $, how they got the $, what the $ is for, who else knows about the $, would be helpful. Of course some defendants will not make any statement at all, so the earlier in the process that the questions are asked, the better. Do you have a link to the opinion in King?

[This message was edited by Larry L on 05-09-08 at .]

I have read a case that states a dog sniff is sufficient to seize the contraband initially, but is insufficient alone to support a trial victory. Of course, I cannot find the case when I need it...

The case from the Amarillo court, King v. State, can be found at Link

You will see when you read it that more fact would have helped--like perhaps the fact that the defendant didn't even have a job but had a large amount of cash on him. But I agree, proving these cases BRD is very, very tough.

Janette A

Thanks for the link. The more I think about this type of case, the more it appears that a rule similar to the alibi defense rule could be helpful. Essentially, the defense is presenting an "alibi" for the cash - the legal means by which the cash was acquired. In this particular case, I suppose the trooper could have asked more questions about the name and location of the pet store, the defendant's ownership interest (partner, corporation, etc), where the defendant intended to purchase the exotic animals, if he had purchased animals from that source previously, etc. HOWEVER, that is an awful lot of detail to go into in a roadsire investigation. Using the video from the KING stop at a training course and having the officers state EVERY question they can think of might be a good exercise in what could be done in the initial investigation. After viewing the video (and maybe even reviewing a copy of the offense report), have an open session where the officers talk about what they think could have been covered. THEN, go over the opinion of the court of appeals (edited to focus only on the lack of evidence) and see if the officers come up with any additional questions that the defendant could have been asked. Especially in areas where there are a lot of stops of this type, a couple of hours training could be very beneficial. You might see if TCLEOSE would approve credit for it.