What is the legality of “owning” cash, anyway? Doesn’t it remain the property of the Federal Reserve Bank (in the US)? If it’s never actually yours, how can it be stolen?
Yet another of the logical flaws which demonstrate why I don’t bother with money…
The first time I ever got pulled over was for illegally tinted windows. Now, first of all, I had literally bought the car 3 days prior, it had come from out of state (different tinting restrictions, I guess), and I hadn’t even realized my tint was too heavy. And it was pouring down rain at the time. But the real kicker was that I was driving through Montecito, CA when this happened. Montecito is the really rich part of Santa Barbara. Probably 20 more expensive cars with full tint went by while he had me pulled over, but I was in a used Kia and not a new Lexus.
Because even if you memorized all laws and precedent (impossible) you’re still in the position of not knowing the court procedures, who with and how to file things with the court. How litigation is normally conducted, and the likely logic of the judge when your motion gets turned down almost before it’s out of your mouth. It’s a bit like learning how to drive from YouTube videos and and expecting you can drive without incident if you don’t have someone who can help instruct you. You don’t know what to look for, what the pitfalls are, and you haven’t developed the skills to execute the kind of legal thinking you will need to do.
And this is based on the assumption that you magically know the law. You don’t. American law is an incredibly expansive corpus and changes constantly. Most lawyers don’t unless it’s their field or it’s fairly basic. Many judges don’t until right before they render decisions (because they make the law, at least in the English legal tradition, and therefore the American legal tradition.) Legal research is something you learn to do in formal instruction. If you don’t know how to structure queries in Lexis or Westlaw, you’re going to have a hard time, and chances are you’re not going to be prepared to sink the time and money (because these services cost) if you’re in jail and can’t pay for bail. If you’re in the position (God forbid) of not having access to what is increasingly regarded as essential legal infrastructure and have to rely on printed digests and you don’t know how to find anything in them, you’re totally fucked.
Actually, having talked to a prosecutor about this subject, some lawyers are so bad that defending yourself is better than using a lawyer who is not in their element in a criminal trial. Don’t expect your family law attorney who helped with your divorce to be competent. You will be appointed an attorney if you don’t have the money, but chances are that they’re overloaded with cases and don’t have the ability to provide you with adequate counsel. The SCOTUS has basically ruled that competent counsel need not be adequate counsel.
Fair enough. Question still stands - any chance whatsoever or just give up and only carry credit cards?
As a not very big female (in any dimension), I’ve always followed the advice that you don’t carry any more cash on you than you can afford to lose. This is advice meant to reduce financial loss in case of mugging, but has become necessary for nearly everyone in the age of rampant civil asset forfeiture. So, yeah, if you* can* get and carry plastic, you should. Use a cashier’s check for private auto sales transactions and the like.
Things can change, but it will take a long time and a lot of legislating to fix. Some states are beginning the process, but police unions are fighting even minor reforms with all their lobbying might.
Civil forfeiture is a lurking fear if you do any kind of small cash business like flea markets, craft fairs, or vendors at sci-fi cons or ren fairs.
I’ve never come back from a fair with more than a few hundred bucks but I wonder how bigger vendors deal with getting all their cash home.
This ruling is fairly typical of the Fifth Circuit. It probably is the most conservative appeals Circuit in the US. I’m hoping for the day that the rest of the Federal judiciary says ‘OK, enough of this crap’, reassigns the judges & replaces them with judges from all the other Circuits.
Air fresheners could just be a sign the person is a fan of the film Repo Man. “You’ll fine one in every car, you’ll see”
Random thought. Could an air freshener be replaced with a plate covered with titanium dioxide catalytic nanoparticles, illuminated with an UV LED, and in the path of circulating air? It removes (oxidizes away) the volatile organic compounds rather efficiently.
I just uncap a bottle of chloroform for a while.
And since the “car” I drive is actually a hovercraft, police can’t enforce auto rules for me anyway, since it doesn’t touch the road.
These already exist in hospitals. They’re usually made to look like wall sconces that cast a pretty violet light on the ceiling.
They have a fan and a UV disinfector/air sanitizer, and are, as far as I can tell, pretty good at cutting down on smells at the very least. In fact at the hospital I worked at, I couldn’t smell the food when I was standing in the middle of the cafeteria. Needless to say nobody ate there. They’d all come in and get their food, then head back to their less extremely sanitized offices.
Are corpses considered contraband?
What’s with the rosaries being on the suspicious list? I’m not familiar with those outside of religious contexts, is that a Grateful Dead thing?
I don’t know… maybe it was the rosaries. All I know is that they could not leave me there.
Holy fuck America!
No crime committed, and yet he was robbed and kidnapped by uniformed thugs?!?
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