RSSLaw, court ruling push parenting back a step
Yakima Herald-Republic Editorial Board
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This editorial appears in the Yakima Herald-Republic on Sept. 10, 2009.
The less parents know about what their children are doing, the better off they may be.
That convoluted reasoning is one of the conclusions to be drawn from a recent decision by the state Supreme Court. It's a head-scratcher of a case about parents who argued they didn't really know their son was dealing drugs despite several drug-related arrests and twice being found by police passed out in their cars with drugs and cash strewn about. How oblivious can you get?
In a 5-4 ruling by the court, the justices concluded the fact that the son of Alan and Stephne Roos, of Bothell, borrowed his parents' two cars and used them to buy and sell drugs was not enough proof to allow the government to seize the two cars. The son, then 24, was arrested several times in the summer of 2005 in Snohomish County after police discovered him with a wide variety of drugs -- cocaine, OxyContin and methamphetamine.
The parents argued when they loaned their son the cars, they had no knowledge of his drug dealing. A hearing examiner reached a different conclusion, saying that the parents should have taken steps to refrain from loaning out their cars to their son especially after he had been charged with a drug crime in the early summer of 2005. The parents still allowed him to use their cars. By the time he was found unconscious later in September inside one of the cars, police had nabbed the son two more times for illegal drugs.
What more proof do parents need? Dissenters on the court said the ruling is tantamount to letting the parents get away with "burying their heads in the sand." Amen to that conclusion.
The problem here has to do with current law and the language dealing with the forfeiture of property for a drug crime. It's foggy at best. The forfeiture law only says "knowledge." What the law should have said is "knows or has reason to know."
That's what justices in the majority noted in their ruling. Right now, the law is too narrow in defining who is an innocent owner. If the parents from Bothell provide the litmus test, just about anyone could qualify as an innocent owner.
What needs to be done is for the Legislature to step in and rewrite the forfeiture law to expand the definition to include "knows or has reason to know."
Whether it's a 2004 Nissan Sentry and a 1970 Chevy, as in the case of the Bothell parents, or an expensive mansion parlayed through illegal drug sales, forfeiting property serves as both a deterrent to would-be criminals and a source of funds to help fight crime.
It's clear the current state law does neither very well. And, as the most recent court case shows, it also does little to improve parenting skills.
* Members of the Yakima Herald-Republic editorial board are Michael Shepard, Bob Crider, Spencer Hatton and Karen Troianello.
The parents loaned the cars to their sons ie the cars weren't
parlayed through drug sales.Also the logic you want to be included in the law "should have known" is a ambiguos term you
could drive a mack truck through without a scratch.
Your editorial makes you sound like a prosecutor;the parents
(as i reiterate) owned the vehicles;the sons had a single charge ,subsequently after probably driving those vehicles hundreds of times for normal usage ie visiting friends,going
to the movies etc.;and you conclude the parents should know
that they were going to use the cars on that one occasion for
drug dealing.Your logic defies common sense.
What does parenting rights have to do with this drug case involving a 24 year old man? This guy has been a legal adult for six years and the YHR frames the court decision as a blow to parenting? This reasoning is more convoluted than the court decision. Maybe the parents should be charged with aiding and abetting, or for being an accomplice to a crime, but their responsibility as parents has nothing to do with this case.
Report ViolationI think you both miss the most important point: The actions of the court.
The impact of this ruling, (which I personally don't agree with) will throw a serous threat as a precedent that could be used to rule AGAINST the eventual enforcement of the new proposed Civil Injunction Law, patterned after the same in California, and that has been so successful in fighting and curtailing gang activities by the seizure of their property - or anyone else's they are caught using for illegal purposes. This law is being introduced to our legislature as a tool to use against gangs, since the more conventional way - arrest and enforcement - has been seriously derailed by the ACLU and Liberal lawmakers.
My point: We should vote AGAINST the reelection of those judges who ruled IN FAVOR of these people keeping their property, regardless of their purported "ignorance" of their son's activities. I don't buy their position simply because he was arrested and had their car taken more than once for the same activity! I might see the first car being given back on their premise, but the second one? for the second offense? When they had full knowledge of his previous actions? No way could they be dumb to that.
How gullible can the justices be? They seemed to have approached this case with their eyes wide SHUT!
This is a tough one. Did the parents truly know their kid was dealing drugs? Probably, but was it proven they know? I believe they should lose their car but doesn't really matter what I think. If the law was written with loopholes the size of Wisconsin in it, it doesn't matter what should happen. Time to revise the law.
The injunction law may not happen here anyway Nick. Politicians are dragging their feet on it and lawsuits are popping up over the use of this.
I have determined that when someone is so far right, anyone one step over is considered liberal in those eyes, even when they are merely middle. All a matter of perspective.
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