
Triumphant motel owner slams Carmen Ortiz - hudibras
http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/01/triumphant_motel_owner_slams_carmen_ortiz
======
tokenadult
It's interesting to see the Institute for Justice,

<http://www.ij.org/>

"the nation's only libertarian, civil liberties, public interest law firm,"
mentioned in this story. The involvement of specialist lawyers with knowledge
of civil forfeiture law probably helped the motel owner win the ruling
reported in this news story.

~~~
a5seo
A few of the cases IJ has fought:

\- a bagel shop owner in Seattle wanted the right to hold a sign to promote
his business

\- El Paso, TX passed a law that food trucks could not setup within a block of
a traditional restaurant

\- Florida passed a law requiring interior decorators to get a license

\- Washington DC passed a law requiring that African hair braiders get a
cosmetology license (which requires beauty school degree) yet beauty schools
do not teach traditional African hair braiding
([http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/06/21/154826233/why-
its-...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/06/21/154826233/why-its-illegal-
to-braid-hair-without-a-license))

\- Dallas, Texas passed a law saying businesses couldn't display signs in
their windows due to safety (of course, nothing requires them to have ANY
windows)

\- New London, CT used eminent domain to take an entire neighborhood of
private homes to give the land to Phizer because Phizer would generate more
tax revenue. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London>

~~~
dmix
When I read things like this, I'm amazed libertarians have such a social
stigma against them. Austrian economics is debatable in very large populations
with entrenched governments but these social issues are so obviously wrong and
it seems (civil) libertarians are the only ones highly vocal against them...
yet they would still be considered radical in most contexts.

~~~
eru
I guess libertarians would be better off, if the Austrian economics faction
within them was less vocal.

~~~
maratd
There are no factions. If you're a libertarian, you're a supporter of both ...
because liberty is the point.

~~~
anon1385
This isn't true. People who call themselves 'libertarians' seem quite happy to
vote for people who are extremely socially conservative. The economics is what
they care about (and perhaps pot). Obviously the GOP is very socially
conservative, but so are factions of the Libertarian Party. In 2008 the
Libertarian Party nominee for President of the United States was Bob Barr:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Barr>

>During his tenure, Barr was regarded as one of the most conservative members
of Congress. In 2002, he was described by Bill Shipp in an OnlineAthens.com
article as "the idol of the gun-toting, abortion-fighting, IRS-hating hard
right wing of American politics"

>He voted for the first USA PATRIOT Act

>Barr took a lead in legislative debate concerning same-sex marriage. He
authored and sponsored the Defense of Marriage Act, a law enacted in 1996
which states that only marriages that are between a man and a woman can be
federally recognized, and individual states may choose not to recognize a
same-sex marriage performed in another state

>Barr was originally a strong supporter of the War on Drugs, reflecting his
previous experience as an Anti-Drug Coordinator for the United States
Department of Justice. While in Congress, he was a member of the Speaker's
Task Force for a Drug-Free America.

>Barr advocated complete federal prohibition of medical marijuana. In 1998, he
successfully blocked implementation of Initiative 59 — the "Legalization of
Marijuana for Medical Treatment Initiative of 1998" — which would have
legalized medical marijuana in Washington, D.C. The "Barr Amendment" to the
1999 Omnibus spending bill not only blocked implementation of Initiative 59,
but also prohibited the vote tally from even being released. Nearly a year
passed before a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union eventually
revealed the initiative had received 69 percent of the vote. In response to
the judge's ruling, Barr simply attached another "Barr Amendment" to the 2000
Omnibus spending bill that overturned Initiative 59 outright. The Barr
Amendment also prohibited future laws that would "decrease the penalties for
marijuana or other Schedule I drugs" in Washington, D.C. This preemptively
blocked future attempts by Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) to reform marijuana
laws in DC via the initiative process. In March 2002, U.S. District Judge
Emmet Sullivan struck down this portion of the Barr Amendment as being an
unconstitutional restriction on free speech. Barr's response to the ruling was
defiant:

>Clearly, the court today has ignored the constitutional right and
responsibility of Congress to pass laws protecting citizens from dangerous and
addictive narcotics, and the right of Congress to exert legislative control
over the District of Columbia as the nation's capital. —Bob Barr, March 28,
2002

~~~
a5seo
You're right-- I am libertarian and will vote for the candidate that's
stronger on economic issues even if they're a social conservative.

Here's my reasoning:

Social issues tend toward liberalization on their own. Except in a few cases,
social issues are part of the culture war, and culture changes generationally.

Economic rights are different. They need protection because once lost, they
never come back. Once you have the precendent of government intervention, that
helps justify the next intervention. Once you use the Commerce Clause to
regulate marijuana that is grown and consumed w/o crossing state lines, it's
open season on all forms of regulation.

So my calculation is that socially retarded candidates will do the least harm.

------
xanados
This is pure evil, and morally worse in my opinion than going after Swartz. At
least he almost certainly actually violated a law. Trying to fill government
coffers by seizing the assets of innocent bystanders is ridiculous.

~~~
jkeel
Based on the information in the article, I cannot see how they can be just to
go after him. With that logic they could go after owners of apartment
buildings or even arenas (music festivals/shows tend to have people doing
drugs there).

~~~
encoderer
Hypothetically, how would you feel if a business owner knowingly profited off
of illicit activity while keeping jusssst enough distance between himself and
the criminal to say "I didn't see nuthin!"?

THAT is the argument here. Not saying it's totally righteous, but that the
theory isn't preposterous and litigating the case isn't absurd.

In this case I think the real failure of the gov't was not taking more
aggressive steps at a paper trail. Giving this guy notice, so to speak.

~~~
jlgreco
Where he the owner of an expensive hotel, rather than a cheap motel, serving
primarily wealthy people, rather than poor people, in which rockstars and
high-end escorts occasionally OD'd, rather than crack-whores and nobodies, we
would not even _dream_ of considering him responsible or even seizing his
property.

That we are _even having the discussion_ and considering his potential 'guilt'
is a problem.

~~~
encoderer
Oh, please.

If one rockstar checks-in to your hotel and OD's a reasonable person wouldn't
assume that all rockstars are dangerous.

But when you have obvious prostitution rings running out of your motel? When
you have a person renting a room to a dealer who was arrested in that same
motel for dealing?

This guy is running a slum, he's not some poor "little man" who deserves your
pity. He has a multi million dollar net worth.

~~~
jlgreco
What do you expect such a hotel owner to do? Strip search patrons for drugs
and install cameras in their rooms to ensure that no money is exchanged for
sex? Give background checks and risk discrimination lawsuits by refusing to
service people who look sketchy to you?

Read the judges decision. The man did everything he could reasonably be
expected to do. His motel did not spawn lowlifes, it was merely cheap enough
for lowlifes to afford. Society spawned those lowlifes and the local
government is responsible for that, not him.

~~~
encoderer
I'm not declaring the guy guilty. I'm saying that your class-warfare based
dismissal is silly.

Really, if you've spent much time in a city, you've seen street-level drug
trafficking and prostitution. It's not hard to spot. But again, you take this
to the absurd. This is not about rockstars ODing at the St. Regis, and it's
not about strip searching people before you give them a room. This is about a
gov't lawsuit that contended that the motel owner, like anybody else paying
attention, could spot this illicit activity and not only failed to ask these
guests to leave but also continued renting them rooms! That his property was a
blight on the neighborhood. That he had been negligent. The DOJ obviously
didn't prove those points to a preponderance of evidence, but I think your
reaction here is wanting.

I'm not one for internet debates, so go ahead and have the last word. I chimed
in because if somebody just reads the lede in a case like this it sounds awful
and unamerican: Private property can be taken for crimes he didn't himself
commit? What! But IMO (and in current civil forfeiture law and judicial
precedent) there is sound reasoning behind cases like this. Businessmen have
had a legal obligation to maintain order and actively cooperate with law
enforcement going back through 300 years of common law.

CF laws need reform, but I'm of the opinion that this case is NOT the poster
child for that cause that you're making it out to be.

~~~
jlgreco
Fun excerpts:

> _the Government has identified only a limited number of isolated qualifying
> drug-related incidents spread out over the course of more than a decade,
> none of which involve the Motel owner or employees_

> _Based on the evidence presented and my observation of the witnesses during
> trial, I find that Mr. Caswell is appropriately concerned with the events
> that take place at the Motel and that he recognizes that it is in his
> interest and in the interest of his family to operate as safe an enterprise
> as possible._

> _Motel employees, including maids and desk clerks, have called the police on
> a number of occasions to report suspicious activity._

> _Mr. Caswell has called the police on a number of occasions to report
> suspicious activity._

You say:

 _"The DOJ obviously didn't prove those points to a preponderance of
evidence"_

But the DOJ did not _merely_ fail to prove anything. They were completely full
of shit, and they went after this guy because they thought they could get away
with it. It is as clear as daylight if you actually read the documents and not
a bunch of pro-government rants on hacker news.

------
arbuge
Great to see Ortiz's office crash and burn, but innocent taxpayers are also
losers here. They now have to refund the defendant's legal bills - around
$600k in total.

~~~
mahyarm
I really don't understand why people bring up this logic whenever the
government loses a court case.

~~~
tjic
You don't understand why taxpayers are upset that government officials
theoretically working FOR them can make idiotic decisions, and then get off
consequence-free, and all the damages that they created are paid for by
everyone but themselves?

What aspect of this should we elaborate on?

~~~
mahyarm
There are so many other instances where this logic is usually not brought up,
but it can apply far more readily. It's as if making this man destitute and
the government winning is the better thing. It's the same logic of people
implying people who get an non-guilty verdict are usually secret guilty.

~~~
Evbn
It is the logic of being angry that someone (a prosecutor) breaks the law and
they don't pay, the taxpayer do. No one is saying the prosecutor should have
won.

~~~
jlgreco
It is difficult because I have heard this line of thought many times before
when the person saying it _did_ think that the person awarded money should not
have won.

I lived in a school district adjacent to the Dover Area School District in
Pennsylvania in 2004/2005
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District))
and I cannot count the number of times I heard people (people I knew to be
ardent creationists that supported the defense) complaining about the award
because the money was just coming from tax payers.

The message, as they expressed it, was not that we should be angry at the
school-board for causing such a waste of money, but that we should be angry at
the Plantiffs and the ACLU for 'wasting' that money. _(Yeah, that is a crazy
position. That was par for the course though.)_

------
jonathlee
The Institute for Justice has been fighting this one for a while. I'm glad
they were finally able to get the judge to see what was going on.

(Full disclosure: I am a supporter of IJ.)

------
md224
Relevant comments posted by tptacek in a previous thread:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5084996>

Leads me to question whether this case is as black-and-white as it would seem.

~~~
tptacek
It sounds like no matter what else happened, the government chose the wrong
way to proceed against this property; they jumped the gun trying to do an
asset forfeiture when the proper response was to establish a long track record
of having local police request specific interventions to curb crime.

Since the police weren't able to present any evidence that they had requested
those interventions, there was no way for the government to prove that the
owner of the motel was operating negligently (though: let's be honest about
that; the place is a blighted flophouse).

The outcome here seems like the right one. I'm just a lot less outraged that
this process got set in motion in the first place; _some_ intervention was
clearly needed. Just not the nuclear one.

~~~
dbcooper
>let's be honest about that; the place is a blighted flophouse

Because you say it is?

~~~
nullc
No, because the government attempted a civil forfeiture.

See also: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis>

~~~
jlgreco
Indeed.

I do not pity the man who is forced to reconcile the apparent belief that the
government is always right with a government official claiming that the
government was wrong.

~~~
nullc
No pity required— that man doesn't exist. If people actually thought that way
they'd be disabused of the notion after the first few counterexamples they
encounter.

Just-world, like other stereotyping biases is so insidious because the
mistaken belief starts with the truth: "The government is usually right, so
it's (very likely) right in this case (and the rightness justifies the
outcome)". You can, perhaps, debate the "usually" but that misses the point:
In terms of _justice_ and human rights it is improper and immoral to reason
using coarse prior probabilities: You should be no more likely to convict a
black person because statistically black people commit more crimes, people
should be judged on their own merits. The underlying fallacy in many instance
of just-world is the mistaken belief the its proper to apply your belief that
the world is generally just to a specific case of potential injustice.

So there is no dissonance for most— they think "well, I always believed the
government was only usually right. No one is perfect, and see— the system
worked!".

------
rshm
"Caswell estimates the U.S. government will have to pay at least $600,000
toward his defense fees.". What a waste of taxpayer's money.

~~~
jeremiep
600k is nothing, the government probably wastes more than that on a daily
basis.

~~~
rosser

      $parent =~ s/daily/hourly/g;

~~~
danielharan
That still seems wrong by at least an order of magnitude.

600000 * 24 * 365 = 5,256,000,000

5 billion wasted out of a 3.5 trillion budget would represent only 0.142%
waste.

~~~
jeltz
If the government just had 0.142% waste they would be amazing.

------
pakitan
Can anyone clarify why is he expecting to be paid $600K for his legal fees? I
thought that in US the party which lost the case is not obligated to cover the
legal fees of the winner. Which is one of the things that makes patent trolls
thrive.

~~~
adventured
That can be decided on a case by case basis. The judge has wide discretion on
dictating such. Usually in cases where the judge determines the case is
particularly frivolous or without merit.

If the case is regarded to be without merit, and the burden was particularly
onerous (which it sounds like it was in this case), the judge can force the
plaintiff to pay.

------
scoot
"Caswell estimates the U.S. government will have to pay at least $600,000
toward his defense fees."

I can't help but think that whoever made the decision to bring this frivolous
case to trial should pay the fees.

------
zafka
This brings a smile to my face.

------
EvanAnderson
Does anybody else find the photo of the motel owner a little jarring? It's
something about the lens distortion, I think, that makes me see him as a
cardboard stand-up when I just glance at the picture.

~~~
georgemcbay
Yes, it looks odd.

I think it is due to a combination of using a wide-angle lens to fit in the
entirety of the motel front plus the flash/lighting seems to be hitting him
more from the side (our right, his left) than straight on (maybe bounced off a
reflector off to the side to avoid harsh facial shadows). Combination is a
weird forced perspective effect that makes him look flat.

~~~
cshesse
You're definitely correct about the flash, I think the second reason is that
the aspect ratio has been altered. The 350x290 image is displayed at 300x275.

------
zachinglis
So my question… with all these posts we're seeing and complains, is there an
official investigation that we know of? I know there's a petition and it seems
to have passed but I was curious as to what was going on.

------
robot
A ton of writing that fails to clearly describe what the conflict is all
about.

~~~
DanBC
Man runs a motel.

Police find a meth lab in the motel. Some people die of drugs overdoses in the
motel. Police claim to arrest drug dealers, drug users, prostitutes etc in and
near the motel, and claim the owner not only does nothing to prevent these
criminals but actively encourages the criminals.

Eventually they decide to seize the property (somehow) to prevent further
crime.

Motel owner claims that crime, while high, is similar to other motels in the
area. Owner claims that he's followed police advice and is doing his best to
stop criminals using his property for crime.

A process with a potential for abuse that happens a lot in the US. Getting
attention here, and now, because of the involvement of Ortiz.

~~~
cshesse
The government appears to be able under current forfeiture law, to sue
property that was involved in a crime. Such as a motel that was used to make
meth. For example "US vs. Eight Thousand Eight Hundred and Fifty Dollars"
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/461/555>

~~~
tomjen3
Never seemed to make any sense to me. How can money be responsible for its
use?

~~~
LoganCale
It can't, and it doesn't have civil rights (or other capabilities) to defend
itself, which is why the government likes to sue it—it's an easy win for them.

------
nirvana
I've just been made aware that there is evidence that someone has been trying
to steal property worth more than $1M!

We need a prosecutor to draw up charges...oh, wait.

Who prosecutes the prosecutors?

~~~
xxpor
Not exactly the same, but in Ohio the only person not from the state with the
authority to arrest the county sheriff is the county coroner (how did that
come about?).

~~~
scarmig
It makes some sense: the coroner is an elected official (why the hell do we
elect coroners?) who has some independence from the sheriff. Other officials
who are ostensibly higher level than the sheriff probably depend on his good
graces as much as the sheriff does on them.

~~~
Turing_Machine
The coroner and the medical examiner have different functions in most modern
jurisdictions.

The coroner is in charge of the legal stuff, the medical examiner is in charge
of stuff like determining the actual cause of death. There's a "coroner's
jury" in some jurisdictions that hears evidence and decides whether the death
was criminal, accidental, natural causes, etc. The medical examiner would
(e.g.) determine that the person died from a gunshot wound. The coroner (or
coroner's jury) would decide whether a crime was involved (rather than
suicide, accident, lawfully shot by the cops or in self-defense by someone
else).

~~~
Evbn
In the UK the coroner performs the inquest in a suspicious death.

------
youngerdryas
I hope she still runs for office so we can have protests at every event.

------
alpb
The story writes as "The innkeeper’s complaint follows the suicide of hacker
Aaron Swartz" and it is inevitable that average Joe will think that aaronsw
hacked people's bank accounts &c.

~~~
jlarocco
It seems inevitable that if "average Joe" read that far, he would continue
reading to the next paragraph, where Swartz's crime is explained.

