June 04, 2003
US Marshals auction off car full of pot.
CNN reports that a Mexican man has won the right to sue the government for selling him a car with 199 pounds of marijuana in the bumpers, and then arresting him after he crossed the border with it.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found the government's argument that it should be immune from Jose Aguado Cervantes' lawsuit was "so off the mark as to be embarrassing."
The appellate panel reinstated Cervantes' negligence claims against the government for allegedly failing to find and remove the drugs from the car he purchased in July of 1999 at a U.S. Marshals Service Auction in San Diego, California.
Four months earlier, the car was seized by the Immigration and Naturalization Service after it was used to transport illegal immigrants into the United States but agents apparently failed to notice 199 pounds of marijuana secreted in its bumpers, the court said.
