Case ID: f-supp_599/html/0818-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "WANGELIN, District Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. ONE 1976 FORD F-150 PICK-UP VIN F14YUB03797, Defendant.
    No. S82-200C(D).
    United States District Court, E.D. Missouri, Southeastern Division.
    Dec. 19, 1984.
    Joseph B. Moore, Asst. U.S. Atty., St. Louis, Mo., for plaintiff.
    Ronald Kaden, Shaw, Howlett & Schwartz, Clayton, Mo., for defendant.
   MEMORANDUM

WANGELIN, District Judge.

This matter is before the Court for a decision following a trial on the merits. This Court’s jurisdiction is invoked pursuant to Title 28 U.S.C. § 1355 and Title 21 U.S.C. § 881. In accordance with Rule 52 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, this Court hereby makes the following Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law. Any Finding of Fact equally applicable as a Conclusion of Law is adopted as such and, conversely, any Conclusion of Law equally applicable as a Finding of Fact is adopted as such.

1. The defendant herein is a truck,

The vehicle type is a pick-up,

Alleged by a fed

To be found in a bed

Of marijuana, caught in the muck.

2. On August 16, ’82,

In Perry County, Missouri, who

Should appear

But claimant Hudson with gear

As a one-man pot-tending crew.

3. Claimant drove defendant that day

With tools to care for his

Illegal hay.

He was observed by the fed

Placing metal by a shed

Where other tools of his trade would stay.

4. The claimant’s arrest was then made,

Tis illegal, after all, his trade,

And defendant was seized

With comparative ease

By the government, with which it has stayed.

5. Claimant now wants his truck back

And he bases his legal attack

On the grounds that defendant

Though found in pot fields resplendent

Was not used as an illegal hack.

6. While tis true that not one plant or seed

Could be found on defendant, indeed,

Claimant’s argument is tissue

For the dispositive issue

Is did defendant facilitate the deed?

7. In the US. versus One Cadillac, The Second Circuit addressed this attack,

And those judges renowned

Eventually found,

Claimant’s assertion misread law and fact.

8. They gave “facilitate” a wide definition,

These jurists of great erudition,

They found that seizure was proper,

Now here’s the heart-stopper,

If the truck in any manner facilitates the illegal condition.

9. In Cadillac, as in the case at bar, Defendant just transported men near and far,

But this was sufficient

To make claimant’s trade more efficient

And therefore justified seizing the car.

10. Thus the Cadillac case this Court will follow,

Renders claimant’s contention hard to swallow,

And the Court will now render

Judgment against the defender

Because claimant’s contentions are hollow.

11. Now the moral in this case ’bout the truck,

Is easy, in case you are stuck,

If in an illegal endeavor

A vehicle is used whatsoever,

Then, my friend, you are clear out of luck.

JUDGMENT

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that plaintiff shall have judgment against defendant on plaintiff’s complaint. 
      
      . United States v. One 1974 Cadillac Eldorado Sedan, 548 F.2d 421 (2nd Cir.1977).