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Saturday, June 28, 2008
Ind. Courts - Still more on: Supreme Court issues emergency order re handling of forfeiture cases in Muncie
Updating previous ILB entries, the most recent being this one from June 24th, Douglas Walker of the Muncie Star-Press has a new report today that begins:
MUNCIE -- Judge Richard Dailey wants records reflecting all deposits and withdrawals -- and copies of cashed checks -- from a First Merchants Bank account that contained funds confiscated from accused drug dealers by the Muncie-Delaware County Drug Task Force and the county prosecutor's office.The Delaware Circuit Court 2 judge on Friday issued court orders for those banking records, along with those of two city government accounts and tax forms reflecting payments to Delaware County Prosecutor Mark McKinney, Deputy Prosecutor Eric Hoffman and former Deputy Prosecutor Louis Denney, who filed the civil lawsuits that led to the forfeitures.
Dailey -- who in recent weeks has conducted a series of hearings on what the judge referred to in Friday's orders as "allegations of fraud upon the court in civil drug forfeiture cases" -- also issued an order for "all information" on federal grants that city government, the DTF and the county sheriff's department "used for drug interdiction or enforcement, in Muncie, Ind., from 1996 to present..."
In one of Friday's orders, Dailey wrote that McKinney had "repeatedly asserted to this court that he may enter into confidential agreements and dispose of drug forfeiture funds without court adjudication..."
The judge wrote that through his own investigation he had determined that grants from the U.S. Department of Justice required that all forfeitures "must first be adjudicated in state courts."
Posted by Marcia Oddi on June 28, 2008 11:21 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts