In what can only be described as the height of prosecutorial arrogance, Federal prosecutors in Washington state decided that their right to seize the assets of suspected drug dealers reaches right into the mouths of the accused. Flenard T. Neal Jr. and Donald Jamar Lewis were awaiting trial and hadn’t been convicted of any offense when they were suddenly loaded into a van at the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac and shipped off to the dentist’s office where prosecutors intended to seize their gold fillings. I am not making this up.

Kudos to Federal Public Defenders Zenon Peter Olbertz and Miriam Scwhartz for rising immediately to the challenge and to United States Magistrate J. Kelley Arnold, who put a permanent stay on the proposed extractions.

Read the full story here.

RP

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