One thing I’ve learned from a quarter-century of community journalism is the relatively small percentage of the population with firsthand experience of the justice system.
Forget speeding tickets or red-light camera citations. Think courtrooms, lawyers, judges. Not like the highly dramatized big city scenes from TV and movies. Regular town stuff in the courthouse you drive by but never enter.
Consider Danielle Duhoski. Shaw Media’s Felix Sarver told the New Lenox woman’s story in weekend editions: Police were investigating a hit-and-run incident from Oct. 7. They seized her 2012 Ford Expedition as evidence, then filed a complaint seeking to take ownership of the SUV because they alleged the co-owner – Duhoski’s ex – drove it while on a revoked license.
Duhoski isn’t accused of being behind the wheel during the supposed hit-and-run. She couldn’t force her ex to return the car or report it stolen, her lawyer said, pointing to her orders of protection against him and his Nov. 15 domestic battery charge (still pending with a not guilty plea). But she couldn’t get the police to give it back to her either.
Will County prosecutors objected to a petition for a hardship release of the Expedition, but a judge granted the request May 28, restricting her use of it to traveling to work or essential errands and appointments.
On June 11, the civil forfeiture case ended after Duhoski’s lawyer successfully argued prosecutors didn’t file their complaint on time. In addition to paying for legal representation, Duhoski had to pay a $500 New Lenox administrative fee and $995 to the towing company holding her car, which has only a $5,285 resale value.
It’s easy to make the case for the government’s power in this situation. Duhoski herself told Sarver she understands the use of civil forfeiture as a tool for fighting drug trafficking and money laundering. Spend any time on the cops and courts beat in a community close to Interstate 80 and encounter ample accounts of cops nabbing cars loaded with marijuana or cocaine or cash. Pulling that all off the highway and funneling proceeds back into interdiction is an efficient and defensible use of state power.
But when that same power is leveraged against a person from your town, a mother of two with a broken minivan who just wants to buy groceries and get to the doctor, the whole thing starts to look a lot less like good government.
Still, many people would side with city hall. Make better choices and avoid these problems, right? That’s a lot easier to say from outside the courthouse.
The government didn’t break its own laws here. But it did invite a conversation about taking all the available steps to avoid unintended consequences.
• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.
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