Forfeiture Endangers American Rights

Forfeiture Victim Stories


Victim's Story Update: Byron Stamate
- F.E.A.R. Chronicles, Vol. 2 No. 2 (July 1994)

Prosecutors returned 74-year-old Byron Stamate's house and all except $1000 of his life savings. Prosecutors settled the case, which involved $400,000 in assets, shortly after the experimental California state forfeiture laws expired, a change that requires the DA to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. (See page 3, this issue.)

Gary Webb reported in the San Jose Mercury News: "Brenda Grantland, a nationally known forfeiture lawyer who helped defend Stamate, predicted similar outcomes for other pending cases where there is little or no evidence of drug dealing.

"Under the old forfeiture laws, prosecutors could take property from people by proving there was a good chance it was derived from drug sales. No conviction was required."

"...Despite a year of under cover surveillance by El Dorado county sheriff's deputies, no evidence surfaced that Stamate had ever sold drugs to anyone."

(Byron's story is in F.E.A.R.Chronicles vol 2, no.1.)