This led to some widely publicized cases, a few years back, in which black motorists were routinely pulled over by local police and relieved of large sums of cash while driving on major highways in the South. The motorists weren’t charged, since a criminal conviction requires actual evidence. Instead they were told “We’re seizing this cash because we presume it was intended to buy drugs; if you want to come back here from wherever you live and fight it out in court, good luck.”

Facing court costs and the burden of proof — the reverse of the usual order of things — few motorists bothered.