Pot Stickers

Indiana tries to punish a marijuana grower twice.

Stephen F. Hayes from the February 2000 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

One recent change Indiana made in its continuing effort to get around the Kurth and Bryant decisions requires prosecutors to notify the Department of Revenue when they don't intend to pursue a drug case. Maternowski worries that such collaboration will lead to disparate treatment based on suspects' economic status. "Envision a situation where the suspect is arrested with a large quantity of marijuana in a traffic stop that is constitutionally questionable," he says. If the person is wealthy and prosecution is uncertain, the state has an incentive to collect the tax. (The stated goal is revenue, not punishment.) But if the person is poor, it makes more sense for the state to attempt a prosecution than to try collecting money from someone who has none. In short, the rich pay the tax, and the poor go to jail.

Sumpter may end up doing both. Mosley says the state has offered to settle for $30,000. Sumpter says he arranged for enough family loans to enable him to make a counteroffer of $10,000. Arthur, the deputy attorney general, says he has no recollection of such a counteroffer.

Using either Arthur's figure or Sumpter's, it has hardly been cost-effective for Indiana to pursue someone who has no resources to pay the tax. A "Warrant for Collection of Tax" dated August 25, 1999, has a handwritten "balance due" figure of $789,881. This includes a "collection fee" of $31,597--more than $1,500 above the state's last settlement offer.

Remember, this money would come from a man who raised suspicion by scavenging road kill while returning from a hunger-motivated fishing trip. No matter, apparently. "If he violated the law," says Arthur, "he violated the law."

When people with no money are forced to pay the drug tax, says Maternowski, "they essentially become indentured servants to the state. They're kicked off family farms. Their paychecks are [garnished]." If the courts determine that Sumpter still owes the money, the Department of Revenue will have the authority to seize what little property he has. "If we lose, that gives them the right to everything Dave owns," says Mosley, his lawyer. And that's not much. Sumpter's only real asset is his used trailer home.

A hint of pride emerges as Sumpter describes his one prized possession. "It's a real nice trailer, an '84," he says. "I got it used in '90 for $41,000." He adds, "I'm pretty poor. If it wasn't for selling fruits and vegetables--tomatoes, peppers, and a few cantaloupes--I wouldn't have nothing."

Arthur says only Gov. Frank O'Bannon can make policy decisions that would affect the Sumpter case. Unlike Arthur, who knows the law and knows the case well enough to speak extemporaneously about it for 45 minutes, nobody in the governor's office has heard of Sumpter.

Sumpter hopes his assessment will be dropped. "I don't understand how they can do it," he says. "It don't make no sense. I just want to move out of Indiana."

His native Indiana isn't the only thing Sumpter doesn't like anymore. "I used to love deer," he says. "I used to think deer pictures were pretty and everything. I had them everywhere. Now, I just want to run over every deer I see on the road. They drive me crazy."