EP145: The History of Christmas Trees, The Accidental Santa and Why it Took One Man 7 Years to Get His Car Back

On this episode of Our American Stories, The History Guy recalls the forgotten history of Christmas trees; John Rogers of Missouri never set out to be Santa... the first time he put on the red suit it was because the Santa before him at his local VFW tragically passed away. 21 years later, it's become his mission of joy; Tyson Timbs found out that old habits do indeed die hard when he was arrested and convicted for selling drugs to undercover cops. He also found out what asset forfeiture was when the State of Indiana took his Land Rover and held onto it for 7 years.

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Time Codes:

00:00 - The History of Christmas Trees

23:00 - The Accidental Santa

35:00 - Why it Took One Man 7 Years to Get His Car Back

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
an all show long a celebration of Christmas. Up next,
Our next story comes to us from a man who's
simply known as the History Guy. His videos are watched
by hundreds of thousands of people of all ages over
on YouTube. The History Guy has also heard here on

(00:31):
Our American Stories. Let's take a listen to the History
Guy as he recalls the forgotten history of Christmas Trees
traditions involving evergreen plants in midwinter as ancient as civilization.
The winter solstice, the point where one of the year's
poles has its maximum tilt away from the sun, occurs
in December in the northern hemisphere, very close to Christmas,

(00:52):
usually December twentieth or twenty first. The solstice represents the
longest night and the shortest day of the year, and
days thereafter we'll longer until the summer solstice. Many ancient
religions saw the significance. To them. A winter came because
the Sun God had grown ill or we and the
solstice was a cause for celebration as it represented the
day when the Sun God began to recover. Evergreen plants

(01:15):
were used because they represented the triumph of life over death.
In ancient Egypt, on the solstice, people decorated their homes
with green poem proms in a celebration of Raw, the
god of the sun. Ancient Romans celebrated Saturnalia, raucous festival
in honor of Saturn, the god of wealth and agriculture,
in mid December, and the festival of gift giving and
libation included decorating the home with evergreen boughs. Celtic druids

(01:39):
and ancient Britain decorated evergreen trees at the onset of
winter to ensureate fruitful coming year. Germanic people's venerated sacred
trees and oaks and associated the evergreen tree with a
god Balder, who was associated with the sun. In ancient
Germanic and Scabinavian traditions, trees were seen as a protection
from the wild hunt, chaotic time when a mythical figure
led a hunt of souls that could spell doom. In

(02:01):
Scandinavian folklore, the hunt was led by the god Woden
and occurred during the midwinter festival called Yule, whose traditions
affected many later Christmas traditions, but it's not clear how,
if at all, these pre Christian traditions affected the modern
tradition of Christmas trees. A more likely predecessor is mystery plays,
plays that depicted biblical stories that were the origin of

(02:22):
passion plays. Mystery plays started to be introduced into sacred
services in Europe around the fifth century. The place would
be associated with dates, and in many countries the liturgical
calendar celebrated Saints Adam and Eve on December twenty fourth.
The mystery places on Christmas Eve therefore often featured the
so called tree of knowledge of good and evil, also
called the Tree of Life from which Eve took the

(02:43):
apple given to Adam. The tree was decorated with red
apples and white wafers. The decoration of a Christmas bow
by the Catholic religious order of Cistercians, noted in a
fifteenth century reference to an evergreen bow decorated with red
oranges and candles, is seen by some as the earliest
reference to a Christmas tree, But the tradition of Christmas

(03:04):
trees might actually not be related to pre Christian pagan traditions,
or even to Christian mystery plays. According to a December eighteenth,
twenty twenty edition of National Geographic. The cities of Riga, Latvia,
and Tallan Estonia have an ongoing argument over which city
was the first to host a real Christmas tree, and
that debate has to do with a mysterious medieval order

(03:26):
called the Brotherhood of the Blackheads, established what was then
called Livonia in the mid thirteenth century. The Brotherhood was
an association of local, unmarried merchants, ship owners, and foreigners.
Originally created helped fight an indigenous uprising against Christianity called
the Saint George's Night Uprising in fifteen forty three. While
the order had a military history in chivalric tradition, it

(03:48):
was largely an association of merchants and tradespeople. In the
middle fifteenth century, they apparently took up the practice of
raising and decorating a real or Ersat's tree with fruits
and nuts in their guilt. They would then haul the
tree to the middle of town, dance around it, and
set fire to it. Lafia claims the first such event
occurred in Riga in fifteen ten, and Estonia claims the

(04:10):
first was in Talent in fourteen forty four, but the
evidence is sketchy to support either claim. While the debate
is seem to affect tourism travel for a Christmas celebration,
The odd thing is that these supposed at first Christmas
trees might not have had anything to do with Christmas.
As A historian for the National Library of Lafia, quoted
in The New York Times in twenty sixteen, notes that
these events were likely rooted in rituals and traditions unique

(04:32):
to the Blackheads, when bi annual celebrations served as a
means of inducting new members. Thus, the Christmas tree tradition
might actually have been secular. The first firmly dated representation
of a Christmas tree is in fifteen seventy six in
alsas which is today part of France, which is on
the border with German animals Many German traditions. The Christmas

(04:55):
market in the Alsatian city of Strasbourg is among the
oldest in Europe, dating as far back fifteen seventy and
at least in modern times, is famous for its Christmas tree.
The practice of decorating a tree in the home as
we know it today is generally seen as having evolved
in Germany in the sixteenth century. The tradition may have
been associated with Protestantism, as the trees and the homes

(05:17):
might have been a Protestant response to the Catholic tradition
of Christmas cribs or Nativity scenes. Most directly, the story
of decorating Christmas tree has been associated with the sixteenth
century religious reformer Martin Luther. According to the story, Luther
was walking home one winter evening and was struck by
the beauty of brilliant stars against the evergreen trees of
the German forests. He brought a tree to his home

(05:37):
and decorated with candles as a way to represent the scene.
Writer Dorothy Haskins explained he wanted to stand there evergreen
is a reminder to his children that when the world
was at its bleakest moment, sad and helpless and covered
the weight of sin, God sent his son, everlasting life
itself to bring hope in the midst of the dark
and chill. Although it isn't clear if the story of

(05:58):
Luther is real or apocryphal, the tradition quickly became associated
with Protestant reformers. Christmas Tree was placed in the Cathedral
of Strasbourg at the direction of reformer Martin Booster in
fifteen thirty nine. The tradition became common in the Upper
Rhineland by the eighteenth century, but less so along the
Lower Ring, where there was a Roman Catholic majority. However,
trees also have a particular meaning in Catholic doctrine. In

(06:19):
the Catholic Church often sites an eighth century a d
story where Saint Boniface cut down an oak tree called
Donor's Oak in central Germany that was being used as
a pagan symbol instead offered a fir tree as a
holy tree that being an evergreen, represented endless life as
the origin of the Christmas Tree. If so, the Vatican
was somewhat slow in coming to the party, only starting
at Christmas Tree tradition in Saint Peter's Square in nineteen

(06:41):
eighty two. And you've been listening to the History Guy
tell the story of the origins of the Christmas Tree,
and we love hearing from him regularly. And you can
go to our website and put in History Guy and
catch all of the work he's done and it's so good.
Or better still, go to his YouTube channel and look
up the History Guy and you'll find it and just

(07:02):
enjoy yourself. It's a really unique voice he has and
a great grasp of detail as it relates to almost
every subject imaginable. When we come back, more with a
History Guy and more on the history of the Christmas Tree.
Here on our American Stories, Lee Habibi here the host

(07:33):
of our American Stories. Every day on this show, we're
bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories from
our big cities and small towns. But we truly can't
do the show without you. Our stories are free to
listen to, but they're not free to make. If you
love what you here, go to our American Stories dot
com and click the donate button. Give a little, give

(07:55):
a lot. Go to our American Stories dot com and
give and we continue with our American Stories and with
the History Guy and the history of the Christmas Tree.

(08:17):
By the nineteenth century, the tradition had taken hold all
across Germany and was seen to be an expression of
German culture. In fact, that is how the tradition of
Christmas trees luckily first came to the United States, with
Hessian troops fighting in the American Revolution, as well as
with German immigrants. As earliest seventeen seventy seven, still, the
tradition was not widely accepted in the US, or it

(08:37):
was largely perceived as a quaint, foreign or even pagan tradition.
If Protestants created the Christmas tree tradition in Germany, they
vehemently opposed it. In England, the Puritans saw Christmas as
a frivolous addition to the religious calendar, and we're particularly
offended by wasteful excess like seeing carols and decorating trees.
A sixteen forty three ordinance during the Protectorate encouraging subjects

(08:58):
to treat the midwinter period with more solemn humiliation, because
it may call to remembrance our sins and the sins
of our forefathers, who have turned this feast, pretending the
memory of Christ into an extreme forgetfulness of Him by
giving liberty to cardinal and sensual delights. As Lord Protector,
Oliver Cromwell had to patrol the streets to rest anyone
who looked like they were headed to a special Christmas

(09:19):
Eve service and confiscate any food discovered being prepared for
Christmas celebrations. The same attitude prevailed among Puritans in the Americas.
According tohistory dot Com. In sixteen fifty nine, the General
Court of Massachusetts enacted a law banning any celebration of
December twenty fifth and finding people for hanging decorations. The
change in both Great Britain and the United States was

(09:40):
imported from Germany via the royal family. The tradition of
decorating a whole tree was brought to the British royal
family by Queen Charlotte, wife of George the Third, in
eighteen hundred. While the nutrition did not buy in large
at the time, spread beyond the royal family. It was
well recognized by young Victoria Alexandrina, who would later be
crowned Queen Victoria. When she married her cousin, Prince Albert

(10:02):
of Saxe, Coburg and Gotha in eighteen forty one. The
Queen and her consort made a point of advertising their
Christmas traditions, enforced by Albert's German heritage. With their eventual
nine children, the traditions slowly became more popular, boosted significantly
when the Illustrated London News portrayed the royal family with
their tree in eighteen forty eight. Statis conscious Britains quickly

(10:23):
began emulating the royal couple. The tradition briefly fell out
of favor due to the anti German sentiment during the
Great War, but by the nineteen twenties was common among
all classes. A special tradition was started following the Second
World War, where the Government of Norway since nineteen forty
seven donates a Norway spruce tree each year to the
people of Britain as a token of gratitude for British
support during the Second World War when the British government

(10:44):
hosted the Norwegian government in exile. The tree is a
focus of a traditional carol singing program, and according to
the web page of the City of London, for many Londoners,
the Christmas Tree and the carol singing in Trafalgar Square
signals the countdown to Christmas. The city builds the tree
is the world most famous Christmas tree. As with the
United Kingdom, the Christmas tree tradition was spread throughout Europe

(11:06):
by the largely intermarried European nobility. Nobility was not quite
as popular in the United States, but upper class, as
conscience Americans tended to emulate their European peers. In an
odd twist, the eighteen forty eight illustration of the Queen
and her concert was also popular in the United States,
credited in the women's magazine Godie's Ladybook in eighteen fifty,

(11:27):
but was modified to remove the queen's crown and the
Prince Consort's sash, resembling a more typical family. The well
known illustration is credited with popularizing Christmas trees in the
United States, where there were more than three million Germans,
but immigrated between eighteen forty and eighteen eighty in the
Peeritan fervor of the seventeenth century had faded, still, various
complaints about the German tradition being Unamerican persisted through the

(11:49):
Great War period. There is some anecdotal evidence that tree
was placed in the White House in the eighteen forties
under the Tyler administration, and others edit tree was placed
during the Peers administration in the eighteen fifties, but the
most credible reports do not place a Christmas tree in
the White House until eighteen eighty nine during the Benjamin
Harrison administration, when it was placed on the second floor
and decorated with candles for the Harrison grandchildren. But a

(12:11):
White House Christmas tree did not become an immediate tradition,
and was left to the whims of the occupant and
often depended upon whether there were children in the White House.
First Lady lou Henry Hoover started a tradition of an
official White House tree with decorations decided by the First
Lady in nineteen twenty nine. With only two exceptions, The
White House Christmas Tree has been placed on the first
floor Blue Room since nineteen sixty one and is commonly

(12:33):
called the Blue Room Christmas Tree. The traditional place in
a tree in Rockefeller Center in Mintown, Manhattan, between West
forty eighth and fifty first Streets in fifth and sixth
Avenues didn't begin into nineteen thirty one. First tree was
placed by construction workers building Rockefeller Center. Workers pulled their
money for the tree, which was decorated with homemade decorations
made by their families. In nineteen thirty three, Rockefeller Center

(12:56):
decided to make an annual tree a tradition, and the
now iconic ice rink was opened in nineteen thirty six.
The lighting of the tree was first televised in nineteen
fifty and today the ceremonies broadcast at hundreds of millions
and as many as one hundred twenty five million people
visit the tree in a normal year. While only traditions
included arsats, trees often wooden platforms covered with evergreen boughs,

(13:17):
something approximating a modern artificial tree was developed earlier than
you might think. By the eighteen eighties, Germans became concerned
about the use of Christmas trees because of deforestation. As
a solution, a type of artificial tree made of green
dyed goose feathers wrapped around a wire frame was developed.
Feather trees were popular throughout the nineteenth century and had
a resurge of popularity in the United States in the

(13:37):
early twentieth century, when they were sold at department stores
and touted for not dropping needles. In nineteen thirty a
maker of housewares, the Addis Brush Company, produced an artificial
tree made from brush bristles. They used the same process
and equipment used for making toilet brushes, but used green
bristles and were sold into the nineteen fifties. Aluminum trees,

(13:59):
manufactured from a nineteen fifty five into the nineteen seventies,
were briefly popular in the United States. More than a
million were produced by the Aluminum Specialty Company of Mentwak
Wisconsin between nineteen fifty nine and nineteen sixty nine, but
in nineteen sixty five a Charlie Brown children's cartoon and
portrayed aluminum trees as symbols of the commercialization of Christmas,
and the market faded. Today there's a market for vintage

(14:21):
and antique trees such as feather trees, add a sprush trees,
and aluminum trees, but most modern artificial trees are made
of PVC and most commonly manufactured in China. There are
ongoing debates about the economic and environmental impacts of real
versus artificial Christmas trees. A twenty seventeen survey by the
American Christmas Tree Association found that around eighty one percent

(14:43):
of America's approximately ninety five million Christmas trees were artificial,
although other surveys suggest that the number may be closer
to around two thirds. Still, as many as thirty million
natural Christmas trees are produced in the United States every
year and as many as sixty million in Europe. While
the tradition seems harmless, at two twenty survey by the
website Value Penguin found that nearly one in twenty Americans

(15:05):
having been injured while putting up a Christmas tree, and
three quarters that meant to have forgotten to turn the
lights out at nine, which can be a fire hazard.
According to the National Fire Protection Association, there's an average
of about one hundred and sixty home fires in the
United States attributed to Christmas trees each year, causing around
ten million dollars improperty loss and an average of two
deaths per fire. To limit the risk of fire, the

(15:27):
website ACU weather suggests buying fresher looking trees, keeping them
well watered, shaking the tree to see if the needles
are detaching, checking the lights and turning them off at night,
and keeping the tree away from heat sources such as radiators, fireplaces,
and candles. And even with their long history, the future
of Christmas trees still looks very bright. Twenty nineteen report

(15:48):
on CNN noted that in the previous year eighteen, more
Christmas trees were sold in America than ever before in history.
The reason is that the generation called the Millennials are
now settling down and having children. Jessica luck so. The
American Relators Association asserts that Millennials might actually be more
attracted to Christmas trees than previous generations because of their
obsession with posting photographs on social media or a picture

(16:12):
of the family in front of the Christmas tree is
quickly becoming an Instagram stable. And you've been listening to
the History of the Christmas Tree. The special thanks on
the production to Greg Hangler and his special thanks as
always to the History Guy, and you can find him
on YouTube. And the range, breadth and depth of his
storytelling is remarkable. And by the way, who knew that

(16:34):
it was President Hoover's wife who institutionalized the Christmas Tree
as we know it outside the White House? And my goodness,
as a kid growing up in northern New Jersey, it
was unimaginable to skip a Christmas not going to Rock
Center and seeing the Christmas Tree and it's lighting. A
hundred and twenty five million people a year visit that tree,

(16:55):
and it was started because a bunch of construction workers
building Rockefeller Center had decided to put up their own
makeshift tree. The Story of the Christmas Tree. Thirty million
more or less natural Christmas trees a year are used
by Americans. The Story of the Christmas Tree a staple
of American life. Here on our American Stories folks, if

(17:30):
you love the stories we tell about this great country,
and especially the stories of America's rich past, know that
all of our stories about American history, from war to innovation,
culture and faith, are brought to us by the great
folks at Hillsdale College, a place where students study all
the things that are beautiful in life and all the
things that are good in life. And if you can't
cut to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their

(17:52):
free and terrific online courses. Go to Hillsdale dot edu
to learn more. And we returned to our American stories.
Every year around Christmas, helpless people dress up as Santa Claus,

(18:15):
donning the red costume, just to spread some joy to
kids eagerly anticipating good times. Today, our own Monty Montgomery
brings us the story of a man who does just that.
Take it away. Monty, John Rogers and McDonald County, Missouri
placed Santa at his local VA. But it wasn't something

(18:38):
he set out to do. The Santa Claus they had died,
and they asked me if I would do it for them,
And that's hot all got started. It's been eighteen years now,
eighteen years of going to hospitals to talk to sick kids,
eighteen years of providing some joy to kids whose parents
are deployed overseas, and eight teen years of going to

(19:01):
nursing homes to talk to the elderly. But what did
this Santa do when he wasn't being Santa. I was
a operating engineer. I would run heavy equipment. I worked
a lot in Springfield, Kansas City, Branson, Fayetteville, Mississippi, Arkansas.

(19:21):
Little Rock, Yeah, I was. I was on a road
a lot. And it was during his day job that
he would meet a man who would lead him into
one of his most memorable moments as Santa. I helped
build a low store in Marian, Mississippi, which is and
I stayed in Jackson, Mississippi, and uh one of my

(19:46):
I ran a motor grader down there, and he was
called my grade checker. He was one on the ground
that would tell me how much dirt to put in
or how much to take out. And so I called
ourselves Tonno on a long ranger. I was down there
almost seven to eight months, and he knew that I did,
Santa Claus, because it was getting It was at time
of the year down there and of course closure to Christmas.

(20:07):
Everybody that sees me, they realized that some reason I
got the hair and I got the glasses and a beard,
so I portray Santa to them, and so that's how
we got to know each other and welcome back. We
continue to have this incredible surge coming up through Mobile Bay.
That's right. Of course, we are in storm alert here

(20:28):
at the Weather Channel, and good reason for it. Hurricane
Katrina still a major hurricane affecting parts of the lower
Mississippi Valley. In Katrina came through, and I'd been back
here probably oh year or two at least, and he
called me and he's told me what had happened down there,
and he wanted to know if I would come down
here and be Santa Claus for at his church because

(20:51):
everybody down there had lost everything they had. And I
said absolutely. I need a list of all the children
from from a baby to thirteen. I said, I'm cutting
the date off at thirteen, and I said, I need
a list of all the children, male and female, and
I want one major gift that they would like to have.

(21:11):
And I collaborated with his sister because he was working
down on the coach helping clean up from Hurricane Katrina.
And so she sent me the letter with all the
children's names and their ages and what they wanted, and
there were forty four kids on the list. So when

(21:32):
I got that, I said, oh my, Now, now what
am I going to do? So I went around town
and just talk to everybody that I knew and told
him what I was going to do and would they
care to give me some money? And some did and
some didn't, and I didn't, you know, I just went
on my merry way and then uh, so I've got
the money, and now I'm going no, can I go shopping?

(21:56):
And I go, man, this is going to be So
I knew school teacher by the name of Marshall Harlan
who worked out at the golf course. And I've played
a lot of golf all my life, and I said, Marsha,
I need help. I'm in over my head. I ken't
buy all these presidents and wrap them all and get
them all ready to go. And so I think she
got it was a team group, and I don't know.

(22:18):
I think they were the Honor Society. I don't remember
now it's been a while, but there were about ten
or twelve of them. And we met at the golf
course and I gave them the list, and I give
them the money, and I said, you go to Walmart.
I've got to run to Jopping, I've got to go
to Toys r Us. Come back to the golf course.
We wrapped the presents and we was done in about
an hour. That I couldn't have done it without the

(22:39):
teams from Neil Show High School at the time. So everybody,
everybody that I just ran into, was behind me one
hundred percent. They trusted in me and knew that I
was for real. And I really appreciated that this Santa
needed a slade to carry his gifts down to the
coast of Mississippi, though, and he found it in his

(23:01):
dad's garage. I asked him if I could borrow the man,
because in that time of year, you know, ten hours
on the road, you can run into anything, and and
he said, well sure, And so as our conversation went on,
he said, can I go with you? And I thought, well, yeah, sure,

(23:21):
I'd love to have somebody go with me. I've made
that trip a dozen times by myself and it's not
that much fun. So I said, under one circumstance, you're
not getting behind the stern wheel. I'm driving this time
because my dad always drove before. He was a driver
for Try State Motor Transportation when I was a boy,
and he always drove on vacations and stuff. So I said, yeah,

(23:43):
you can go, but you're not touching the stern wheel,
so you can enjoy this trip. So he made fifty
bags of jerky for all of them down there, and
I smoked a couple of hams. I'm kind of know
this time of year for smoking hams as well for
other people. And I've told her pretty good. The people
in Mississippi didn't even though I was coming. The only

(24:04):
ones that knew I was coming was my friend to
his sister and the pastor. They were totally shocked. They
were practicing their Christmas carols. I could hear them. But
now they snuck me in through the back in the
kitchen with all the presents and set me all up
there in front of the Christmas tree and everything, and
they just put the Santa had on Dad and they

(24:25):
walked him through the front, and the kids their eyes
just opened up. They could you know. They knew something
was up, they didn't know what. And they followed them
into the kitchen and then there I sat, and then
all chaos. I can still see it in my mind.
Who's planting of day? The little two or three year
old boy that was standing right there hand line first,
who was jumping up and down and jumping up and down.
And I just had their names on all the trash

(24:47):
bags that were full of their presence, because that's the
way I transported them. And so I just reached and
grab a bag and read their name off, and they'd
come and said, all my lap, and I'd give it
to them. And before I got to that little boy,
he was in here because he thought he was going
to be left out. It was. It was kind of
funny and sad at the same time. It was something
I'll remember all my life because he brought joy to

(25:10):
a group of kids had hours away from him, who
he didn't even know. For John, it gets to the
essence of why he puts on the red suit every
year and he doesn't want it any other way. When
I was down in Dallas one time with my daughter

(25:31):
over Christmas, so I talked to another standard down there
and he said, man, you need to come around here.
I get your job. You can make thirty thousand dollars
and in a month, easy two three four hundred dollars
a pop. And I'm busy all the time. And and uh,
I told him, no, that's you know, I'm not in
I don't do them my whole scene. I just go
where I want to go and and where my heart

(25:52):
leads me. And uh, that's the way I'm gonna do it.
I'm not gonna be I'm not I'm I'm not a
commercial sanna. I hope that I make a difference those
children's lives that I see. I've got several repeat customers.
I guess it's what you want to call it, call
me a weird. I just say you haven't retired yet,
have you? And I go, no, I'm still done it
because you're the best I've ever had. And that's that's

(26:13):
what it's all about. It makes me feel good, it
makes them feel good, and that's why I do it.
And great work on the production by Monty Montgomery and
his special thanks to Katrina Hind for bringing us this story.
And my goodness, John Rogers by day. He's an operating
engineer and if you've ever had your dirt graded, you

(26:34):
know how important the work is. He does, and he
takes great pride in that, you could tell. But what
he takes even greater pride in is being Santa. And
that poignant story he told about getting down to the
area that was just battered by Hurricane Katrina and taking
care of kids and just volunteering at a church and
driving ten hours with his dad. That's America. That's that's

(26:56):
what Toakville saw, the great French prison reformer who came
to America nineteenth century and saw Americans doing these beautiful
and wonderful spontaneous things for each other, forming associations, volunteering.
It's the heartbeat of this country. John Rogers story a
Santa story here on our American story, and we return

(27:38):
to our American stories. And now it's time for another
rule of law story, which is a part of our
Rule of Law series, where we showcase what happens in
the absence and the presence of the rule of law
in our lives. Things like property rights that we just
take for granted courts in an independent judiciary, separation of

(27:58):
powers which gives meaning to that independence of the judiciary,
and contract rights things that in other countries, well, good luck,
and by the way, that rule of law extends to
all of us, good and bad and in between. Here's
our own Monty Montgomery with the story of a man
who violated what would seem to be a clear cut
law and the long winded case that he became wrapped

(28:21):
up in as a result. In twenty twelve, Tyson Tims
found himself on the receiving end of a decent amount
of cash following the death of his father. He promptly
bought a nice car and a year later drove out

(28:43):
to sell some drugs to undercover cops. Here's Ilias Solman
with the rest of the story. So he was caught
and he was charged with a small scale drug offense.
He admitted that he did commit a crime, but when
he drove to this transaction, he was driving his land
Rover SUV, which according to estimates, was worth something like

(29:06):
between forty and forty two thousand dollars. So the state
of Indiana seized the land Rover through asset forfeiture. But
what's asset forfeiture and why did law enforcement decide to
leave Tyson without his wheels over a drug offence. Asset
forfeiture is a practice whereby government can confiscate property that

(29:31):
was used in a crime, such as a car, or
in some cases even something as major as a house,
And often they can do it even if the owner
of the property was never convicted of any crime, and
indeed even if he or she was never charged for it.
So you get examples like the police will stop someone's car,
perhaps for a mine or traffic violation, Dendel asked to

(29:53):
search the car, and then they find some money in
the car. Say you're transporting cash, and some people do.
The police might decide it seems likely that this money
was acquired in a drug transaction or some kind of
other illegal transaction. They take the car potentially and the
money as well. Similarly, if, for instance, you lent your
car to a friend and then the friend who was

(30:15):
suspected of driving it to buy illegal drug, then your
car could be confiscated, even though you may not even
have known that your friend was going to use it
for that purpose. And sometimes that can happen even if
the friend himself never got charged with anything. And there
are many many examples like this. They vary somewhat by state,

(30:38):
but the basic idea is that the government can seize
property that they think might have been used in a
crime in many cases in most states, they don't have
to prove that it actually happened. They certainly don't have
to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. Indeed, the procedures
in many states are such that once they seize your
property for asset forfeiture, the wordness and effect falls on

(30:59):
you to prove that you're innocent or the property wasn't
used in a crime. And often the cost of getting
the property back is actually more valuable than the property itself.
So if they see something that's worth five hundred or
a thousand, or even two or three thousand dollars, as
is often the case, in order to mitigate the issue
and get it back, even if you're successful, you may

(31:20):
have to pay a lawyer more money than the property
is worth, and it may take you many weeks for
many months to even get a hearing about it, much
less get the property back. Now, at this point, you
maybe thinking, big deal. Guy buys expensive car. Guy drives
the car to sell drugs to undercover cops. Guy gets punished.

(31:44):
Who cares about his car? This seems just, But the
issue here isn't the taking of the car. It's that
there was no due process to take it, and law
enforcement can sell assets seized via forfeiture and add it
to their budgets. And if you want your stuff back,
you have to take them the court using money you
probably don't have. There's no accountability, there's no rule of law.

(32:08):
So Tyson went to court, and Tyson Tim's represented by
the Institute for Justice. They argued that this seizure violated
the excessive fines clause of the Eighth Amendment. The Eighth
Amendment is best known for forbidding crew and unusual punishment,

(32:29):
but it also forbids excessive finds, and thus began a
game of pinball for Tyson, Tims and the Institute for
Justice between court systems. So this case is unusual even
by the standards of federal Supreme Court cases. That not
only did it reach the Federal Supreme Court, but it

(32:50):
also there are also three separate Indiana State Supreme Court decisions,
and there are not many Supreme Court cases historically which
are like that. That's dream unusual, and the case raised
two important issues that the Supreme Court had never previously resolved.
One is whether the excessive fines clause even applies to

(33:12):
state and local governments at all. As opposed to just
a federal government. Over a lying period of time, the
Supreme Court has gradually decided that nearly every other part
of the Bill of Rights, would a few exceptions, applies
to state and local governments and not just the federal government.
But they had never decided this would respect to the
excessive fines clause. So when the case initially reached the

(33:33):
State Supreme Court of Indiana, the state Supreme Court said, well,
this doesn't apply to the states, or if it does,
we the Supreme Court of Indiana can't say that it does.
Only the federal Supreme Court can make that decision. The
other big issue is, let's assume the excessive fines clause
does apply to state governments. Do asset forfeitures qualify as

(33:53):
excessive fines because maybe assive forfitures just aren't finds at all.
That's another thing that the State of Indian and argued
in this case. So when the case got to the
Supreme Court, the court actually showed a rare degree of unanimity.
All nine justices, both liberal and conservative, concluded that the

(34:15):
clause does in fact apply to state governments and local
governments as well as the federal government. Everybody I think
expected dat outcome would have been very surprising if the
courts had known this is the one part of the
Bill of Rights that doesn't apply against the states. Secondly,
they also ruled that at least some asset forfeitures can

(34:35):
indeed be fines, excessive fines, and therefore if they're big enough,
they could be struck down as excessive. And they rejected
the argument to forfeitures just aren't fines at all, because
the state did argue that this is just an attempt
to see property use for illegal purposes. It's not really
a punishment of the person who committed the offense h

(34:57):
or maybe even in many cases it didn't commit any
of fence. And I need a court ruled correct way
that fines and forfeitures are sufficiently similar that many, if
not all, asset forfeitures can in fact qualify as fines.
But the court left open the issue of what is
it exact way that makes an asset forfeiture excessive? And

(35:20):
this issue has ended up in the lower courts, with
the result that even the specific case of Tyson Tim's
actually made it back to the Indiana Supreme Court two
more times, one time where the Indiana Supreme Court set
up a test for how they think the excess on
this defined should be determined, and then a second case

(35:41):
where even though the test that they shet up, I
think it was queer that Tyson Tims should win under
that test because, among other things, the value of the
land rover is about four times the maximum find that
you could get for a criminal conviction in Indiana for
the type of illegal drug transaction that he attempted. But
none the less, the State of Indiana, much like Inspector

(36:02):
Javert in Waimi Zerabwe, they continued their single minded pursuit
of the land rover. They didn't want to give it up,
so they continue to litigate the case. So it went
back to the State Supreme Court yet again. This is
the third time the case went to the Indiana State
Supreme Court, and in that instance, the Indiana State Supreme
Court finally ruled that Tyson Tims could in fact get

(36:23):
his land rover back. So, after a legal battle that
lasted some seven years, Tyson Tims did in fact recover
the land rover and is now happily driving it now.
Most cases don't go through that wanting a process or

(36:44):
are that costly. I don't know how much money I
j spent litigating this case, but it is probably into
several hundreds of thousands of dollars or even more so
obvious who was more than the value of the land Rover,
even though the land Rovers a fairly expensive and valuable vehicle,
as I said before, it's worth about forty thousand dollars.
That said, the typical asset forfeiture probably involves and mounts

(37:05):
in the range of property worth five hundred or a
thousand dollars, and even the lawyer's fees for a more
conventional case will easily exceed that. That's actually a more
general problem we have in this country that legal services
for small scale losses of this kind very often outstrip
which you can gain from getting back what you lost.
Into James case, it's pretty obvious that Tyson Tims could

(37:28):
not have won this case without getting excellent pro bono
representation from the inst for Justice, which represented him for
free from start to finish, and they, of course weren't
solely interested in the particular vehicle at stake in this case.
They wanted to set a general precedent and a great

(37:49):
job on the production by Monty Montgomery and a special
thanks to Ilia Suman for telling us this story. He's
a law professor at George Mason University. Check out his
book Free to Move Foot, Voting Agration and Political Freedom,
and you can find that at Amazon dot com. Tyson
Timm's case another installment in our Great Rule of Law series.
Here on our American Story.