Court ordered return of vehicle

[seanray25]

What is the name of your state?ca

After 2 years of the police holding my motorcycle for investigation for stolen property. I got a court order for police to return my bike back to me, but the officer had it towed from police dept. to a tow yard. Of course that means there are storage fee's now. Plus the police dept. require me to pay 97 more dollars to get a release slip before I can even go to tow yard.
My question is that the court order states to imediatly return vehicle to me, it says nothing about waiving fee's or anything. But it would seem like I shouldnt have to pay for something that they are suppose to return. And now the tow yard is just doing there job. Shouldnt the police have directly returned it to me. The order didnt say to return it to tow yard then to me? What does a court order intitle me to? Thanks

 

[CdwJava]

Th eorder allows what it says - it says that they can release the motorcycle to you. If you do not have the ability to pay for the impound fees, that's not the agency's problem. I can see the agency waiving their release fee (if any), but the storage fees are something they do not have the power to waive.

You might consider going back to the judge and requesting a waiver of all fees (i.e. have the agency pay for the storage and tow costs), but its hard to say how that would go. I suppose it would depend on why it was originally seized.

Carl

 

[seanray25]

Thanks

The police were ordered to release it to me no, a tow yard. He went ahead and released it from the police station to a tow yard, which is not me.

If the order states to return it, I would think that means to do so. Not to return it ,but only after you take all his money!

whats the point of a court oredr if the judges order is worthless. If the judge wanted me to pay fee's he would have said it, ??

 

[CdwJava]

While you believe if the judge wanted you to pay fees he would have said so, the reverse can be said - that if the judge wanted you to be exempt from fees he would have said so.

This is an issue you will have to take up with the city. You can make a claim to the city for the cost of the impound fees and see what they say. if they fail to make good you can consider suing them. OR, you can go back to the judge issuing the release and ask for clarification.

Since this is an agency with sufficient evidence storage space that they were able to hold on to a motorcycle themselves, I imagine it is a good-sized agency. That being the case, they likely have a pretty hefty bureaucracy to negotiate and you probably aren't going to get very far very fast.

The way it generally works is that the court or the DA issues an order or a memorandum that the item in question is no longer necesary as evidence and may be released. We are rarely obligated to store the item in question and WAIT for the owner to pick it up as we are not a Self-Stor unit. We have the option to store the item as we would any other item ... if it were a car, it goes to a tow yard, if it were large, bulk property subject to destruction, we woul do what was appropriate (after the lawful notifications, of course).

At my agency, we HAVE turned over vehicles that have been held at our agency for evidence processing to a tow yard when it is released, so the action you describe is not without precedent and is not uncommon. If the order specified they were to turn the item over to you and you headed straight to the PD onbly to find that they had just sent it off, you MIGHT have a good argument. But, if you waited a few days to retrieve the M/C, then you might be out of luck.

Carl