A Houston school called the police after a little girl tried to buy her lunch with what was assumed to be a counterfeit bill. The teacher assumed it was counterfeit because she had never seen a $2 bill. The officer who arrived at the scene apparently was unfamiliar with the $2 bill as well and questioned the girl’s grandmother for more information. Upon learning that she received the suspicious currency at a nearby store, members of the police department traveled to the store, followed by the bank, before coming to the realization that the $2 bill is legal tender. They wasted time and falsely accused a child of a crime because the government employees involved never heard of a $2 bill.
It turns out, the police routinely prosecute children who may be using counterfeit bills, as if they were the person counterfeiting the note. If a child is charged with forging a note, they face 10 years in prison. A seventh-grade student was arrested for merely possessing a counterfeit $10 bill. He was put in handcuffs, thrown into a squad car, the whole 9 yards. He was charged with a felony and sent to an alternative school before he was given a fair hearing or found guilty of anything.
From 1697 until 1832, the act of forgery or even the use of forged notes was punishable by DEATH. This satirical note was designed by 17th century cartoonist George Cruikshank in protest to the rising number of falsely accused forgers who were sentenced to death and hanged. Standard features of the Bank of England notes were replaced by gruesome ornaments such as skulls, a hangman’s noose, and ships for transportation to British colonial prisons in Australia. This surrounds the image of Britannia feeding on infants.
The crime was mere possession. If you accepted a note and did not know it was counterfeit, it was a death sentence. In Texas, police are charging children with felonies for the same mere possession of a counterfeit note.
The practice of hanging so many people finally led the Bank of England to offer the convicted the option of a “plea bargain” in the form of a guilty plea by a prisoner. So to avoid death, people would plead to a crime they did not commit, which is the same practice today as 98% of cases involve plea deals. In this case, you took the deal and received a sentence of 14 years for “transportation,” meaning the prisoner would be exiled to British colony prisons in America or later Australia. These were the first “slaves” bought by American plantation owners. It was later forbidden in the US Constitution under indentured servitude. Therefore, history repeats because the abuse of government never changes. Today, even the possession of a wad of cash is presumed to be guilty and subject to confiscation.
