They're the executive, not the judicative. A judge would've had to make this assertion, which clearly didn't happen as they didn't have a warrant.
The officers still drove all over the state into a different jurisdiction (while using taxpayers money). They likely could've gotten the goat without making it into such a shit show, that's exactly the point I was trying to make.
If my car is stolen and I see it in someone’s garage, I absolutely expect the police to do something about it. In this case, the facts about lawful ownership were straightforward.
Even if she had not been, there was a good faith dispute, under which circumstances destruction of the disputed property is not the sort of thing that a court would allow. Which is why police need to not play cowboy. By the way, if your car is stolen and you see it in somebody's garage, the police are NOT just going to grab it and hand it back to you. They'll impound it until things are settled.
Complaint: https://dig.abclocal.go.com/kgo/PDF/2022-08-31-Complaint.pdf
The complaint leaves this far from settled.
> why police need to not play cowboy
They got a warrant [1].
> if your car is stolen and you see it in somebody's garage, the police are NOT just going to grab it and hand it back to you
I have recovered my phone from someone’s house with the help of police. They coöperated and in exchange I didn’t press charges. Had they not, I would have pressed, they’d have been arrested and sure, a court would have been involved. To the extent the police acted outside their authority, it was in not arresting.
[1] https://dig.abclocal.go.com/kgo/PDF/2022-08-31-Complaint.pdf page 9
They had no warrant to search or seize the goat from the farm that it was at [1].
[1] https://dig.abclocal.go.com/kgo/PDF/2022-08-31-Complaint.pdf page 11
If Sonoma Farm resisted the police, sure, there might be a Fourteenth Amendment claim in respect of the search. There is no indication they did. That makes the seizure totally valid.
Clearly not, otherwise we wouldn’t be reading about it in the news. This was a civil dispute. One party is of the opinion that they bought a goat and the other party is of the opinion that they haven’t sold it. This is where you need a court to decide who is right and who is wrong.
Purchase and sale of livestock has a deep body of law attached.
Judicial involvement isn’t always necessary, though either side can petition its review. (These cops had a warrant, by the way [1].) In this case, the parents waited until after the auction, after the seizure and after the slaughter to do that.
[1] https://dig.abclocal.go.com/kgo/PDF/2022-08-31-Complaint.pdf