6 ms·

How is civil forfeiture(cash register justice) not a constitutional violation? The 4th Amendment declares that citizens have a right to "their persons, houses,

by vaadu 11y ago

How is civil forfeiture(cash register justice) not a constitutional violation? The 4th Amendment declares that citizens have a right to "their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures" and that no warrants may be issued without a statement of probable cause "particularly describing…things to be seized." The 5th Amendment says the accused criminals shall not be "deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." The 6th Amendment ensures that people accused of crimes must be "informed of the nature and cause of the accusation," The 8th Amendment forbids the government to impose "excessive fines" or "cruel and unusual punishments." Opponents of the change have little more than 'the ends justify the means' as a counter argument.

Jormundir 11y ago
They're using a legal loophole, charging the property with being complicit in a crime, not the person. So the piles of money they seize aren't protected by the constitution. This is obviously absurd, corrupt, ridiculous, etc. We have a very corrupt justice system.
- harryh 11y ago
  If the police catch you outside of an electronics store with a broken back door in the middle of the night walking away with a big screen TV do you think they should have to convict you of a crime before they take the TV from you? And if you say "no" to that then where exactly do you draw the line in between law enforcement taking obviously stolen property and law enforcement taking personal property? I don't ask this question rhetorically, I ask it because I'm honestly not sure.
  - BCM43 11y ago
    Yes, I think they should have to charge you with a crime. If they're sure enough that you took it, they should be able to get a conviction. If they're not, they shouldn't take it.
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    To add to that much of the property in criminal cases isn't claimed to begin with. When they bust a drug stash no one in their right mind would claim ownership on neither the drugs nor the money seized. That money will get into evidence and will normally be returned the the federal reserve, the program allowed the DOJ to appropriate a portion of that money and distribute it to local law enforcement agencies to increase their funding. Money and other assets will still be seized and they will still not be returned to the criminals they were seized form even if they do not go to trial this might seem unfair but those assets are unclaimed if they claim them they need to prove ownership and that will get them into a sea of trouble. Where will this money go now, well most likely back to the fed or will be kept on the DOJ books, I really don't understand why people have trouble with this policy or why they hail the halt to it as some great achievement to civil rights.
    - 20after4 11y ago
      Because the cops can simply pull you over for a bogus traffic violation, search you, seize any cash you have on you, and send you on your way. Now it's up to you to prove that your $3000 in cash was legitimate. Costs more than $3000 to fight the case, so what are you going to do about it? The cops just stole your $3000 and there isn't shit you can do.
      - iofj 11y ago
        And now the government has stolen it from the cops. Well, it's better than nothing I guess.
    - stonemetal 11y ago
      It creates an obvious conflict of interest. The cops now have a reason to abuse their power. They get paid.
  - stonemetal 11y ago
    Take it from you and put it in evidence? Sure, but that is a time limited thing. The court will either rule it is your TV, and they should give it back to you, or it is ruled as stolen and given back to the proper owner. The part where they keep it is obviously wrong.
    - harryh 11y ago
      I'm fairly certain that when assets are forfeited any party has the opportunity to claim the property. There is no case where no claim is found valid and law enforcement gets to keep it.
      - driverdan 11y ago
        In your example it's not forfeiture, it's evidence. Evidence treated differently. It's either held until a verdict is reached or it's returned to its rightful owner.
      - jwatte 11y ago
        From wheat I read, police have been pulling people over, and if there is cash in the car, "suspected" it might be used for drugs (even though the accused claims it's for other reasonable purchases) and then the person doesn't get the money, even after making a claim to get it back.
  - baddox 11y ago
    > where exactly do you draw the line in between law enforcement taking obviously stolen property and law enforcement taking personal property? The difference is the "obviously stolen" part. None of the ludicrous instances of civil asset forfeiture I have read involve property that is obviously (or even allegedly) stolen. Heck, half the time it's just a cop pulling someone over on a highway, stealing their cash, and sending them on their way.
    - harryh 11y ago
      Without data to support the claim, I'm pretty suspicious of the idea that half the time it's a cop taking money from some random person on a highway.
      - baddox 11y ago
        I was talking only about blatant misuses of civil asset forfeiture, and the "half" figure wasn't meant to be taken literally. All I meant is that there are plenty of instances of civil asset forfeiture where there is not even the pretense of criminal involvement, where a police officer simply takes property from someone and it's up to them to fight to get it back.
        harryh 11y ago
        The software I work on has plenty of bugs (as it was made by humans) but it's still pretty useful. I think to have any real discussion here we need some sort of data on error rates. Sure, it's sucks for the guy that gets his rightful property taken from him. But is that happening 10% of the time? 1% of the time? .01% of the time? My opinion on the matter would change drastically depending on which one of those numbers reflects reality.
        baddox 11y ago
        I don't understand. My position is that blatant abuses of civil asset forfeiture should happen less and should be punished severely. The standard required to seize assets should probably be higher, and there should be far less burden on the asset owner to reclaim their assets. In your analogy, that's me saying that we should try to reduce the number of bugs in our software. I don't think this is controversial.
  - chrismcb 11y ago
    If there is a suspicion of a crime they should be able to stop and search you (hence the reasonable clause). But if they only see you carrying a TV they should not be able to stop and take it. And that is what they've done. "You have a lot of money in your possession, it must have been ill gotten gains from a crime so we will take it." They do this without even knowing what crime was committed.
joesmo 11y ago
"How is civil forfeiture(cash register justice) not a constitutional violation?" It is. But you assume that laws cannot violate the constitution. They can and they do constantly, all the time. The constitution doesn't mean shit (I wanted to add "anymore", but from reading history, I'm not convinced it ever meant shit). That's just reality. It only means something when people in power want it to mean something. And yes, it's incredibly ironic that this is the exact system we had a revolution to get away from. Maybe not so much when you consider that a revolution is a 360 degree rotation that ends up in the exact same place. In that case, it probably isn't ironic that such programs had a huge resurgence under King George II (2000-2008), although had he been the third, the irony and historical allusion would have been even better. As far as justice and rule by law in the US, I think it's time for us to accept reality, that the US "justice" system is beyond broken and unfixable. This simply isn't justice and most of what the system deals with is not either: it's the opposite. If we keep lying to ourselves that this is justice, we'll never be able to stop this horrific system that ruins millions of lives and creates such a terrified, divided society. Once you understand that there are no laws and no Constitution protecting you, that the gang in blue can do whatever the fuck they want and get away with it up to and including murder, shit gets a lot scarier. And no, you don't have to be a minority to see this reality.
- nefitty 11y ago
  Fatalists do the least. When you throw your hands up in resignation you're simply ceding the game to the ones you claim to hate. Life's hard, tough shit. Plenty of societies have been moved from within through citizen's actions. To imply that suddenly now it's harder than ever is narcissistic whining. There are a thousand people grinding right now to move the needle to green, and I bet not a single one of them asked for permission from "people in power".
  - joesmo 11y ago
    I'm not trying to suggest that there's nothing that can be done, though I can see how you might interpret it that way, or that it's harder now than in the past, though I can't possibly see where you got that from. I'm simply saying that the "justice" system cannot be fixed without completely dismantling and replacing it, and that's not something you're going to do by changing a few laws or even releasing thousands of prisoners. Both are good ideas, but neither change the inherent injustices in our system of which there are way too many to even list. Plea bargains, mandatory minimums, criminalization of everyday activities, habeas corpus (or lack thereof), policing for money, prison officials that encourage rape and violence, racial profiling, different judicial outcomes based on wealth, police committing blatant murders without recourse or consequences, etc. are all huge problems in our current system and are not going to be fixed by a system that can't even ensure its basic principles (the constitution) is upheld.
nickff 11y ago
The courts have also managed to disregard the 'enumerated powers' clause of the constitution and the tenth amendment.[1][2] In some ways, it is unrealistic for us to expect a creature of the federal government to restrict the powers of the federal government. Most of the federal agencies are defended by an 'ends justify the means' type argument. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enumerated_powers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enumerated_powers [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_...
wl 11y ago
Under the 4th, the government has proposed and the courts have accepted a mendacious definition of reasonable. Under the 5th, due process basically means you have a right to a hearing where you can present evidence, examine witnesses, have counsel if you desire, etc and have the reasoning for the decision written down. It doesn't require that the rules being applied be fair. Under the 6th, nobody is being accused of a crime, otherwise it'd be a criminal forfeiture. Under the 8th, civil forfeitures aren't fines or punishments. The courts are far too deferential to the government. Unfortunately, presidents tend to appoint and the senate tends to confirm judges who will ignore all but the most egregious violations of the constitution when given laughable but marginally plausible arguments as to why the constitution is not in fact being violated.
- ams6110 11y ago
  If you appoint strict constructionist judges who would interpret the literal text and original intent of the constitution, you would probably also have to give up Roe v. Wade and things like affirmative action, that are not literally in the constitution.
  - rayiner 11y ago
    You'd also have no hope of a future Supreme Court reading into the Constitution protection against surveillance as violating of some "right to privacy" that appears nowhere in the text of the Constitution.
    - baddox 11y ago
      No, not because of "right to privacy," but it would be pretty easy for those justices to rule that the federal government has no authority to conduct mass surveillance precisely because there is no explicit such authority given to the federal government in the Constitution.
      - rayiner 11y ago
        But a very broad national security power is part of the Constitution, by design. The necessary and proper clause would mean nothing if that doesn't fall within the grant of power to provide for the national defense.
ikeboy 11y ago
The loophole relied on is that you aren't seizing "their" property, you're seizing property of unknown ownership. The onus is on the purported owner to prove it belongs to them so they can have Constitutional rights in it. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_rem_jurisdiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_rem_jurisdiction, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_forfeiture#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_forfeiture#United_States Note that the government can admit the person used to own it. Under https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/981 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/981, property used in certain crimes belongs to the government, and so the government takes it. It's then the person's job to prove it was not involved in a crime. Courts have ruled this doesn't violate anyone's rights. (I probably have some of this wrong, IANAL, but I gave sources so you can look those up.)
- jwatte 11y ago
  What I don't understand is how courts can assume it's used in a crime before a crime has been proven in court. Presumably, if I can prove I earned/bought something, and am not convicted of a crime, turf the government seizure is wrongful and I should get restitution, but from what I read, that doesn't work?
  - ikeboy 11y ago
    Only persons have the presumption of not being guilty. Not property. The government can claim crimes all they want, they just can't claim a person committed a crime (and punish them for it). This is all about shifting the burden of proof to the accused. Allowing the money to be charged separately does that, or so courts have ruled. (Insert above disclaimer here.)
- phantom784 11y ago
  Then shouldn't the law that transfers ownership be "seizing property without due process" and therefore unconstitutional?
  - 11y ago
rayiner 11y ago
Regarding the fourth amendment, the assets must be discovered pursuant to a legitimate search (either a legitimate search incident to arrest or traffic stop or a search pursuant to a warrant). Regarding the other amendments: civil asset forfeiture does not involve the government taking away your legitimate property to punish you for a crime. It involves seizing property that is more likely than not the proceeds or instrumentality of criminal activity. It has its roots in admiralty law and the seizure of contraband from ships, which was not considered a deprivation of property subject to due process at the time of the founding: http://www.forbes.com/2011/06/08/property-civil-forfeiture.html http://www.forbes.com/2011/06/08/property-civil-forfeiture.h....
ikeboy 11y ago
Re the 8th, https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=10005133394633023821&q=civil+forfeiture&hl=en&as_sdt=6,33 https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=100051333946330... seems to say that it does apply. Re the 5th, https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=5273937115017002001&q=civil+forfeiture&hl=en&as_sdt=6,33 https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=527393711501700... seems to say it does apply, but only for "real" property (land). https://www.pennlawreview.com/print/163-U-Pa-L-Rev-867.pdf https://www.pennlawreview.com/print/163-U-Pa-L-Rev-867.pdf seems to have a good summary of the legal aspects here.
xenadu02 11y ago
The law means what everyone says it means. A plain reading of the constitution (and without a doubt the founders intentions) prohibit civil forfeiture. Unfortunately the courts have rubber-stamped the ridiculous legal fiction that the government is suing the property so here we are. This is what makes libertarianism a cruel joke: even if it made sense, it would be subverted immediately by powerful or moneyed interests. The constitution means nothing if the courts or executive won't enforce it.
- baddox 11y ago
  > The law means what everyone says it means. Not quite. The law means what the people with actual power say it means. I find it odd that people express surprise when something happens that seems to violate some text written on a piece of paper. It's people with guns versus a text document. Not really a fair match, and not a surprising outcome. > This is what makes libertarianism a cruel joke: even if it made sense, it would be subverted immediately by powerful or moneyed interests. Not sure what that has to do with libertarianism specifically. Seems like "democracy" or even just "government" fits better in that sentence.

by vaadu 11y ago

Jormundir 11y ago

They're using a legal loophole, charging the property with being complicit in a crime, not the person. So the piles of money they seize aren't protected by the constitution. This is obviously absurd, corrupt, ridiculous, etc. We have a very corrupt justice system.

harryh 11y ago
If the police catch you outside of an electronics store with a broken back door in the middle of the night walking away with a big screen TV do you think they should have to convict you of a crime before they take the TV from you? And if you say "no" to that then where exactly do you draw the line in between law enforcement taking obviously stolen property and law enforcement taking personal property? I don't ask this question rhetorically, I ask it because I'm honestly not sure.
- BCM43 11y ago
  Yes, I think they should have to charge you with a crime. If they're sure enough that you took it, they should be able to get a conviction. If they're not, they shouldn't take it.
- dogma1138 11y ago
  To add to that much of the property in criminal cases isn't claimed to begin with. When they bust a drug stash no one in their right mind would claim ownership on neither the drugs nor the money seized. That money will get into evidence and will normally be returned the the federal reserve, the program allowed the DOJ to appropriate a portion of that money and distribute it to local law enforcement agencies to increase their funding. Money and other assets will still be seized and they will still not be returned to the criminals they were seized form even if they do not go to trial this might seem unfair but those assets are unclaimed if they claim them they need to prove ownership and that will get them into a sea of trouble. Where will this money go now, well most likely back to the fed or will be kept on the DOJ books, I really don't understand why people have trouble with this policy or why they hail the halt to it as some great achievement to civil rights.
  - 20after4 11y ago
    Because the cops can simply pull you over for a bogus traffic violation, search you, seize any cash you have on you, and send you on your way. Now it's up to you to prove that your $3000 in cash was legitimate. Costs more than $3000 to fight the case, so what are you going to do about it? The cops just stole your $3000 and there isn't shit you can do.
    - iofj 11y ago
      And now the government has stolen it from the cops. Well, it's better than nothing I guess.
  - stonemetal 11y ago
    It creates an obvious conflict of interest. The cops now have a reason to abuse their power. They get paid.
- stonemetal 11y ago
  Take it from you and put it in evidence? Sure, but that is a time limited thing. The court will either rule it is your TV, and they should give it back to you, or it is ruled as stolen and given back to the proper owner. The part where they keep it is obviously wrong.
  - harryh 11y ago
    I'm fairly certain that when assets are forfeited any party has the opportunity to claim the property. There is no case where no claim is found valid and law enforcement gets to keep it.
    - driverdan 11y ago
      In your example it's not forfeiture, it's evidence. Evidence treated differently. It's either held until a verdict is reached or it's returned to its rightful owner.
    - jwatte 11y ago
      From wheat I read, police have been pulling people over, and if there is cash in the car, "suspected" it might be used for drugs (even though the accused claims it's for other reasonable purchases) and then the person doesn't get the money, even after making a claim to get it back.
- baddox 11y ago
  > where exactly do you draw the line in between law enforcement taking obviously stolen property and law enforcement taking personal property? The difference is the "obviously stolen" part. None of the ludicrous instances of civil asset forfeiture I have read involve property that is obviously (or even allegedly) stolen. Heck, half the time it's just a cop pulling someone over on a highway, stealing their cash, and sending them on their way.
  - harryh 11y ago
    Without data to support the claim, I'm pretty suspicious of the idea that half the time it's a cop taking money from some random person on a highway.
    - baddox 11y ago
      I was talking only about blatant misuses of civil asset forfeiture, and the "half" figure wasn't meant to be taken literally. All I meant is that there are plenty of instances of civil asset forfeiture where there is not even the pretense of criminal involvement, where a police officer simply takes property from someone and it's up to them to fight to get it back.
      - harryh 11y ago
        The software I work on has plenty of bugs (as it was made by humans) but it's still pretty useful. I think to have any real discussion here we need some sort of data on error rates. Sure, it's sucks for the guy that gets his rightful property taken from him. But is that happening 10% of the time? 1% of the time? .01% of the time? My opinion on the matter would change drastically depending on which one of those numbers reflects reality.
        baddox 11y ago
        I don't understand. My position is that blatant abuses of civil asset forfeiture should happen less and should be punished severely. The standard required to seize assets should probably be higher, and there should be far less burden on the asset owner to reclaim their assets. In your analogy, that's me saying that we should try to reduce the number of bugs in our software. I don't think this is controversial.
- chrismcb 11y ago
  If there is a suspicion of a crime they should be able to stop and search you (hence the reasonable clause). But if they only see you carrying a TV they should not be able to stop and take it. And that is what they've done. "You have a lot of money in your possession, it must have been ill gotten gains from a crime so we will take it." They do this without even knowing what crime was committed.

joesmo 11y ago

"How is civil forfeiture(cash register justice) not a constitutional violation?" It is. But you assume that laws cannot violate the constitution. They can and they do constantly, all the time. The constitution doesn't mean shit (I wanted to add "anymore", but from reading history, I'm not convinced it ever meant shit). That's just reality. It only means something when people in power want it to mean something. And yes, it's incredibly ironic that this is the exact system we had a revolution to get away from. Maybe not so much when you consider that a revolution is a 360 degree rotation that ends up in the exact same place. In that case, it probably isn't ironic that such programs had a huge resurgence under King George II (2000-2008), although had he been the third, the irony and historical allusion would have been even better. As far as justice and rule by law in the US, I think it's time for us to accept reality, that the US "justice" system is beyond broken and unfixable. This simply isn't justice and most of what the system deals with is not either: it's the opposite. If we keep lying to ourselves that this is justice, we'll never be able to stop this horrific system that ruins millions of lives and creates such a terrified, divided society. Once you understand that there are no laws and no Constitution protecting you, that the gang in blue can do whatever the fuck they want and get away with it up to and including murder, shit gets a lot scarier. And no, you don't have to be a minority to see this reality.

nefitty 11y ago
Fatalists do the least. When you throw your hands up in resignation you're simply ceding the game to the ones you claim to hate. Life's hard, tough shit. Plenty of societies have been moved from within through citizen's actions. To imply that suddenly now it's harder than ever is narcissistic whining. There are a thousand people grinding right now to move the needle to green, and I bet not a single one of them asked for permission from "people in power".
- joesmo 11y ago
  I'm not trying to suggest that there's nothing that can be done, though I can see how you might interpret it that way, or that it's harder now than in the past, though I can't possibly see where you got that from. I'm simply saying that the "justice" system cannot be fixed without completely dismantling and replacing it, and that's not something you're going to do by changing a few laws or even releasing thousands of prisoners. Both are good ideas, but neither change the inherent injustices in our system of which there are way too many to even list. Plea bargains, mandatory minimums, criminalization of everyday activities, habeas corpus (or lack thereof), policing for money, prison officials that encourage rape and violence, racial profiling, different judicial outcomes based on wealth, police committing blatant murders without recourse or consequences, etc. are all huge problems in our current system and are not going to be fixed by a system that can't even ensure its basic principles (the constitution) is upheld.

nickff 11y ago

The courts have also managed to disregard the 'enumerated powers' clause of the constitution and the tenth amendment.[1][2] In some ways, it is unrealistic for us to expect a creature of the federal government to restrict the powers of the federal government. Most of the federal agencies are defended by an 'ends justify the means' type argument. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enumerated_powers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enumerated_powers [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_...

wl 11y ago

Under the 4th, the government has proposed and the courts have accepted a mendacious definition of reasonable. Under the 5th, due process basically means you have a right to a hearing where you can present evidence, examine witnesses, have counsel if you desire, etc and have the reasoning for the decision written down. It doesn't require that the rules being applied be fair. Under the 6th, nobody is being accused of a crime, otherwise it'd be a criminal forfeiture. Under the 8th, civil forfeitures aren't fines or punishments. The courts are far too deferential to the government. Unfortunately, presidents tend to appoint and the senate tends to confirm judges who will ignore all but the most egregious violations of the constitution when given laughable but marginally plausible arguments as to why the constitution is not in fact being violated.

ams6110 11y ago
If you appoint strict constructionist judges who would interpret the literal text and original intent of the constitution, you would probably also have to give up Roe v. Wade and things like affirmative action, that are not literally in the constitution.
- rayiner 11y ago
  You'd also have no hope of a future Supreme Court reading into the Constitution protection against surveillance as violating of some "right to privacy" that appears nowhere in the text of the Constitution.
  - baddox 11y ago
    No, not because of "right to privacy," but it would be pretty easy for those justices to rule that the federal government has no authority to conduct mass surveillance precisely because there is no explicit such authority given to the federal government in the Constitution.
    - rayiner 11y ago
      But a very broad national security power is part of the Constitution, by design. The necessary and proper clause would mean nothing if that doesn't fall within the grant of power to provide for the national defense.

ikeboy 11y ago

The loophole relied on is that you aren't seizing "their" property, you're seizing property of unknown ownership. The onus is on the purported owner to prove it belongs to them so they can have Constitutional rights in it. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_rem_jurisdiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_rem_jurisdiction, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_forfeiture#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_forfeiture#United_States Note that the government can admit the person used to own it. Under https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/981 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/981, property used in certain crimes belongs to the government, and so the government takes it. It's then the person's job to prove it was not involved in a crime. Courts have ruled this doesn't violate anyone's rights. (I probably have some of this wrong, IANAL, but I gave sources so you can look those up.)

jwatte 11y ago
What I don't understand is how courts can assume it's used in a crime before a crime has been proven in court. Presumably, if I can prove I earned/bought something, and am not convicted of a crime, turf the government seizure is wrongful and I should get restitution, but from what I read, that doesn't work?
- ikeboy 11y ago
  Only persons have the presumption of not being guilty. Not property. The government can claim crimes all they want, they just can't claim a person committed a crime (and punish them for it). This is all about shifting the burden of proof to the accused. Allowing the money to be charged separately does that, or so courts have ruled. (Insert above disclaimer here.)
phantom784 11y ago
Then shouldn't the law that transfers ownership be "seizing property without due process" and therefore unconstitutional?
- 11y ago

rayiner 11y ago

Regarding the fourth amendment, the assets must be discovered pursuant to a legitimate search (either a legitimate search incident to arrest or traffic stop or a search pursuant to a warrant). Regarding the other amendments: civil asset forfeiture does not involve the government taking away your legitimate property to punish you for a crime. It involves seizing property that is more likely than not the proceeds or instrumentality of criminal activity. It has its roots in admiralty law and the seizure of contraband from ships, which was not considered a deprivation of property subject to due process at the time of the founding: http://www.forbes.com/2011/06/08/property-civil-forfeiture.html http://www.forbes.com/2011/06/08/property-civil-forfeiture.h....

ikeboy 11y ago

Re the 8th, https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=10005133394633023821&q=civil+forfeiture&hl=en&as_sdt=6,33 https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=100051333946330... seems to say that it does apply. Re the 5th, https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=5273937115017002001&q=civil+forfeiture&hl=en&as_sdt=6,33 https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=527393711501700... seems to say it does apply, but only for "real" property (land). https://www.pennlawreview.com/print/163-U-Pa-L-Rev-867.pdf https://www.pennlawreview.com/print/163-U-Pa-L-Rev-867.pdf seems to have a good summary of the legal aspects here.

xenadu02 11y ago

The law means what everyone says it means. A plain reading of the constitution (and without a doubt the founders intentions) prohibit civil forfeiture. Unfortunately the courts have rubber-stamped the ridiculous legal fiction that the government is suing the property so here we are. This is what makes libertarianism a cruel joke: even if it made sense, it would be subverted immediately by powerful or moneyed interests. The constitution means nothing if the courts or executive won't enforce it.

baddox 11y ago
> The law means what everyone says it means. Not quite. The law means what the people with actual power say it means. I find it odd that people express surprise when something happens that seems to violate some text written on a piece of paper. It's people with guns versus a text document. Not really a fair match, and not a surprising outcome. > This is what makes libertarianism a cruel joke: even if it made sense, it would be subverted immediately by powerful or moneyed interests. Not sure what that has to do with libertarianism specifically. Seems like "democracy" or even just "government" fits better in that sentence.