5 ms·

It is. And it's explicitly forbidden by our Constitution. Efforts to pretend otherwise, but only for suspected drug dealers, lost that qualifier a decade or s

by mapt 10y ago

It is. And it's explicitly forbidden by our Constitution. Efforts to pretend otherwise, but only for suspected drug dealers, lost that qualifier a decade or so ago when fiscal conservatives started to doom state governments to persistent budget shortfalls. Police departments lacking funding found themselves a status as highwaymen that the federal government (since Reagan) would tolerate, robbing out-of-state vehicles under cover of federal law and judicial precedent. These people swear an oath to uphold the Constitution. There is no wiggle room on this subject in the Bill of Rights for people to have their possessions stripped from their person absent a criminal conviction. Practitioners of 'civil asset forfeiture' are traitors to that oath and to their country, in addition to being guilty of the common crime of armed robbery. Why hasn't it been changed yet? * It's rare. This is not an everyday thing. * It often targets people on long-haul car journeys through what wealthy people (the sort who can afford lawyers) term 'the flyover states'. Most people do not want to battle this in court at least a days' drive from their home, on disadvantaged terms with a lawyer who will cost more than the goods in question. * Most wealthy people (the sort who can afford lawyers) no longer carry large amounts of cash. * State & local police departments have become reliant on it. Law enforcement agencies are extremely averse to going up against each other. Politicians with the power to shape law respond to the opinion of the people in the place they live and to local campaign donations by wealthy people, not to out-of-state victims.

cauterized 10y ago
Plus the cases in many states are framed in such a way that the cash itself is the defendant and the person it was taken from has no standing in the case. They make it essentially procedurally impossible to contest the seizure.
- marcus_holmes 10y ago
  surely this introduces a precedent for defence lawyers too though? "My client did not buy the drugs. My client's money bought the drugs. If my client has no standing in civil forfeiture then he also has no case to answer in criminal proceedings"
  - Spoom 10y ago
    The forfeiture is completely separate from any criminal investigation; in fact, it's possible for a forfeiture to occur in the complete absence of any criminal charges.
    - mcv 10y ago
      And that makes this so criminal. It's not just injustice, it is actual highway robbery. If states can't fix this, the federal government should. Allowing state officials to prey on out-of-state travellers sounds like exactly the kind of thing the federal government should prevent.
- mapt 10y ago
  "The cases in many states are framed in such a way that the neck itself is the defendant and the person using it to connect their head to their body has no standing in the case. This makes it procedurally impossibly to contest the beheading." You describe a farce that the current generation of police, legislators, district attorneys, and judges have decided to entertain because they grew too friendly & were never invested in the principles they claim to serve. It is not a victimless show they are putting on. I mean, the words in your statement make some sense in that each one is related to the next concept in the sentence, but together they are a satire of Constitutional and common law.
vollmond 10y ago
This is a good explanation of things, but scapegoating "fiscal conservatives" for reducing budgets seems disingenuous, and deflects blame from those responsible (IE, the police, DAs, judges, and legislators who allow this travesty to continue). Choosing to spend less on a government function cannot be allowed the impression of excusing this behavior.
- mapt 10y ago
  Fiscal conservatives are what brought the practice back in the context of the drug war, and their budget constraints are a large part of what expanded the practice beyond the drug war and into wink-wink-I-smell-pot-in-this-BMW territory. They're not the only guilty ones - Democrats generally went along with it, like the rest of the drug war, for fear of being painted as weak on crime, but they're not the architects. The phenomenon of state governments which perpetually run deficits, cutting more every year, is not their vice. " I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub. " - Grover Norquist, possessor of a signed loyalty oath from much of the Republican Party towards the goal of ritual opposition to new taxes " It's now possible for a drug dealer to serve time in a forfeiture-financed prison after being arrested by agents driving a forfeiture-provided automobile while working in a forfeiture-funded sting operation. " — Reagan attorney general Richard Thornburgh in 1989. This is implicitly corrupting and, again, explicitly unconstitutional. The historical civil forfeiture was used in British Naval law to seize assets of overseas fugitives before charging them; It was one of the reasons the US rebelled. Stealing cash from one's pocket because one is carrying cash and this is inherently suspicious, without charges when given every opportunity to arrest, has never been historically acceptable.
ccvannorman 10y ago
"It's rare". Civil asset forfeitures totaled $2.5 Billion in 2010 [1] , or approximately $8 per citizen of the country. Keep in mind that if the police hand isn't in your pocket, it's in someone else's. This is bullshit and needs to stop. It's leading to bad places and actually makes me fear and disrespect the police, which is totally inverted from police's purpose! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States#Statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...

by mapt 10y ago

cauterized 10y ago

Plus the cases in many states are framed in such a way that the cash itself is the defendant and the person it was taken from has no standing in the case. They make it essentially procedurally impossible to contest the seizure.

marcus_holmes 10y ago
surely this introduces a precedent for defence lawyers too though? "My client did not buy the drugs. My client's money bought the drugs. If my client has no standing in civil forfeiture then he also has no case to answer in criminal proceedings"
- Spoom 10y ago
  The forfeiture is completely separate from any criminal investigation; in fact, it's possible for a forfeiture to occur in the complete absence of any criminal charges.
  - mcv 10y ago
    And that makes this so criminal. It's not just injustice, it is actual highway robbery. If states can't fix this, the federal government should. Allowing state officials to prey on out-of-state travellers sounds like exactly the kind of thing the federal government should prevent.
mapt 10y ago
"The cases in many states are framed in such a way that the neck itself is the defendant and the person using it to connect their head to their body has no standing in the case. This makes it procedurally impossibly to contest the beheading." You describe a farce that the current generation of police, legislators, district attorneys, and judges have decided to entertain because they grew too friendly & were never invested in the principles they claim to serve. It is not a victimless show they are putting on. I mean, the words in your statement make some sense in that each one is related to the next concept in the sentence, but together they are a satire of Constitutional and common law.

vollmond 10y ago

This is a good explanation of things, but scapegoating "fiscal conservatives" for reducing budgets seems disingenuous, and deflects blame from those responsible (IE, the police, DAs, judges, and legislators who allow this travesty to continue). Choosing to spend less on a government function cannot be allowed the impression of excusing this behavior.

mapt 10y ago
Fiscal conservatives are what brought the practice back in the context of the drug war, and their budget constraints are a large part of what expanded the practice beyond the drug war and into wink-wink-I-smell-pot-in-this-BMW territory. They're not the only guilty ones - Democrats generally went along with it, like the rest of the drug war, for fear of being painted as weak on crime, but they're not the architects. The phenomenon of state governments which perpetually run deficits, cutting more every year, is not their vice. " I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub. " - Grover Norquist, possessor of a signed loyalty oath from much of the Republican Party towards the goal of ritual opposition to new taxes " It's now possible for a drug dealer to serve time in a forfeiture-financed prison after being arrested by agents driving a forfeiture-provided automobile while working in a forfeiture-funded sting operation. " — Reagan attorney general Richard Thornburgh in 1989. This is implicitly corrupting and, again, explicitly unconstitutional. The historical civil forfeiture was used in British Naval law to seize assets of overseas fugitives before charging them; It was one of the reasons the US rebelled. Stealing cash from one's pocket because one is carrying cash and this is inherently suspicious, without charges when given every opportunity to arrest, has never been historically acceptable.

ccvannorman 10y ago

"It's rare". Civil asset forfeitures totaled $2.5 Billion in 2010 [1] , or approximately $8 per citizen of the country. Keep in mind that if the police hand isn't in your pocket, it's in someone else's. This is bullshit and needs to stop. It's leading to bad places and actually makes me fear and disrespect the police, which is totally inverted from police's purpose! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States#Statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...