3 ms·

"Civil forfeiture" is theft. It's also plainly unconstitutional.

by snsr 10y ago

DannyBee 10y ago
Except, it's plainly not. Seriously. It's been around since the 1600's and every supreme court that has ever existed in the US has found it constitutional. You can claim they are all wrong, it's literally not unconstitutional, because in our system, that's what the supreme court decides. Now, there are more reasonable arguments that some of the current approaches do not comport with due process, but that's not as blanket a statement as you are making here.
- snsr 10y ago
  It's unjust, particularly in it's current implementation, and it completely circumvents due-process. At least in the US, which wasn't a nation in 1600, this is a prohibition-era deterrent that was reinstated by Reagan to punish drug users, and has been more currently used to fund law enforcement agencies in an astonishingly offensive manner.
  - DannyBee 10y ago
    Sure, i'd agree it's unjust in some of the current implementation (there are something like 800+ federal statutes that have some form of asset forfeiture, so you'd need to be more specific which you think are unjust) While i think, policy wise, it's as dumb as the next guy, I'm just pointing out this is being painted with too broad a brush from a constitutional standpoint
- 1_2__3 10y ago
  It galls me so much because I'm usually the one arguing your position, but when it comes to civil asset forfeiture I have to say there's no possible way the SCOTUS has it right. You would honestly be hard-pressed to find too many other legal practices in such regular use today that so fly in the face of any plain or complicated reading of the 4th amendment. It's not even a little bit wrong, it's staggeringly wrong. It's not a weird technical nuance of law. It's not something the framers never addressed, or an issue that's only come up since the drafting. Yes, the practice of it has a long history that extends long before the US but so did/does slavery, government-sanctioned torture, genocide and collective punishment but nobody's wandering around saying we should allow those because starting the 1700s someone thought they were good ideas.

"Civil forfeiture" is theft. It's also plainly unconstitutional.

by snsr 10y ago

"Civil forfeiture" is theft. It's also plainly unconstitutional.

Except, it's plainly not. Seriously. It's been around since the 1600's and every supreme court that has ever existed in the US has found it constitutional. You can claim they are all wrong, it's literally not unconstitutional, because in our system, that's what the supreme court decides. Now, there are more reasonable arguments that some of the current approaches do not comport with due process, but that's not as blanket a statement as you are making here.

snsr 10y ago
It's unjust, particularly in it's current implementation, and it completely circumvents due-process. At least in the US, which wasn't a nation in 1600, this is a prohibition-era deterrent that was reinstated by Reagan to punish drug users, and has been more currently used to fund law enforcement agencies in an astonishingly offensive manner.
- DannyBee 10y ago
  Sure, i'd agree it's unjust in some of the current implementation (there are something like 800+ federal statutes that have some form of asset forfeiture, so you'd need to be more specific which you think are unjust) While i think, policy wise, it's as dumb as the next guy, I'm just pointing out this is being painted with too broad a brush from a constitutional standpoint
1_2__3 10y ago
It galls me so much because I'm usually the one arguing your position, but when it comes to civil asset forfeiture I have to say there's no possible way the SCOTUS has it right. You would honestly be hard-pressed to find too many other legal practices in such regular use today that so fly in the face of any plain or complicated reading of the 4th amendment. It's not even a little bit wrong, it's staggeringly wrong. It's not a weird technical nuance of law. It's not something the framers never addressed, or an issue that's only come up since the drafting. Yes, the practice of it has a long history that extends long before the US but so did/does slavery, government-sanctioned torture, genocide and collective punishment but nobody's wandering around saying we should allow those because starting the 1700s someone thought they were good ideas.