3 ms·
Civil asset forfeiture is never justified. If you don't have a case, you don't have a case. 'Acting suspicious" warrants asking questions, NOT taking things wh
by hajile 9y ago
Civil asset forfeiture is never justified. If you don't have a case, you don't have a case.
'Acting suspicious" warrants asking questions, NOT taking things when those questions don't turn up anything. The idea that it stops organized crime is also rediculous. No crime Lord was ever brought down by civil asset forfeiture. They work that statistic into their prices like any other for-profit Enterprise would and go on with business as usual.
I'd also clear up the "given orders" bit. You cannot really make a good case for police departments ordering their officers to simply take any and all money they see. That is left to the officers discretion. In this case, the officer decided to abuse his power over the general population. To take your orders idea to the end; Let's assume that the police department as a whole requires such theft. We aren't in a country without freedom of the press. Any one of those officers could (and indeed had a duty to) record and publish the illegal order. If such an order exists, then EVERY officer is willingly complicit.
Finally, let's say that we do need limited ability to lock up people's things. That should most definitely involve a case against the individual rather than against the possession itself. It should involve the rights to an expidited trial. Most importantly, it should involve a large burden of proof like any criminal case rather than simple majority.
- marcoperaza 9y agoLying to police is more than acting suspicious. I’m not claiming that police have a moral carte blanche for overzealous seizures. I’m saying that when they do their duty in good faith and then lose in court, we shouldn’t jump to calling them robbers. To your last point, the standard in civil court is preponderance/more-likely-than-not/“majority”. Civil asset forfeiture is not a criminal conviction, carries no risk of prison time, and involves solely the transfer of property from one (who is not entitled to it) to another (who is at least more entitled to it). If I sue you for everything you’re worth, or claim rightful ownership of your land in an action directly on the property, I only need to prove my case by a preponderance. Why should it be any different here? A lot is made over the fact that the civil action is against the property instead of the person it’s being seized from. This isn’t as relevant as it sounds and it has nothing to do with the standard of proof being lower: the standard in all civil cases is preponderance of the evidence. The suit is against the property because it’s an in rem lawsuit where the only thing being litigated is the disposition of the property. They are not trying to prove that the person it was seized from did anything illegal, just that the asset itself is the proceeds of a crime, whoever may have committed that crime.