Lying 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

Lying 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.