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That doesn’t make me any less concerned. I’ve read about enough DOJ fuckery over the last 20+ years that when I see assertions like yours I have to add “ostensi

That doesn’t make me any less concerned. I’ve read about enough DOJ fuckery over the last 20+ years that when I see assertions like yours I have to add “ostensibly”. There are plenty of cases near and dear to HN’s heart where the consensus is DOJ did wrong things. I don’t understand how we can simultaneously act like it’s safe to rely on the prosecution’s need to prove intent.

ncallaway 9y ago
Sure, but that's an argument for reforming those parts of our criminal justice system. Literally every law that includes intent as a component—which I would argue should be almost all of them—rely on the prosecution's need to prove intent. The fact that the criminal justice system is broken doesn't mean this statute is broken. If we're going to throw out this statute because it depends on the prosecutor's ability to prove intent, I guess that means we need to throw out all of the criminal statutes. Totally agree about prosecutorial fuckery (though, I wouldn't contain it to just the DOJ, plenty of state level prosecutorial fuckery). I just don't see how that shows that money laundering or structuring statutes themselves are the problem.
- valuearb 9y ago
  I’d be less strident if the government was required to return all seized property and pay all legal fees and damages in cases it lost, so at least we can attempt to make the citizen whole again.
  - ncallaway 9y ago
    Sure, but again, that seems like a complaint across the entire criminal justice system—and not specific to this statute or money laundering statutes. I think your problem is more with the criminal justice system (which I agree is broken in systematic ways) than with these particular laws. These complaints could be directed at the abuse of any number of reasonable laws on the books.
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    What prevents the citizen from recovering those things in a civil suit against the police, federal government, etc?

ncallaway 9y ago

Sure, but that's an argument for reforming those parts of our criminal justice system. Literally every law that includes intent as a component—which I would argue should be almost all of them—rely on the prosecution's need to prove intent. The fact that the criminal justice system is broken doesn't mean this statute is broken. If we're going to throw out this statute because it depends on the prosecutor's ability to prove intent, I guess that means we need to throw out all of the criminal statutes. Totally agree about prosecutorial fuckery (though, I wouldn't contain it to just the DOJ, plenty of state level prosecutorial fuckery). I just don't see how that shows that money laundering or structuring statutes themselves are the problem.

valuearb 9y ago
I’d be less strident if the government was required to return all seized property and pay all legal fees and damages in cases it lost, so at least we can attempt to make the citizen whole again.
- ncallaway 9y ago
  Sure, but again, that seems like a complaint across the entire criminal justice system—and not specific to this statute or money laundering statutes. I think your problem is more with the criminal justice system (which I agree is broken in systematic ways) than with these particular laws. These complaints could be directed at the abuse of any number of reasonable laws on the books.
- erikpukinskis 9y ago
  What prevents the citizen from recovering those things in a civil suit against the police, federal government, etc?