4 ms·

Unfortunately the practice is as old as the republic itself. It comes from British law where the owners of vessels are unreachable by the courts but their prop

Unfortunately the practice is as old as the republic itself. It comes from British law where the owners of vessels are unreachable by the courts but their property (the ship) is attainable. The case law on this is very extensive. A law permitting the practice against ships smuggling contraband was one of the earliest acts of the continental congress. Even if your an originalist it's extremely difficult to argue the founders didn't intend to permit the practice.

rtkwe 7y ago
In the case that the owner can't be reached at all is one of the few cases I think it's probably ok, but the second someone comes forward and says I'm the owner I think you have to either charge them with an actual crime or let it go because it's gone from a random item to someone's property. And today that's a majority of the cases because the police are either taking the money from someone (because it's suspicious to have cash) or the item is registered somehow (car, boat, etc).
inamberclad 7y ago
In the circumstances you mentioned, the owner of said property would be breaking the law. That's different from the current practice.
- jdsully 7y ago
  Not necessarily. They may have no knowledge of the smuggled cargo on their vessel. Without knowledge or intent it's hard to argue they are guilty of smuggling by mere ownership.
  - rtkwe 7y ago
    But someone is breaking the law and could be charged with the crime, in this case the people operating the ship. The ship question is also more complicated than 99% of the asset forfeiture cases because it involves owners and operators where sooo many of these cases just involve the cops confiscating cash because they decide it's large enough to try to steal under the pretext of it being maybe connected to a crime. [0] The case of cash in particular is galling because if it's connected to a crime then the owner must also be connected to that crime so charge them with something and don't go through this weird sideways process where the owner suddenly has to prove the negative case that their property isn't connected to a crime. [0] Because that's the heart of what's happening, it used to be that CAF didn't happen that much because only the Feds can really do it and none of the money got kicked back to local departments. Years back that got changed and suddenly local cops were much more interested in confiscating and filing these kinds of cases.

rtkwe 7y ago

In the case that the owner can't be reached at all is one of the few cases I think it's probably ok, but the second someone comes forward and says I'm the owner I think you have to either charge them with an actual crime or let it go because it's gone from a random item to someone's property. And today that's a majority of the cases because the police are either taking the money from someone (because it's suspicious to have cash) or the item is registered somehow (car, boat, etc).

inamberclad 7y ago

In the circumstances you mentioned, the owner of said property would be breaking the law. That's different from the current practice.

jdsully 7y ago
Not necessarily. They may have no knowledge of the smuggled cargo on their vessel. Without knowledge or intent it's hard to argue they are guilty of smuggling by mere ownership.
- rtkwe 7y ago
  But someone is breaking the law and could be charged with the crime, in this case the people operating the ship. The ship question is also more complicated than 99% of the asset forfeiture cases because it involves owners and operators where sooo many of these cases just involve the cops confiscating cash because they decide it's large enough to try to steal under the pretext of it being maybe connected to a crime. [0] The case of cash in particular is galling because if it's connected to a crime then the owner must also be connected to that crime so charge them with something and don't go through this weird sideways process where the owner suddenly has to prove the negative case that their property isn't connected to a crime. [0] Because that's the heart of what's happening, it used to be that CAF didn't happen that much because only the Feds can really do it and none of the money got kicked back to local departments. Years back that got changed and suddenly local cops were much more interested in confiscating and filing these kinds of cases.