5 ms·

My undertanding of asset forfeiture was that its original intent was to target criminal enterprises. If you bust a drug cartel, their (often significant) assets

My undertanding of asset forfeiture was that its original intent was to target criminal enterprises. If you bust a drug cartel, their (often significant) assets might as well go towards the common good. And somehow, that turned into a system where cops can stop you and take your property according to mere presumption of guilt, as in this stupefying example from a few years ago: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/30/drug-cops-took-a-college-kids-life-savings-and-now-13-police-departments-want-a-cut/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/30/drug-... Any system with such a glaring conflict of interests and profound lack of accountability is going to be abused to the hilt, as this is. I don't have a problem with confiscating cars from habitual drunk drivers, but there has absolutely got to be more justification for it than this—to say nothing of due process—and it should go without saying that the confiscating agency should not directly benefit from these actions.

csharptwdec19 6y ago
The other part of it was to be able to 'chip away' at criminal enterprises. Especially in the past (i.e. before the age of digital surveillance, cheap/easy video, etc.) it was much more difficult to get enough evidence to catch some of the more-organized criminals. Remember, for a criminal act you are supposed to be considered guilty 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. That's a huge part of why asset forfeiture is civil and based on 'presumption of guilt'. Remember, the only thing they every got a solid conviction on for Al Capone was Tax Evasion. Unfortunately it is a system that provides perverse incentives for law enforcement that have been abused more and more over time.
- watwut 6y ago
  > That's a huge part of why asset forfeiture is civil and based on 'presumption of guilt'. Remember, the only thing they every got a solid conviction on for Al Capone was Tax Evasion. Now of course, the big part of why Capone could not be caught otherwise was corruption - cops and officials paid by Capone or trading favors. Making asset forfeiture available with little oversight gives it to hands of the same people eager to cooperate with Capone. Had all cops and prosecutors and judges and jail workers bean ethical, we would not need oversight and simultaneously Capone would be caught sooner.
- gus_massa 6y ago
  Presumption of innocence is a feature, not a bug. It is not there because thought it was cool to write it. It is a reaction of previous abuses. Take a look at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12010760 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12010760 (510 points | June 30, 2016 | 206 comments) Now imagine that the cop says "I don't care if the judge thinks he is innocent, and I don't care that we can find no evidence. I believe he is guilty. Let's make his life miserable with extrajudicial punishment because we can use presumption of guilt. Let's seize his car, his home and whatever we can imagine."
noneeeed 6y ago
We have something similar in the UK, originating in the Proceeds of Crime Act, but the big distinction is that confiscation orders are made by the Crown or High Courts. It can be quite an involved process and is largely done against those higher up. The Crown court handles those proceeding against convicted criminals while the High Court can make orders against unconvited individuals. In the latter case I think it's noramally the high-ups who have assets with no obvious legal origin who are targetted and it is a civil case where the burden of proof is lower but generally if you are innocent it should be easy enough to show you got your weatlth from somewhere legitimate. It's not perfect, but the checks and balances are there. The US asset forfiture system is a straight-up affront to the basic concepts of justice in a civilised, democratic country.
- csilverman 6y ago
  Yeah, that makes a lot more sense to me: using this primarily as a tool for targeting power players or dismantling large criminal organizations, and having the process closely supervised by a higher-level court. As opposed to Officer Clancy’s expert assessment that “well, he sure looked guilty to me and that was one real nice car he was driving, I don’t reckon he could have afforded that on his own.”
gruez 6y ago
>And somehow, that turned into a system where cops can stop you and take your property according to mere presumption of guilt Sounds like that was intended from the very start. ie. "Due process is just red tape getting in the way of justice and lets criminals off the hook, so let's get rid of it! Trust us, we will only use it against The Bad Guys"
Anechoic 6y ago
And somehow, that turned into a system where cops can stop you and take your property according to mere presumption of guilt, as in this stupefying example from a few years ago: Not to take away from csilverman's valid point, but as an FYI, this example at least the victim got his cash plus interest back (although I think he should have been entitled to compensatory damages as well): https://www.huffpost.com/entry/charles-clarke-civil-forfeiture_n_583f2470e4b0c68e047e52ec https://www.huffpost.com/entry/charles-clarke-civil-forfeitu...
- csilverman 6y ago
  Oh good! That's great. I hadn't realized that. I'm glad it worked out for him. I agree about damages. The consequences for this sort of thing should be steep enough that any officer/department who's tempted to do it would take a real long moment to consider how worried they'd be if they found themselves facing a judge.
- YPCrumble 6y ago
  What is the point of your comment? The article you linked shows that getting the money back was extraordinary- he got pro bono legal support and spent years in court to get it back. This was despite never being charged with a drug crime...when the money was taken in the first place because he was suspected of smoking marijuana. The “FYI” is somewhat misleading.
  - stronglikedan 6y ago
    > The “FYI” is somewhat misleading. It was new information to me, and relevant to the issue at hand, so I'm glad OP posted it.
AtlasBarfed 6y ago
Yes, this is yet another noxious side effect of the war on drugs.

csharptwdec19 6y ago

The other part of it was to be able to 'chip away' at criminal enterprises. Especially in the past (i.e. before the age of digital surveillance, cheap/easy video, etc.) it was much more difficult to get enough evidence to catch some of the more-organized criminals. Remember, for a criminal act you are supposed to be considered guilty 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. That's a huge part of why asset forfeiture is civil and based on 'presumption of guilt'. Remember, the only thing they every got a solid conviction on for Al Capone was Tax Evasion. Unfortunately it is a system that provides perverse incentives for law enforcement that have been abused more and more over time.

watwut 6y ago
> That's a huge part of why asset forfeiture is civil and based on 'presumption of guilt'. Remember, the only thing they every got a solid conviction on for Al Capone was Tax Evasion. Now of course, the big part of why Capone could not be caught otherwise was corruption - cops and officials paid by Capone or trading favors. Making asset forfeiture available with little oversight gives it to hands of the same people eager to cooperate with Capone. Had all cops and prosecutors and judges and jail workers bean ethical, we would not need oversight and simultaneously Capone would be caught sooner.
gus_massa 6y ago
Presumption of innocence is a feature, not a bug. It is not there because thought it was cool to write it. It is a reaction of previous abuses. Take a look at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12010760 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12010760 (510 points | June 30, 2016 | 206 comments) Now imagine that the cop says "I don't care if the judge thinks he is innocent, and I don't care that we can find no evidence. I believe he is guilty. Let's make his life miserable with extrajudicial punishment because we can use presumption of guilt. Let's seize his car, his home and whatever we can imagine."

noneeeed 6y ago

We have something similar in the UK, originating in the Proceeds of Crime Act, but the big distinction is that confiscation orders are made by the Crown or High Courts. It can be quite an involved process and is largely done against those higher up. The Crown court handles those proceeding against convicted criminals while the High Court can make orders against unconvited individuals. In the latter case I think it's noramally the high-ups who have assets with no obvious legal origin who are targetted and it is a civil case where the burden of proof is lower but generally if you are innocent it should be easy enough to show you got your weatlth from somewhere legitimate. It's not perfect, but the checks and balances are there. The US asset forfiture system is a straight-up affront to the basic concepts of justice in a civilised, democratic country.

csilverman 6y ago
Yeah, that makes a lot more sense to me: using this primarily as a tool for targeting power players or dismantling large criminal organizations, and having the process closely supervised by a higher-level court. As opposed to Officer Clancy’s expert assessment that “well, he sure looked guilty to me and that was one real nice car he was driving, I don’t reckon he could have afforded that on his own.”

gruez 6y ago

>And somehow, that turned into a system where cops can stop you and take your property according to mere presumption of guilt Sounds like that was intended from the very start. ie. "Due process is just red tape getting in the way of justice and lets criminals off the hook, so let's get rid of it! Trust us, we will only use it against The Bad Guys"

Anechoic 6y ago

And somehow, that turned into a system where cops can stop you and take your property according to mere presumption of guilt, as in this stupefying example from a few years ago: Not to take away from csilverman's valid point, but as an FYI, this example at least the victim got his cash plus interest back (although I think he should have been entitled to compensatory damages as well): https://www.huffpost.com/entry/charles-clarke-civil-forfeiture_n_583f2470e4b0c68e047e52ec https://www.huffpost.com/entry/charles-clarke-civil-forfeitu...

csilverman 6y ago
Oh good! That's great. I hadn't realized that. I'm glad it worked out for him. I agree about damages. The consequences for this sort of thing should be steep enough that any officer/department who's tempted to do it would take a real long moment to consider how worried they'd be if they found themselves facing a judge.
YPCrumble 6y ago
What is the point of your comment? The article you linked shows that getting the money back was extraordinary- he got pro bono legal support and spent years in court to get it back. This was despite never being charged with a drug crime...when the money was taken in the first place because he was suspected of smoking marijuana. The “FYI” is somewhat misleading.
- stronglikedan 6y ago
  > The “FYI” is somewhat misleading. It was new information to me, and relevant to the issue at hand, so I'm glad OP posted it.

AtlasBarfed 6y ago

Yes, this is yet another noxious side effect of the war on drugs.