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Police say civil asset forfeiture reduces crime – new study shows they’re wrong

352 points by oftenwrong 6y ago

jet_32951 6y ago
Civil forfeiture is a shakedown on the face of it. The fourth amendment to the US Constitution specifically prohibits it, as long as one reads its language as being written simply and plainly. The logical contortions in having this meeting the simplest sniff test must be very creative.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  They are not unlike the contortions engaged in to disjoint the "well-regulated militia" from the "right of the people to keep and bear arms," when the defense of the Second Amendment in the Federalist Papers was heavily couched in the idea that it was intended as an alternative to a standing army.
  - giantg2 6y ago
    What contortions? The Federalists were generally against the Bill of Rights on the premise that it was unnecessary under a republican form of government. The Anti-federalists had pushed for it on the premise that all power is derived from the people and that they wanted protections from possible government overreach (if they were alive today...). Ignoring that, if the purpose was to avoid a standing army, then what was the intended purpose of avoiding a standing army? Then we also have to ask, who owns the arms of the militia if the concern was a tyrannical government? How were the weapons sourced for the suppression of the whiskey rebellion? Also, how is militia defined (check out US Code 10 ss 246)? We can also look at state constitutions that were created around that same time and how their wordings do include it as an individual right.
    - shadowgovt 6y ago
      Federalist 29 (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed29.asp https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed29.asp) lays out the goals pretty clearly---to avoid the evils of standing army (perceived by the people of the time to be, broadly speaking, a subset of the citizenry who subsistence is based on enforcing the will of the government against the people) we can instead have each state organize militias, whose members would supply their own arms. It's a reasonable question to ask the utility of the Second Amendment when the country has, for over a century, held a large, permanent standing army.
      - giantg2 6y ago
        "That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it..." US Constitution If a government has a standing army and becomes tyrannical, it could be hard to abolish that government if the government has the means to use force and the people don't. I'd say that still gives it utility. Even if it doesn't give it utility, the proper way to remove any constitutional rights is to amend the constitution.
        shadowgovt 6y ago
        > I'd say that still gives it utility. Not practically in this era. Anyone who thinks America's private arms stores would turn back army-backed tyranny haven't heard of drones, missiles, or modern information warfare technology.
        giantg2 6y ago
        What you are forgetting is that the military is full of people too. Any uprising large enough to be legitimate would also include a portion of the military with access to those arms.
        shadowgovt 6y ago
        The military is always full of people. I don't think it changes the power dynamic that federal loyalists wind have access to modern high tech equipment and also their private caches.
  - akvadrako 6y ago
    The only contortions come from people against the 2nd amendment. Well-regulated clearly meant armed while militia meant most able-bodied men. Even so, it's a preamble, not a qualification. The second part is explicit it's an individual right, not a state right.
    - shadowgovt 6y ago
      I disagree with this characterization of "well-regulated;" the relevant Federalist goes into detail on how a state could organize its militia. Simply giving people the capacity to show up with guns is not what the preamble means. Still, I think the rememdy is to amend it out if it is no longer useful; I agree with the plain interpretation that the right is an individual right, not a state right. The preamble can be part of a rational argument for the 2nd Amendment's lack of utility toward the end of repealing it; the argument can start with something like "The Second Amendment's preamble gives justification to its inclusion in the Constitution. That justification clearly doesn't apply to the modern world because modern civil defense looks nothing like what the Founders envisioned. It's time to ask whether the Second Amendment places contortions on proper regulation of deadly weapons that hinder a free and happy society in the 21st century."
      - akvadrako 6y ago
        > I disagree with this characterization of "well-regulated;" the relevant Federalist goes into detail on how a state could organize its militia. Simply giving people the capacity to show up with guns is not what the preamble means. Well-regulated includes well-armed and that is what it means in context. How I would put it in modern language: It's important that a large portion of the populace can be called upon to fight against threats to freedom and society. To ensure that the citizens are prepared to do so, they must be allowed to keep and practice with weapons of war. Personally, I'm fine with discussing a repeal of the 2nd amendment; it's a perfectly valid question if it makes sense in a modern context. But that question is mostly academic since it's so politically unlikely to happen as it has broad support and the evidence against it isn't supermajority-level.
  - CrazyPyroLinux 6y ago
    How do those contrast with the contortions upon "shall not be infringed?"
    - shadowgovt 6y ago
      Great question, since they obviously are contortions. Those four words are extremely clear, and yet I can't walk down to my local army surplus and buy any manner of anti-aircraft battery (which might actually be useful against those drones the army can deploy ;) ). I think the governing circumstance is that the law is assumed to not be a suicide pact, but I lack sufficient case history to really have the zen of how common-law precedent and the US legislature has squared the circle of "shall not be infringed" vs. various licensures, taxes, and bans applied. Perhaps worth considering is that two of the restrictions - automated rifles and sawed-off shotguns - come from an era where organized crime began out-gunning the police. This may shed light on the question.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
I wonder if something like Civil Forfeiture would be useful against police civil rights abuses. You would be able to bring a lawsuit against any police equipment that was used to violate civil rights. Thus if you get pulled for “driving while black”, you can sue the police cruiser for being involved in violating your rights. If you were a protestor that was assaulted by police, you can sue and seize the personnel carriers, cruisers, riot gear that were involved in the civil rights violation. I think one area this would help is the over militarization. The police acquired a lot of military equipment ostensibly for fighting terrorism. However, with that equipment sitting around, the temptation is to use it for normal police work. If they knew they were risking losing the equipment, they might be less likely to use it when it should not be used.
- spiritplumber 6y ago
  This is actually really clever. IANAL but I'd like a lawyer to check in on that.
- spacemanmatt 6y ago
  First, you'll never get a prosecutor to touch that because of qualified immunity. Juries fall for the most expansive interpretations of immunity every time.
  - RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
    This is why this is so nice. The police officers involved still have qualified immunity. But inanimate equipment does not have qualified immunity.
Zigurd 6y ago
Recently Joe Biden was criticized for picking a retired general as the Secretary of Defense because it is improper to dilute the civilian control of the American military, even symbolically, by having men in uniform at the top of the DoD. Yet police departments routinely evade control and scrutiny by management that did not come up through police departments. They resist oversight boards. They hide derogatory information about individual cops. All that has to end.
- jopsen 6y ago
  Isn't the DoD more integrated that the police departments? And isn't the DoD much far away from the voter that the police and local government? Just saying, the two things might not compare very well :)
  - Zigurd 6y ago
    There are many incentives for enlisted to become cops. That's sufficient basis to make sure they do not become racist thugs.
- spacemanmatt 6y ago
  Police departments exhibit every suspicious behavior of organized criminals.
rbtprograms 6y ago
Civil Asset Forfeiture is one of the greatest constitutional crises of the modern era United States. It's existence is evidence that the federal government plans to continue furthering its encroachment on civil liberties and I truly hope that the people can find a way to get rid of it. 84 percent of Americans reportedly oppose it, and I often have a hard time understanding how the Supreme Court hasn't struck it down (outside of the obvious reason they don't, which is to continue to have stronger federal power).
- thombat 6y ago
  The Supremes don't roam the legal badlands like caped crusaders, looking for injustices to set right. Somebody has to appeal a verdict in a lower court to them and they have to agree to hear it. Which generally doesn't: according to [1] they receive over 7000 petitions per year, so something like 30 per working day. Do you know whether they have in fact refused to hear a case against CAF, or heard such a case and upheld it? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States#Case_selection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_St...
  - ghayes 6y ago
    For context, there was a recent case on civil orfeiture in the Supreme Court (Timbs v Indiana 2019), but it was on whether or not the Eighth Amendment was incorporated (i.e., required to be upheld by the states and not just the federal government). [0] https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police/supreme-court-didnt-put-nail-civil-asset-forfeitures https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-poli...
  - gamblor956 6y ago
    SCOTUS actually ruled on this in 2019. https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police/supreme-court-didnt-put-nail-civil-asset-forfeitures https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-poli... It ruled that civil asset forfeitures are subject to the 8th Amendment prohibition against excessive monetary fines. This doesn't mean that they necessarily violate the 8th Amendment, only that they are subject to it. Unfortunately, almost every state already has such a restriction on their books and it hasn't stopped CAFs yet. It's likely that another CAF case would result in the court deeming federal CAFs to violate the Sixth Amendment where the CAF is not actually related to a criminal conviction. (This is conjecture based on certain justices' remarks to the Federalist Society before they were appointed to SCOTUS.)
meekrohprocess 6y ago
Civil asset forfeiture makes it really annoying to travel through some of the prettiest parts of America. Say that you like the parks and forests in places like Montana, Arkansas, Utah, New Mexico, etc. You're going to do a lot of driving along state highways with a lot of nice things packed away, and maybe a small water/dirt vehicle. Most of those state highways have small towns every 20-80 miles where the speed limits briefly drop in increments of 10mph down to 30-40mph. In these towns, if you have out-of-state plates, you will regularly be pulled over for doing 5mph below the speed limit. You can expect a dog to sniff around your car if the patrol has one. You can feel the desire to just take everything that you own; it's palpable. I've gotten enough "warnings" to make a suit out of carbon-copy paper. That's to say nothing of racial prejudices in many areas of the US, and you'll probably have to stop for CBP checkpoints in states like New Mexico, even in the middle of 80mph+ interstates. It was a bad situation in 2018-2019, and I can't see it getting much better when restrictions start to lift in 2021. We badly need our courts to strongly re-assert the 4th Amendment.
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  I've road tripped all over the US without ever encountering that kind of behavior. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but your characterization of expecting to be pulled over and have a dog search your car is a bit melodramatic.
  - meekrohprocess 6y ago
    I understand your misgivings, and I'll admit that I don't literally have enough carbon paper to make a suit out of warnings. But I do have a lot of them, and no actual tickets from those areas. I have had multiple K-9 searches with a clean car, and I did regularly get pulled over for doing less than the posted speed limit. I can't prove that civil asset forfeiture is the reason, but my vehicle would have been a juicy target because of the things attached to it.
    - satisfaction 6y ago
      Doing less than the speed limit is indeed strange, that behavior is probably exhibited by drunk/doped up drivers more often than sober drivers. The fact that you get warnings demonstrates that they pull overs are not due to ill will, if they wanted to steal from you they were half way there: too slow is probable cause for a traffic stop and they could easily plant some drugs or just lie, the statement of a police officer is evidence. Set your cruise control at the speed limit or 1 mph over and don't swerve.
rolph 6y ago
very basicly, civil asset forfeiture, is a crime.
civilized 6y ago
Am I missing something? "The police can take your stuff without proof of wrongdoing" seems like a 100% literal violation of the 4th Amendment's prohibition on, and I quote, "unreasonable searches and seizures".
- bird_monster 6y ago
  You're not missing anything. Police are allowed to rob you under the guise of "preventing future crime". Don't ever get caught with large sums of cash, even if your use is legitimate.
  - sitkack 6y ago
    They could also prevent future crime by imprisoning all suspects, executing people arbitrarily or forcing those on the edges of the justice system directly into its maw. Lots of ways for police to be effective in their role.
- phkahler 6y ago
  Correct. There is incredible hypocrisy in the headline. CAF IS a crime.
- spacemanmatt 6y ago
  They charge the inanimate objects with a crime of association in order to arrest it. It could hardly offend the 4th amendment more.
drewpc 6y ago
Below is a link to the existing, published study. There's no date on it, so it's uncertain if this is the updated study that the article mentions will be released tomorrow or if it's a previous one. https://ij.org/report/policing-for-profit/ https://ij.org/report/policing-for-profit/
wpietri 6y ago
I'm sure police departments and associations will object. But as Upton Sinclair wrote, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
tempodox 6y ago
Getting mugged by the police reduces crime? Ha, good one. How much of a pathologic liar do you have to be to make a public statement like that with a straight face?
grecy 6y ago
Alternate headline: 'Mob says regular shakedowns reduces crime and increases obedience'.
aqme28 6y ago
I don't care if it prevents crime entirely. We shouldn't be doing it.
mullingitover 6y ago
One of Trump's first acts in office was to get behind local sheriffs and their legal cover to steal assets[1]. > "...I think you'll be back in shape. So, asset forfeiture, we're going to go back on, okay?" [1] https://www.c-span.org/video/?423663-1/president-trump-holds-listening-session-county-sheriffs https://www.c-span.org/video/?423663-1/president-trump-holds...
- downandout 6y ago
  Our new Vice President is a former prosecutor with a long history of fighting to keep demonstrably innocent people in prison on technicalities [1], subverting state mandates requiring the release of nonviolent prisoners [2], and viciously fighting against compensating those she had wrongly imprisoned [3]. She also sought to expand the use of civil asset forfeiture in California [4]. Her record is the very definition of prosecutorial predation and abuse. So the idea that the Biden/Harris administration will do any better than Trump on any issue involving the restraint of law enforcement is farcical. If anything, they'll expand civil forfeiture, unless the courts keep them in check. [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/3azy98/kamala-harriss-office-sent-this-innocent-man-to-prison-now-hes-voting-for-her https://www.vice.com/en/article/3azy98/kamala-harriss-office... [2] https://prospect.org/justice/how-kamala-harris-fought-to-keep-nonviolent-prisoners-locked-up/ https://prospect.org/justice/how-kamala-harris-fought-to-kee... [3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-14/kamala-harris-offices-fought-payments-to-wrongly-convicted https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-14/kamala-ha... [4] https://www.johnlocke.org/update/flashback-kamala-harriss-record-as-a-state-attorney-general/ https://www.johnlocke.org/update/flashback-kamala-harriss-re...
  - knaq 6y ago
    It's not just the VP. In 1983 Biden introduced the Comprehensive Forfeiture Act, which became law in 1984. That's the main piece of law that enabled civil asset forfeiture. That's how cops take property, alleging it to be drug money without any evidence. It's legalized theft, turning cops into gangs that prey on the people. Note that "defund the cops" will make them rely more on this source of revenue! He didn't just vote for it. He introduced it.
lr4444lr 6y ago
I don't understand why we are subjecting a practice that is objectionable on the grounds of violating property rights to "studies". It frankly doesn't matter if the correlation is 1. Taking people's personal property when they have not even circumstantial suspicion of having done anything wrong other than having the property and putting the legal burden of proof on them to reclaim their ownership is frankly just as abusive as a medieval lord plucking whatever he likes, and not even half as honest.
- TT3351 6y ago
  I think the way the researchers might phrase it is "the cops are doing this activity, I might as well watch them." Hell, from the article: "according to a new study set to be published on Tuesday by the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm that has been advocating reforms to forfeiture laws."
giantg2 6y ago
"Police Say Civil Asset Forfeiture Reduces Crime. New Study Shows They’re Wrong" Well if we count the fact that asset seizure without a trial is a crime itself (no due process and a violation of the 4th ammendment), then it should be obvious that it would increase crime directly in its actions and and indirectly by delegitimizing government authority.
scythe 6y ago
People in this thread seem to be a little confused about amendments. The constitutional case against CAF is strongest in the Due Process Clause of A5: >No person shall be [...]; nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. The SCOTUS interpretation of this clause allowing civil asset forfeiture was written by Rehnquist in 1996 Bennis v. Michigan, because the acceptance of such forfeitures was too "firmly fixed" to displace: https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6918&context=jclc https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewconten...
sebastien_b 6y ago
It’s easy too see why it doesn’t reduce crime.... because civil asset forfeiture is a crime.
stevespang 6y ago
The evil monster that Civil forfeiture has become is no different than how the Mexican Federales turn into bandits at night shaking down their citizens on the highways for cash. This is just another shakedown. America is no longer a democracy.
anm89 6y ago
I'm sure executing people you preprofile as having potential to commit crime would also reduce crime. For that matter executing the entire population would be the most effective crime prevention strategy of all time. We don't and should not do all the things that "reduce crime".
1024core 6y ago
It reduces crime because the cops don't have to steal as much, they can do it legally. ;-)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

352 points by oftenwrong 6y ago

Civil forfeiture is a shakedown on the face of it. The fourth amendment to the US Constitution specifically prohibits it, as long as one reads its language as being written simply and plainly. The logical contortions in having this meeting the simplest sniff test must be very creative.

shadowgovt 6y ago
They are not unlike the contortions engaged in to disjoint the "well-regulated militia" from the "right of the people to keep and bear arms," when the defense of the Second Amendment in the Federalist Papers was heavily couched in the idea that it was intended as an alternative to a standing army.
- giantg2 6y ago
  What contortions? The Federalists were generally against the Bill of Rights on the premise that it was unnecessary under a republican form of government. The Anti-federalists had pushed for it on the premise that all power is derived from the people and that they wanted protections from possible government overreach (if they were alive today...). Ignoring that, if the purpose was to avoid a standing army, then what was the intended purpose of avoiding a standing army? Then we also have to ask, who owns the arms of the militia if the concern was a tyrannical government? How were the weapons sourced for the suppression of the whiskey rebellion? Also, how is militia defined (check out US Code 10 ss 246)? We can also look at state constitutions that were created around that same time and how their wordings do include it as an individual right.
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    Federalist 29 (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed29.asp https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed29.asp) lays out the goals pretty clearly---to avoid the evils of standing army (perceived by the people of the time to be, broadly speaking, a subset of the citizenry who subsistence is based on enforcing the will of the government against the people) we can instead have each state organize militias, whose members would supply their own arms. It's a reasonable question to ask the utility of the Second Amendment when the country has, for over a century, held a large, permanent standing army.
    - giantg2 6y ago
      "That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it..." US Constitution If a government has a standing army and becomes tyrannical, it could be hard to abolish that government if the government has the means to use force and the people don't. I'd say that still gives it utility. Even if it doesn't give it utility, the proper way to remove any constitutional rights is to amend the constitution.
      - shadowgovt 6y ago
        > I'd say that still gives it utility. Not practically in this era. Anyone who thinks America's private arms stores would turn back army-backed tyranny haven't heard of drones, missiles, or modern information warfare technology.
        giantg2 6y ago
        What you are forgetting is that the military is full of people too. Any uprising large enough to be legitimate would also include a portion of the military with access to those arms.
        shadowgovt 6y ago
        The military is always full of people. I don't think it changes the power dynamic that federal loyalists wind have access to modern high tech equipment and also their private caches.
- akvadrako 6y ago
  The only contortions come from people against the 2nd amendment. Well-regulated clearly meant armed while militia meant most able-bodied men. Even so, it's a preamble, not a qualification. The second part is explicit it's an individual right, not a state right.
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    I disagree with this characterization of "well-regulated;" the relevant Federalist goes into detail on how a state could organize its militia. Simply giving people the capacity to show up with guns is not what the preamble means. Still, I think the rememdy is to amend it out if it is no longer useful; I agree with the plain interpretation that the right is an individual right, not a state right. The preamble can be part of a rational argument for the 2nd Amendment's lack of utility toward the end of repealing it; the argument can start with something like "The Second Amendment's preamble gives justification to its inclusion in the Constitution. That justification clearly doesn't apply to the modern world because modern civil defense looks nothing like what the Founders envisioned. It's time to ask whether the Second Amendment places contortions on proper regulation of deadly weapons that hinder a free and happy society in the 21st century."
    - akvadrako 6y ago
      > I disagree with this characterization of "well-regulated;" the relevant Federalist goes into detail on how a state could organize its militia. Simply giving people the capacity to show up with guns is not what the preamble means. Well-regulated includes well-armed and that is what it means in context. How I would put it in modern language: It's important that a large portion of the populace can be called upon to fight against threats to freedom and society. To ensure that the citizens are prepared to do so, they must be allowed to keep and practice with weapons of war. Personally, I'm fine with discussing a repeal of the 2nd amendment; it's a perfectly valid question if it makes sense in a modern context. But that question is mostly academic since it's so politically unlikely to happen as it has broad support and the evidence against it isn't supermajority-level.
- CrazyPyroLinux 6y ago
  How do those contrast with the contortions upon "shall not be infringed?"
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    Great question, since they obviously are contortions. Those four words are extremely clear, and yet I can't walk down to my local army surplus and buy any manner of anti-aircraft battery (which might actually be useful against those drones the army can deploy ;) ). I think the governing circumstance is that the law is assumed to not be a suicide pact, but I lack sufficient case history to really have the zen of how common-law precedent and the US legislature has squared the circle of "shall not be infringed" vs. various licensures, taxes, and bans applied. Perhaps worth considering is that two of the restrictions - automated rifles and sawed-off shotguns - come from an era where organized crime began out-gunning the police. This may shed light on the question.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago

I wonder if something like Civil Forfeiture would be useful against police civil rights abuses. You would be able to bring a lawsuit against any police equipment that was used to violate civil rights. Thus if you get pulled for “driving while black”, you can sue the police cruiser for being involved in violating your rights. If you were a protestor that was assaulted by police, you can sue and seize the personnel carriers, cruisers, riot gear that were involved in the civil rights violation. I think one area this would help is the over militarization. The police acquired a lot of military equipment ostensibly for fighting terrorism. However, with that equipment sitting around, the temptation is to use it for normal police work. If they knew they were risking losing the equipment, they might be less likely to use it when it should not be used.

spiritplumber 6y ago
This is actually really clever. IANAL but I'd like a lawyer to check in on that.
spacemanmatt 6y ago
First, you'll never get a prosecutor to touch that because of qualified immunity. Juries fall for the most expansive interpretations of immunity every time.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
  This is why this is so nice. The police officers involved still have qualified immunity. But inanimate equipment does not have qualified immunity.

Zigurd 6y ago

Recently Joe Biden was criticized for picking a retired general as the Secretary of Defense because it is improper to dilute the civilian control of the American military, even symbolically, by having men in uniform at the top of the DoD. Yet police departments routinely evade control and scrutiny by management that did not come up through police departments. They resist oversight boards. They hide derogatory information about individual cops. All that has to end.

jopsen 6y ago
Isn't the DoD more integrated that the police departments? And isn't the DoD much far away from the voter that the police and local government? Just saying, the two things might not compare very well :)
- Zigurd 6y ago
  There are many incentives for enlisted to become cops. That's sufficient basis to make sure they do not become racist thugs.
spacemanmatt 6y ago
Police departments exhibit every suspicious behavior of organized criminals.

rbtprograms 6y ago

Civil Asset Forfeiture is one of the greatest constitutional crises of the modern era United States. It's existence is evidence that the federal government plans to continue furthering its encroachment on civil liberties and I truly hope that the people can find a way to get rid of it. 84 percent of Americans reportedly oppose it, and I often have a hard time understanding how the Supreme Court hasn't struck it down (outside of the obvious reason they don't, which is to continue to have stronger federal power).

thombat 6y ago
The Supremes don't roam the legal badlands like caped crusaders, looking for injustices to set right. Somebody has to appeal a verdict in a lower court to them and they have to agree to hear it. Which generally doesn't: according to [1] they receive over 7000 petitions per year, so something like 30 per working day. Do you know whether they have in fact refused to hear a case against CAF, or heard such a case and upheld it? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States#Case_selection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_St...
- ghayes 6y ago
  For context, there was a recent case on civil orfeiture in the Supreme Court (Timbs v Indiana 2019), but it was on whether or not the Eighth Amendment was incorporated (i.e., required to be upheld by the states and not just the federal government). [0] https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police/supreme-court-didnt-put-nail-civil-asset-forfeitures https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-poli...
- gamblor956 6y ago
  SCOTUS actually ruled on this in 2019. https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police/supreme-court-didnt-put-nail-civil-asset-forfeitures https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-poli... It ruled that civil asset forfeitures are subject to the 8th Amendment prohibition against excessive monetary fines. This doesn't mean that they necessarily violate the 8th Amendment, only that they are subject to it. Unfortunately, almost every state already has such a restriction on their books and it hasn't stopped CAFs yet. It's likely that another CAF case would result in the court deeming federal CAFs to violate the Sixth Amendment where the CAF is not actually related to a criminal conviction. (This is conjecture based on certain justices' remarks to the Federalist Society before they were appointed to SCOTUS.)

meekrohprocess 6y ago

Civil asset forfeiture makes it really annoying to travel through some of the prettiest parts of America. Say that you like the parks and forests in places like Montana, Arkansas, Utah, New Mexico, etc. You're going to do a lot of driving along state highways with a lot of nice things packed away, and maybe a small water/dirt vehicle. Most of those state highways have small towns every 20-80 miles where the speed limits briefly drop in increments of 10mph down to 30-40mph. In these towns, if you have out-of-state plates, you will regularly be pulled over for doing 5mph below the speed limit. You can expect a dog to sniff around your car if the patrol has one. You can feel the desire to just take everything that you own; it's palpable. I've gotten enough "warnings" to make a suit out of carbon-copy paper. That's to say nothing of racial prejudices in many areas of the US, and you'll probably have to stop for CBP checkpoints in states like New Mexico, even in the middle of 80mph+ interstates. It was a bad situation in 2018-2019, and I can't see it getting much better when restrictions start to lift in 2021. We badly need our courts to strongly re-assert the 4th Amendment.

oh_sigh 6y ago
I've road tripped all over the US without ever encountering that kind of behavior. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but your characterization of expecting to be pulled over and have a dog search your car is a bit melodramatic.
- meekrohprocess 6y ago
  I understand your misgivings, and I'll admit that I don't literally have enough carbon paper to make a suit out of warnings. But I do have a lot of them, and no actual tickets from those areas. I have had multiple K-9 searches with a clean car, and I did regularly get pulled over for doing less than the posted speed limit. I can't prove that civil asset forfeiture is the reason, but my vehicle would have been a juicy target because of the things attached to it.
  - satisfaction 6y ago
    Doing less than the speed limit is indeed strange, that behavior is probably exhibited by drunk/doped up drivers more often than sober drivers. The fact that you get warnings demonstrates that they pull overs are not due to ill will, if they wanted to steal from you they were half way there: too slow is probable cause for a traffic stop and they could easily plant some drugs or just lie, the statement of a police officer is evidence. Set your cruise control at the speed limit or 1 mph over and don't swerve.

rolph 6y ago

very basicly, civil asset forfeiture, is a crime.

civilized 6y ago

Am I missing something? "The police can take your stuff without proof of wrongdoing" seems like a 100% literal violation of the 4th Amendment's prohibition on, and I quote, "unreasonable searches and seizures".

bird_monster 6y ago
You're not missing anything. Police are allowed to rob you under the guise of "preventing future crime". Don't ever get caught with large sums of cash, even if your use is legitimate.
- sitkack 6y ago
  They could also prevent future crime by imprisoning all suspects, executing people arbitrarily or forcing those on the edges of the justice system directly into its maw. Lots of ways for police to be effective in their role.
phkahler 6y ago
Correct. There is incredible hypocrisy in the headline. CAF IS a crime.
spacemanmatt 6y ago
They charge the inanimate objects with a crime of association in order to arrest it. It could hardly offend the 4th amendment more.

drewpc 6y ago

Below is a link to the existing, published study. There's no date on it, so it's uncertain if this is the updated study that the article mentions will be released tomorrow or if it's a previous one. https://ij.org/report/policing-for-profit/ https://ij.org/report/policing-for-profit/

wpietri 6y ago

I'm sure police departments and associations will object. But as Upton Sinclair wrote, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

tempodox 6y ago

Getting mugged by the police reduces crime? Ha, good one. How much of a pathologic liar do you have to be to make a public statement like that with a straight face?

grecy 6y ago

Alternate headline: 'Mob says regular shakedowns reduces crime and increases obedience'.

aqme28 6y ago

I don't care if it prevents crime entirely. We shouldn't be doing it.

mullingitover 6y ago

One of Trump's first acts in office was to get behind local sheriffs and their legal cover to steal assets[1]. > "...I think you'll be back in shape. So, asset forfeiture, we're going to go back on, okay?" [1] https://www.c-span.org/video/?423663-1/president-trump-holds-listening-session-county-sheriffs https://www.c-span.org/video/?423663-1/president-trump-holds...

downandout 6y ago
Our new Vice President is a former prosecutor with a long history of fighting to keep demonstrably innocent people in prison on technicalities [1], subverting state mandates requiring the release of nonviolent prisoners [2], and viciously fighting against compensating those she had wrongly imprisoned [3]. She also sought to expand the use of civil asset forfeiture in California [4]. Her record is the very definition of prosecutorial predation and abuse. So the idea that the Biden/Harris administration will do any better than Trump on any issue involving the restraint of law enforcement is farcical. If anything, they'll expand civil forfeiture, unless the courts keep them in check. [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/3azy98/kamala-harriss-office-sent-this-innocent-man-to-prison-now-hes-voting-for-her https://www.vice.com/en/article/3azy98/kamala-harriss-office... [2] https://prospect.org/justice/how-kamala-harris-fought-to-keep-nonviolent-prisoners-locked-up/ https://prospect.org/justice/how-kamala-harris-fought-to-kee... [3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-14/kamala-harris-offices-fought-payments-to-wrongly-convicted https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-14/kamala-ha... [4] https://www.johnlocke.org/update/flashback-kamala-harriss-record-as-a-state-attorney-general/ https://www.johnlocke.org/update/flashback-kamala-harriss-re...
- knaq 6y ago
  It's not just the VP. In 1983 Biden introduced the Comprehensive Forfeiture Act, which became law in 1984. That's the main piece of law that enabled civil asset forfeiture. That's how cops take property, alleging it to be drug money without any evidence. It's legalized theft, turning cops into gangs that prey on the people. Note that "defund the cops" will make them rely more on this source of revenue! He didn't just vote for it. He introduced it.

lr4444lr 6y ago

I don't understand why we are subjecting a practice that is objectionable on the grounds of violating property rights to "studies". It frankly doesn't matter if the correlation is 1. Taking people's personal property when they have not even circumstantial suspicion of having done anything wrong other than having the property and putting the legal burden of proof on them to reclaim their ownership is frankly just as abusive as a medieval lord plucking whatever he likes, and not even half as honest.

TT3351 6y ago
I think the way the researchers might phrase it is "the cops are doing this activity, I might as well watch them." Hell, from the article: "according to a new study set to be published on Tuesday by the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm that has been advocating reforms to forfeiture laws."

giantg2 6y ago

"Police Say Civil Asset Forfeiture Reduces Crime. New Study Shows They’re Wrong" Well if we count the fact that asset seizure without a trial is a crime itself (no due process and a violation of the 4th ammendment), then it should be obvious that it would increase crime directly in its actions and and indirectly by delegitimizing government authority.

scythe 6y ago

People in this thread seem to be a little confused about amendments. The constitutional case against CAF is strongest in the Due Process Clause of A5: >No person shall be [...]; nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. The SCOTUS interpretation of this clause allowing civil asset forfeiture was written by Rehnquist in 1996 Bennis v. Michigan, because the acceptance of such forfeitures was too "firmly fixed" to displace: https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6918&context=jclc https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewconten...

sebastien_b 6y ago

It’s easy too see why it doesn’t reduce crime.... because civil asset forfeiture is a crime.

stevespang 6y ago

The evil monster that Civil forfeiture has become is no different than how the Mexican Federales turn into bandits at night shaking down their citizens on the highways for cash. This is just another shakedown. America is no longer a democracy.

anm89 6y ago

I'm sure executing people you preprofile as having potential to commit crime would also reduce crime. For that matter executing the entire population would be the most effective crime prevention strategy of all time. We don't and should not do all the things that "reduce crime".

1024core 6y ago

It reduces crime because the cops don't have to steal as much, they can do it legally. ;-)

deleted 6y ago

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