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In an ideal world, seizures wouldn't happen and people would be prosecuted instead of the money. Moreover, government types like the FBI would be super squeaky
by kiba 5y ago
In an ideal world, seizures wouldn't happen and people would be prosecuted instead of the money. Moreover, government types like the FBI would be super squeaky clean types who cross every i with a dot.
They would also work to prosecute less people every year, no more than needed.
The best part is no part.
- xxpor 5y agoBoth of you are saying the same thing. The difference is criminal vs civil forfeiture. Criminal already works as an escrow system (sort of, the feds might not have been able to find what they want to seize before the conviction). Civil doesn't in that it doesn't require a conviction.
- mikeyouse 5y agoCivil has its own benefits though.. That famous "Civil asset forfeitures overshadow the value of all thefts" infographic from a few years back was only the case because the Feds took all of Bernie Madoff's funds via civil asset forfeiture and then gave those billions of dollars back to his victims. Had they waited for the criminal cases to play out, it would've been years before they saw their money.
- nybble41 5y ago> Had they waited for the criminal cases to play out, it would've been years before they saw their money. They could have sued directly in civil court without waiting for the criminal cases to play out. If the Feds have enough evidence to justify foregoing, you know, actual trials and immediately redistribute the assets to the victims then any court cases should be trivial formalities and quickly resolved. On the other hand, if it actually does take years to determine guilt then maybe the Feds shouldn't be so quick to apply the sentence before the trial.
- mindslight 5y agoThere is a significant distinction between the government declaring that money (/other goods) is another party's property and returning possession to the rightful owner (ie equity), and the government declaring that something was earned through an illegal activity and thereby transferring it to themselves (ie taking).
- mikeyouse 5y agoSure, but both are under the flag of Civil Asset Forfeiture. We should definitely make it so corrupt departments aren't funding themselves with spurious CAF, but it's useful to acknowledge that many use cases of CAF make complete sense and provide a public good.
- mindslight 5y agoGiving the government a way to cheat will definitely create some good results. But that doesn't mean having the way to cheat is a good thing. I noted a clear distinction for the case you listed. A traditional joint civil suit against Madoff would have done the exact same thing with a similar amount of process. It's true that access to our legal system is way too expensive in general, but creating a backdoor for the government and hoping they will use it to help private citizens is not the way to fix that.
- jfrunyon 5y agoIt doesn't matter if something is good when it's in blatant violation of the law of the land (the 4th amendment, particularly).
- athenot 5y agoI left that out but yes, with an actual proof of guilt or VERY STRONG signal that the asset will be used in an imminent crime, and not just any crime but one that will cause actual harm to other persons. Not "this looked fishy and is probably illegal so let's seize this person's assets".
- Canada 5y agoSeizures shouldn't happen without conviction in the less than ideal world we actually do live in.