8 ms·

Terrible story. Civil forfeiture seems utterly incompatible with any notion of a just society. It's like democracy just gave up and regressed to feudalism. Eve

Terrible story. Civil forfeiture seems utterly incompatible with any notion of a just society. It's like democracy just gave up and regressed to feudalism. Even _if_ the author had turned out to be 100% guilty of whatever Amazon accused them of - this form of civil forfeiture is still punishment without trial and not in line with the sixth amendment. In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

msarrel 5y ago
I was about to comment exactly what you commented, thank you.
ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
Civil forfeiture is so ingrained into our "justice" system, that some jurisdictions even budget for it. It's really, really easy for the government to justify it. All they need to do, is run out the one case in a hundred, where some death-dealing Walter White is stopped.
- metalliqaz 5y ago
  Is there even one?
  - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
    Oh, I'm sure there's plenty of real ones. Humans can be absolute trash, and most authoritarians have no problem, finding "justification" for their iron fists. But we tend to think that unusual events are far more common than they actually are, and they use that to manufacture outrage and justification. I don't remember what the term is, but this fallacy is a known one.
  - mikeyouse 5y ago
    Yes, of course. Civil forfeiture can be (and is!) abused, especially by local jurisdictions, but it's often a very boring tool used to facilitate victim restitution. E.g. look at that famous chart showing 'the police steal more than criminals': https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2015/11/forf.png https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2015/11/... Nearly $2B of that 2014 total was JP Morgan having their funds 'civilly forfeit' to directly pay restitution to the Madoff victims (https://www.nathanslaw.com/articles/bank-to-pay-almost-2-billion-civil-asset-forfeit/ https://www.nathanslaw.com/articles/bank-to-pay-almost-2-bil...).
    - metalliqaz 5y ago
      No evidence there of a "walter white" being stopped. Restitution can be ordered by a court without requiring a process to confiscate money without so much as a charge
      - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
        IIRC, the original point of civil forfeiture was to remove the possibility of the accused, between the start of a criminal suit (or even before) and the outcome of the trial, from moving their assets to somewhere beyond the reach of the court. The goal itself seems reasonably (though not perfectly) noble. The use of this ability in the real world though ... not so much.
- pyuser583 5y ago
  The “one case in a hundred” is when a ship is facing fees it can’t pay so the cargo is seized. This belongs in maritime law, and nowhere else.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Qub3d 5y ago
Seriously. I believe victims of civil forfeiture should be given their money back + an amount equal to, say, the average stock market returns over the period it was gone (or at least a base 4-5%) as reimbursement of the opportunity cost and as a deterrence against frivolous seizure.
- bufbupa 5y ago
  That seems way too low. If you rob a bank and give the money back later with 4% interest, you still go to jail. This should just not be legal. Or make it 100%/mo interest or something stupendous to discourage it in all but the most extreme cases.
  - Qub3d 5y ago
    A bit of realpolitik on my part, I'm afraid. I think even my suggestion would be a challenge to get passed in any state, let alone federally.
kingcharles 5y ago
Civil forfeiture is horrible. I've spent hundreds of hours in the forfeiture court. I remember one time the prosecutor was trying to forfeit a man's brand new $60,000 SUV because the man's son had borrowed the car and driven drunk. Luckily it was a cool judge (the rarest of the rare!) and she beat the prosecutors down "Did this man know his son borrowed the car? No." "Does this man have valid license and insurance? Yes? Give him his car back. And you know what, give him all his fines and fees and his towing fee back too. What do you mean you don't know how to give him his towing fee back? FIND OUT." The same judge.. on her first day on the bench in the forfeiture court.. I was there early and she brought the two forfeiture prosecutors up to the bench and whispered to them "Look, you two win 95% of the cases in this court simply because no-one can even figure out how to file the paperwork to get their case into court. I won't stand for that. That isn't happening in my court room. That's all." Which is true. In Illinois at least, if your assets get seized, you just get a letter saying you have 45 days to file all the required paperwork to even get your case into court to START defending yourself. And it says specifically on the paperwork that the State will not help you with any aspect of this filing, nor will they provide any of the required forms. Most forfeiture cases are very, very badly prosecuted because they so rarely get challenged. If you ever have your assets seized, fight it. Most of the time you'll easily win, or the prosecutor will give up. The BIGGEST thing by far is that the prosecutor will do a plea negotiation with you on your assets!! I proxy negotiated for people all the time. To avoid trial (no party wants this) the prosecutor will come and tell you "We'll give you 50% of your money back today if you sign away the rest". I promise you, you can get this to 80% of your money back. You can also use frozen assets as bargaining chips in a criminal case. With the drug dealer I mentioned earlier, he had $150,000 taken from one account. For the final deal on his prison time I got his lawyer to negotiate them giving him back $80,000 of the drug money! I could have got his cars back too, but the feds had them and he didn't want to poke that bear. p.s. if you have a new car with a loan and you've not made many payments, let the prosecutor know - they usually don't want your car as it'll become a paperwork nightmare. p.p.s. if you have your assets seized, check the jurisdiction. In these cases the asset is considered a guilty party to the crime and must be prosecuted in the correct jurisdiction (court), which might be different to where the crime happened or where the assets were seized.
- 5y ago

msarrel 5y ago

I was about to comment exactly what you commented, thank you.

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

Civil forfeiture is so ingrained into our "justice" system, that some jurisdictions even budget for it. It's really, really easy for the government to justify it. All they need to do, is run out the one case in a hundred, where some death-dealing Walter White is stopped.

metalliqaz 5y ago
Is there even one?
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  Oh, I'm sure there's plenty of real ones. Humans can be absolute trash, and most authoritarians have no problem, finding "justification" for their iron fists. But we tend to think that unusual events are far more common than they actually are, and they use that to manufacture outrage and justification. I don't remember what the term is, but this fallacy is a known one.
- mikeyouse 5y ago
  Yes, of course. Civil forfeiture can be (and is!) abused, especially by local jurisdictions, but it's often a very boring tool used to facilitate victim restitution. E.g. look at that famous chart showing 'the police steal more than criminals': https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2015/11/forf.png https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2015/11/... Nearly $2B of that 2014 total was JP Morgan having their funds 'civilly forfeit' to directly pay restitution to the Madoff victims (https://www.nathanslaw.com/articles/bank-to-pay-almost-2-billion-civil-asset-forfeit/ https://www.nathanslaw.com/articles/bank-to-pay-almost-2-bil...).
  - metalliqaz 5y ago
    No evidence there of a "walter white" being stopped. Restitution can be ordered by a court without requiring a process to confiscate money without so much as a charge
    - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
      IIRC, the original point of civil forfeiture was to remove the possibility of the accused, between the start of a criminal suit (or even before) and the outcome of the trial, from moving their assets to somewhere beyond the reach of the court. The goal itself seems reasonably (though not perfectly) noble. The use of this ability in the real world though ... not so much.
pyuser583 5y ago
The “one case in a hundred” is when a ship is facing fees it can’t pay so the cargo is seized. This belongs in maritime law, and nowhere else.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Qub3d 5y ago

Seriously. I believe victims of civil forfeiture should be given their money back + an amount equal to, say, the average stock market returns over the period it was gone (or at least a base 4-5%) as reimbursement of the opportunity cost and as a deterrence against frivolous seizure.

bufbupa 5y ago
That seems way too low. If you rob a bank and give the money back later with 4% interest, you still go to jail. This should just not be legal. Or make it 100%/mo interest or something stupendous to discourage it in all but the most extreme cases.
- Qub3d 5y ago
  A bit of realpolitik on my part, I'm afraid. I think even my suggestion would be a challenge to get passed in any state, let alone federally.

kingcharles 5y ago

Civil forfeiture is horrible. I've spent hundreds of hours in the forfeiture court. I remember one time the prosecutor was trying to forfeit a man's brand new $60,000 SUV because the man's son had borrowed the car and driven drunk. Luckily it was a cool judge (the rarest of the rare!) and she beat the prosecutors down "Did this man know his son borrowed the car? No." "Does this man have valid license and insurance? Yes? Give him his car back. And you know what, give him all his fines and fees and his towing fee back too. What do you mean you don't know how to give him his towing fee back? FIND OUT." The same judge.. on her first day on the bench in the forfeiture court.. I was there early and she brought the two forfeiture prosecutors up to the bench and whispered to them "Look, you two win 95% of the cases in this court simply because no-one can even figure out how to file the paperwork to get their case into court. I won't stand for that. That isn't happening in my court room. That's all." Which is true. In Illinois at least, if your assets get seized, you just get a letter saying you have 45 days to file all the required paperwork to even get your case into court to START defending yourself. And it says specifically on the paperwork that the State will not help you with any aspect of this filing, nor will they provide any of the required forms. Most forfeiture cases are very, very badly prosecuted because they so rarely get challenged. If you ever have your assets seized, fight it. Most of the time you'll easily win, or the prosecutor will give up. The BIGGEST thing by far is that the prosecutor will do a plea negotiation with you on your assets!! I proxy negotiated for people all the time. To avoid trial (no party wants this) the prosecutor will come and tell you "We'll give you 50% of your money back today if you sign away the rest". I promise you, you can get this to 80% of your money back. You can also use frozen assets as bargaining chips in a criminal case. With the drug dealer I mentioned earlier, he had $150,000 taken from one account. For the final deal on his prison time I got his lawyer to negotiate them giving him back $80,000 of the drug money! I could have got his cars back too, but the feds had them and he didn't want to poke that bear. p.s. if you have a new car with a loan and you've not made many payments, let the prosecutor know - they usually don't want your car as it'll become a paperwork nightmare. p.p.s. if you have your assets seized, check the jurisdiction. In these cases the asset is considered a guilty party to the crime and must be prosecuted in the correct jurisdiction (court), which might be different to where the crime happened or where the assets were seized.

5y ago