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We like to paint a picture of the Supreme Court as being nine impartial giant intellects of law that hand down rulings after careful unbiased consideration. Th
by jmyeet 4y ago
We like to paint a picture of the Supreme Court as being nine impartial giant intellects of law that hand down rulings after careful unbiased consideration.
This is a myth. The Supreme Court is and always has been political. There are "textualists". That's propaganda. There are many examples of this. Take the infamous Dread Scott [1] decision:
> ... the Court held that the United States Constitution was not meant to include American citizenship for people of African descent, regardless of whether they were enslaved or free, and so the rights and privileges that the Constitution confers upon American citizens could not apply to them.
A less well-known example is the Colfax massacre [2]:
L An estimated 62-153 black militia men were killed while surrendering to a mob of former Confederate soldiers and members of the Ku Klux Klan.
In United States v. Cruikshank [3] the Supreme Court[4]:
> ... overturned all three convictions on the basis that the indictments were vague and general and had not specified that the victims were deprived of their constitutional rights on the basis of their race or colour.
This is just as stark in interpretation of the Second Amendment. Even though the Amendment was created to give the states the right to form a militia in the event of a slave rebellion (the Southern States were concerned the Federal government wouldn't come to their aid) this went through massive reinterpretation in the 20th century and was ultimate recognized as an individual right in 2008 [5] despite the words "well-regulated milita".
Civil forfeiture is an abomination. The Supreme Court if indeed it was lofty and apolitical would've struck it down long ago as a clear Fourth Amendment violation but they haven't. The construction of forfeiture as a civil procedure for criminal proceeds is tortuous logic at best, right up there with the Court not striking down Texas's SB8 despite it's novel end-run against standing by excluding government officials (which, if upheld, would allow any cosnitutional protection to be bypassed).
Civil forfeiture is nothing more than the continuing echoes of a country founded on white supremacy and the horrors of chattel slavery. It is state violence and the illegal seizure of the assets of the predominantly poor and further evidence that we've never had and never more desperately needed a reckoning with our racist past and present.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colfax_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colfax_massacre
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Cruikshank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Cruikshank
[4]: http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1021-545X2017000200002 http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S...
[5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
- ratsmack 4y ago
- jmyeet 4y agoThis isn't a fringe opinion. It is historical fact. The founders were mostly slaveowners [1]. The Constitution originally had slaves as three-fifths of a person. Oregon didn't like black people so much they didn't even want slavery [2]. A Civil War was fought to preserve chattel slavery. The idea that white supremacy didn't run to the core of America's founding is demonstrably false and, well, laughable. [1]: https://www.aclu.org/issues/racial-justice/five-truths-about-black-history https://www.aclu.org/issues/racial-justice/five-truths-about... [1]: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/oregon-once-legally-barred-black-people-has-the-state-reconciled-its-racist-past https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/oregon-on...
- AnimalMuppet 4y agoDo you know why the constitution counted slaves as 3/5 of a person? Because if they had counted them as whole persons, then the slave population would have enabled the South to dominate the House (and thereby protect slavery even more). The Civil War was fought to preserve chattel slavery? By half the country, yes. Fought to end it by the other half. (Yes, I know, Lincoln's goal was to preserve the union. But go look at how many Union soldiers' graves say "He died that all might be free".) On to the problem with your first post. Even if we agree with everything you said in your second post, that doesn't begin to draw a line from slavery to civil forfeiture. (I mean, if civil forfeiture was primarily applied to blacks, you might have a case. But you didn't even try to make that case, or any other.)
- ceejayoz 4y ago> Do you know why the constitution counted slaves as 3/5 of a person? None of that changes the fact that doing so explicitly indicates slavery to be a legal practice in the newly founded country. "You can keep black people as property, but don't worry, we fixed the impact on Congressional representation" is exactly the sort of thing that "white supremacy" describes. > I mean, if civil forfeiture was primarily applied to blacks, you might have a case. That's pretty easy. https://oklahomawatch.org/2015/10/07/most-police-seizures-of-cash-come-from-blacks-hispanics/ https://oklahomawatch.org/2015/10/07/most-police-seizures-of... "Nearly two thirds of seizures of cash by Oklahoma law enforcement agencies come from blacks, Hispanics and other racial or ethnic minorities, an Oklahoma Watch analysis of high-dollar forfeiture cases in 10 counties shows." https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/taken/2019/01/27/south-carolina-racism-blamed-civil-forfeiture-black-men-taken-exclusive-investigation/2459039002/ https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/taken/2019/01/27... "Black residents have their money and property taken by police in South Carolina nearly three times more often than whites, for deep and unfair systemic reasons that go beyond the design of a civil forfeiture law, experts say."