Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Civil Forfeiture Laws Are Wrong. Can We All Agree on That?
Another example of actions by the police that show a lack of Protect and Serve. No one should have their things seized when they are not convicted of a crime. No one should have to sue to get their car back.
I especially like the bit where the police ask if the car is paid off. Really telling.
I want to support the police, but I don’t support thieves any more than I support looters.
Published in General
Because of police like this (that finally got curbed but only after stealing millions of dollars from mostly poor people).
Ah, that ever-reliable ACLU Racial Justice Program.
I don’t claim that there are never mistakes and abuses. This is always true. I think that you’re doing exactly the same thing that the BLM folks tend to do — get outraged over a few rare instances, and when you look into them, the factual support is often quite dubious.
I do admit that I have not looked into this one. I have zero trust in the ACLU.
One interesting part of the article — innocent Dale Agostini, who just happened to be carrying $50,000 in cash. Yeah, to buy new restaurant equipment. Right. That’s the ticket.
I would suggest the case cited could be resolved by decertifying the officers, and their departments. I find this type of behavior not only illegal, but appalling. It does not surprise me. An investigation at the state level should also be conducted.
I just posted further details on the Portland shooter Reinoehl (who was later shot by cops, justifiably by all reports).
Reinoehl was charged back in July with having a loaded firearm in public, resisting arrest, and interfering with a public safety officer. The cops seized his gun (a 9 mm handgun).
Was that “theft,” Bryan?
(Sadly, he did get another gun in time to shoot Aaron Danielson. He may have bought it from his son — for $100 and a half pound of weed.)
It was not rare and it went on for many years. The fact that they had to agree to desist should tell you something important you don’t wish to admit.
As far as I know that did not happen.
Let’s assume a person is convicted of stealing a gun and sent to prison for a year. His punishment was carried out, he spent a year in prison and is now out having paid his debt to society for robbery. His car was seized by the police and sold. Why? Did the judge say you have no right to a car as part of his sentence or was the prison term his punishment? Taking of property is punishment by police who are not authorized to adjudicate crimes and should never be allowed unless it’s part of the sentence ordered by a judge after a trial.
Jerry, I respect your legal expertise, so I’m going to ask you the facts of the law itself.
***
Is it true that the police don’t have to know of any actual crime or of any report or accusation of a crime but merely have the supposition that the evidence of money (or any other property) suggests a crime?
Is it true that the owner of the confiscated property does not have to be suspected of any crime to have his property taken by police?
Is it true that charges are being brought directly against the property itself and not against the possessor or owner?
Is it true that the owner then has to prove that (a) no crime has been committed, and (b) the property was legally his, to have it returned?
Is it true that police departments themselves can keep the property that has been confiscated, and even use it toward police salaries and equipment?
Is it true that the police don’t have to directly notify the person from whom the property was confiscated of the date of the court hearing date or the date of the final disposition of the property (but for example merely put an ad in a local paper)?
***
I have read of many instances of outright abuse and of specific states and even highways where this is notorious.
This is just one story of dozens that I have read, without looking for them, of civil asset forfeiture. Legal or not, it’s an abomination. It is making a false accusation, taking what is not yours, and coveting that which belongs to someone else.
(continued next comment)
(continued)
This is from: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/oklahoma-civil-forfeiture-christian-band_n_571e54bee4b0d0042da9e0f8
and speaks to a WaPo article behind a pay wall:
How police took $53,000 from a Christian band, an …
That is not how it works though.
This is what happens, and it therefore is what you support. People have to sue to get their stuff back.
Lol
Seizing a gun used in a crime is not like taking a car. Guns and cars are different. It is not like the cars are taken into evidence. They are stolen and used by the police. The guns are not sold at auction or looted for police use. Totally different.
Because rioters can be brought to justice. Police and the courts cannot. And they’re supposed to be the ones helping normal citizens.
Police seize money if you have too much and you have to prove it was not criminal.
This is well documented.
I’m with Bryan on this. While Jerry may be right that some distinction between in rem and in personam actions might save the practice constitutionally, it’s a terrible power for the government to have and should be banned. I believe Ohio, where I practice has scaled back on it, but prior to that I’ve seen poor people lose the only vehicle they had when someone else used it in a crime, and the authorities had no sympathy.
I’ll say this; I’m no social justice warrior and I have no illusions about nobility in poverty, but there is an underclass in this country who have no credibility among those in positions of authority, and they are treated very differently than those who do have credibility. I don’t think it is primarily race-based. It’s more about social capital, and I think, because it’s a rational shortcut based on experience, it is to some extent inevitable and has existed everywhere and always. That said, it’s something to be aware of if you are in a position of authority.
I’m not really up on this and I can’t find it, but didn’t a case go before SCOTUS in which a justice asked if a Ferrari could be confiscated because of being driven with a taillight out and the government lawyer answered “Yes”?
Can’t this be argued in regard to most laws — that we shouldn’t “get fired up about them” (i.e. have an opinion different than yours) because they don’t rise to the level of homicide or suicide? It’s not an either/or proposition. I find this an odd argument.
And they normally don’t have the funds to sue.
I have seen this in action for 25 years of working with this underclass.
Jerry just made that argument, for sure. Use a car in a crime and they can take it.
Oh wait, sorry, get accused of using a car in a crime and they can take it. There is no limitation there. The government wants to take all your stuff, they just have to accuse you of using it in a crime.
Jerry is that not what you are defending? If not, please explain your legal limiting principle.
Fired up? Don’t even get me started on Eminent Domain…
Madison:
The most dangerous people in the world are people who know they are good, and are just trying to help. Such people are able to justify almost any evil.
I think it’s a really good question. I can certainly see how this is (or, best case scenario, certainly could be seen as) providing an incentive for corruption. And though I am—again—a huge supporter and defender of police officers, I know many very well, and I can tell you that we do continue to hire cops from the pool provided by the human race and from no other.”What is the limiting principle” is a question that ought not to be dismissed.
A few notes:
Confiscated stuff doesn’t have to go directly to the agency involved in the investigation. Periodically, one of my guys will tell me they’ve been looking on Confiscated Stuff website for a Class C R.V. for their chaplain to use as a portable comfort-station for worried or grieving families. Apparently, somehow, the stuff gets pooled and redistributed. The creepy, pimped-out car my undercover drug-agent husband used to drive the kids to pre-school in was not confiscated by his department in our state, but by some other department in some other state.
What should be done with confiscated stuff? Not all of it is particularly valuable. My husband’s unit seized huge numbers of timers from indoor grow operations back when marijuana was illegal. These were evidence, of course, but once the cases were in the system, it was a little hard to know what to do with them, so these and similar items (scales, boxes of little plastic zip-loc bags, etc.) tended to pile up in the basement of the headquarters. Eventually, they’d end up in the landfill, so my husband brought a few home. For years even after his death, the lights and water heater went on and off automatically—too early in summer, too late in winter because my husband had set the timers in the spring and I couldn’t bring myself to alter them.
Having said that, my father went along with my husband on a drug raid. Watching his armored-up son-in-law “taking point” was Dad’s testosterone rush for the year (possibly the decade) but once he’d calmed down, my father described watching a bunch of cops laboriously inventorying the contents of the house. There was an astonishing collection of pornographic videos, some of which were home-made; these had to be viewed, because in addition to filming themselves gettin’ jiggy, drug dealers apparently had a habit of filming themselves processing and packaging product, or reveling in profits (e.g. flinging piles of money around).
And speaking of piles of money: There were some. So while the porn whirred away in the background, mostly ignored, the agents counted money, bundling it into stacks, taking photographs and carefully noting down the amounts…fifty two thousand…fifty three thousand…
At one point, one of the agents announced that he was going to run to McDonald’s to get himself some supper; did anyone else want anything? My husband said “Naah…I don’t have any money and besides, we brought leftovers…fifty four thousand…fifty five thousand…”
Sorry…derailing the post and drifting into memory.
You assert that, but that doesn’t make it true. There have been different types of “due process” for situations of life, of liberty, and of property, all along. And, arguably, appropriately so. Especially in the case of life, since a mistake there cannot be undone.
If they are accusing the property of a crime, then the criminal standards should apply.
Objection! People are not found “innocent,” they are found “not guilty.” Perhaps because the evidence was strong, but not “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
That said, I don’t think the burden of proof to recover property, should be on the (original) owner. And a finding of “not guilty” should perhaps be a strong presumption for recovery. Except for OJ Simpson.
Actually in some states/counties/cities, seized guns ARE sold. In some areas the law says they have to be melted down or otherwise destroyed.
I have a hard time being sympathetic with people so stupid that they would carry around large amounts of cash for ANY reason, even a legitimate one. What were they planning to do, take the cash back to Burma? News flash: you aren’t allowed to take that much cash on airlines etc out of the country, either.