Anything that can be used in the commission of a crime.
Also that people often fight for years to get their property back when proven innocent, sometimes to no avail.
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I started a petition on this that would have gone to Obama’s Whitehouse administration for review if it got a hundred thousand signatures. Didn’t get close.
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“I’m sorry sir but the truck you’re asking about was auctioned off after its service life ended.”
That’s a common excuse.
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The fundamental legal abuse and corruption that is behind civil asset forfeiture, that a person’s property (real or personal) can be charged without charging its owner and therefore no worries about denying the rights of that person, and the property thereby taken because property does not have rights, also lay behind the pernicious legal theory behind progressive taxation, that a person’s income is paying the tax rather than the person, so what Justice Bushrod Washington clearly expressed as one of our P&I — and therefore arguably the same as another right retained under the 9th Amendment — that it is a denial of right to not be taxed differently than another is corruptly side stepped. A person pays the tax, not his income, so his dollars are all equally his and indivisible first to last … not separate piles of cash separated from him as an abstraction to be taxed differently.
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No arrest, no arraignment, no conviction, no seizure. And the owner of the property should receive market rate plus 1 % compounding compensation for lost time value of any asset held by authorities.
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Apparently it is inconsistent to oppose randomly confiscating peoples assets just because they have them while wanting to incarcerate those caught in the act during a burglary. You will have to ask those complaining about this as to why it is a problem.
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Sounds like a matter of cognitive dissonance concerning what is an appropriate legal outcome for disparate circumstances of individual guilt or innocence.
Remind me of this story.
This is wrong also.
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Good for that guy!
Interesting case. It looks like UC Berkeley had their law enforcement focused on protecting their monopoly on concession sales. More about protecting the universities cut instead of public health and safety. And just how would the officer know the true source of all the funds in a man’s wallet.
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The House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties holds a hearing on civil asset forfeiture reform now The link is live.https://video.foxnews.com/v/6285798261001/
This is a live hearing going on now. Testimony includes the assertion that only 34% of seizures are linked to a proven criminal act.
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As I listen to this hearing I am gratified to see the tenor of the hearing is one of bipartisan grave concern about abusive asset forfeiture as currently structured.
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The way I see it civil forfeiture is primarily a tool by the state to raise revenue for law enforcement to buy supplies and vehicles. That’s all it does.
“Oh the guy has been convicted for selling weed. Let’s take everything he owns, including the Crown Vic his mom gave to him that had nothing to do with the weed, sell everything at auction, and buy ourselves new Dodge Chargers.”
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Much worse than that. I have been listening to this hearing non-stop for a couple hours. There is unanimous agreement among the sub-committee that due process is being violated, burden of proof is not being met and these actions have become primarily a revenue stream, worse than speed trap.
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Talk is cheap. Will they actually do anything is the question.
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I agree, but you had Rep Mace and Rep Tlaib in complete agreement on the issue, and not sniping at each other in the hearing. I figure pigs have grown wings and the devil has ordered a parka from Amazon.
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By design this was to get around things like due process. Charge to property, not the person, and property has no civil rights.
Derived from the same poison pill that got us progressive taxation.
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I agree.
However since for the time being the GOP is still the ex-President’s plaything, and he was a big proponent of civil asset forfeiture…don’t look for it to be part of their platform any time soon.
I wouldn’t bet on that. But I didn’t hear the committee going the route of no forfeiture. What I heard was no civil forfeiture, requirement for a direct link to a criminal enterprise or act, proven beyond a reasonable doubt, speedy judicial review of the seizure, with the right to an attorney, to determine if sufficient probable cause exists. One of the examples given was the guy on a street corner with $1,200 in mixed bills in his pocket. Right now they seize his money even if they can’t bust him for dealing. All members agreed that innocent until proven guilty is the proper assumption and that seizure is a taking, a punishment, that requires a finding of guilt before allowed.
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