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civil forfeiture
[link=http://rt.com/usa/civil-forfeiture-new-yorker-244/]http://rt.com/usa/civil-forfeiture-new-yorker-244/[/link]
There is a huge conflict of interest in that a significant part the confiscated loot funds the involved police depts. -
28 Replies
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OK, the entire article only talks about a single anecdote in Philly.
That’s hardly evidence of a nationwide multi-billion dollar epidemic scandal.
Got anything else?
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This:
[link=http://www.propublica.org/article/law-to-clean-up-nuisances-costs-innocent-people-their-homes]http://www.propublica.org/article/law-to-clean-up-nuisances-costs-innocent-people-their-homes[/link]-
I must be missing something because it seems totally unconstitutional, bordering on third world. SCOTUS would have a field day with that, no?
If I did my illicit drug deals in the local Walmart parking lot at 3am, would the town confiscate Walmart’s deed, sell the property, and use it to pay the municipal employees?
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[link=http://www.newser.com/story/172055/why-cops-can-and-do-take-peoples-stuff.html]http://www.newser.com/story/172055/why-cops-can-and-do-take-peoples-stuff.html[/link]
Here’s another one….”The Justice Department raked in nearly $4.2 billion in forfeitures last year, and states like Texas, Georgia, and Virginia barely restrict how law enforcement agencies can use the money. Scandals and a class-action lawsuit have ensued, but many poor Americans still face the prospect of devastating losses.”….
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i believe this is the relevant ruling
[link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bennis_v._Michigan]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bennis_v._Michigan[/link]-
John Oliver just dedicated a long segment of [i]Last Week Tonight[/i] to the issues around and the blatant misuse of civil forfeiture rules by law enforcement.
[link=http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2014/10/john-oliver-on-civil-forfeiture-hbo/]http://www.ritholtz.com/b…-civil-forfeiture-hbo/[/link]
It is 16 minutes but it is both funny and dead on point, as most of Oliver’s pieces are. I recommend watching it in full.
But here’s the summary:
“Last Week Tonight’s” John Oliver is again taking an entertaining swing at a subject that has made its way into Techdirt’s pages: [link=https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140915/09500928521/canadian-news-outlet-warns-canadians-that-us-law-enforcement-officers-will-pull-them-over-seize-their-cash.shtml]asset seizure and forfeiture[/link]. Going beyond the “robbery at badgepoint” ([link=http://boingboing.net/2014/09/14/cbc-warns-canadians-us-cops-w.html]Cory Doctorow’s term[/link]) to civil asset forfeiture (in which the government files suit against property that is presumed guilty of criminal ties), Oliver is his usual entertaining self while still managing to highlight the obscene depths these programs — started with the intent of breaking up criminal enterprises and returning assets to those defrauded, etc. — have sunk, thanks to the perversion of incentives.
The highlights are a law enforcement official sheepishly explaining (in a public hearing) that there is really no oversight or discretion involved in the spending of seized funds. (He flat out states that it’s used to buy “toys” the department “needs.”) This leads directly to a police department being called out by a citizen (in another public meeting) for purchasing booze and a margarita machine with seized funds.Also fun (but in a rather twisted way) is the names of suits brought by the US against “guilty” property, including [i]United States v. Article Consisting of 50,000 Cardboard Boxes More or Less, Each Containing One Pair of Clacker Balls[/i]. You can find several others simply by [link=http://dockets.justia.com/search?parties=United+States&cases=mostrecent&noscat=7]running a search at Justia[/link]. (This also happens at state level, so additional searching uncovers gems like this one:[link=http://www.loweringthebar.net/2013/10/south-dakota-fifteen-cats.html][i]South Dakota vs. Fifteen Impounded Cats[/i][/link].)
Anything that brings more attention to this issue is welcome. Oliver’s take allows for a rather painless digestion of the issue while still refusing to underplay how thoroughly corrupted the ideal has become, thanks mainly to policies that allow those seizing the property to directly benefit from the seizures. As to a solution, Oliver suggests two things: an overhaul of this system and rigorous oversight or (the easier route) changing TV procedurals to more accurately reflect law enforcement activities — like the cuffing and frisking houses, furniture, etc.
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If the police weren’t corrupt enough before, this actually funds corruption. Guilty until proven innocent.
[link=http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/10/11/cash-seizures-fuel-police-spending/]http://www.washingtonpost…-fuel-police-spending/[/link]-
Maybe this might change things. No one seems to give a flying flock about civil forfeiture but when the IRS does it, that might be a different matter, especially if it is spun as an IRS attack on conservatives & republicans, not “merely” an attack on American citizens.
[link=http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/us/law-lets-irs-seize-accounts-on-suspicion-no-crime-required.html]http://www.nytimes.com/20…no-crime-required.html[/link]But the [link=http://www.ij.org/]Institute for Justice[/link], a Washington-based public interest law firm that is seeking to reform civil forfeiture practices, analyzed structuring data from the I.R.S., which made 639 seizures in 2012, up from 114 in 2005. Only one in five was prosecuted as a criminal structuring case.
The practice has swept up dairy farmers in Maryland, an Army sergeant in Virginia saving for his childrens college education and Ms. Hinders, 67, who has borrowed money, strained her credit cards and taken out a second mortgage to keep her restaurant going.
Their money was seized under an increasingly controversial area of law known as civil asset forfeiture, which allows law enforcement agents to take property they suspect of being tied to crime even if no criminal charges are filed. Law enforcement agencies get to keep a share of whatever is forfeited.
Critics say this incentive has led to the creation of a law enforcement dragnet, with more than 100 multiagency task forces combing through bank reports, looking for accounts to seize. Under the Bank Secrecy Act, banks and other financial institutions must report cash deposits greater than $10,000. But since many criminals are aware of that requirement, banks also are supposed to report any suspicious transactions, including deposit patterns below $10,000. Last year, banks filed more than 700,000 suspicious activity reports. Owners who are caught up in structuring cases often cannot afford to fight. The median amount seized by the I.R.S. was $34,000, according to the Institute for Justice analysis, while legal costs can easily mount to $20,000 or more.
There is nothing illegal about depositing less than $10,000cash unless it is done specifically to evade the reporting requirement. But often a mere bank statement is enough for investigators to obtain a seizure warrant. In one Long Island case, the police submitted almost a years worth of daily deposits by a business, ranging from $5,550 to $9,910. The officer wrote in his warrant affidavit that based on his training and experience, the pattern is consistent with structuring. The government seized $447,000 from the business, a cash-intensive candy and cigarette distributor that has been run by one family for 27 years.-
[link=http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/holder-ends-seized-asset-sharing-process-that-split-billions-with-local-state-police/2015/01/16/0e7ca058-99d4-11e4-bcfb-059ec7a93ddc_story.html]http://www.washingtonpost…59ec7a93ddc_story.html[/link]
Holder takes aim at civil forfeiture. Well done!
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Friday barred local and state police from using federal law to seize cash, cars and other property without evidence that a crime occurred.
Holders action represents the most sweeping check on police power to confiscate personal property since the seizures began three decades ago as part of the war on drugs.
Since 2008, thousands of local and state police agencies have made more than 55,000 seizures of cash and property worth $3 billion under a civil asset forfeiture program at the Justice Department called [link=http://www.justice.gov/criminal/afmls/equitable-sharing/]Equitable Sharing[/link].
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Quote from Lux
OK, the entire article only talks about a single anecdote in Philly.
That’s hardly evidence of a nationwide multi-billion dollar epidemic scandal.
Got anything else?just a little bit. At least you used the word evidence correctly.
[link=http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/08/12/130812fa_fact_stillman]http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/08/12/130812fa_fact_stillman[/link]
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Applause for New Mexico.
[link=http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/11/us/new-mexico-governor-signs-bill-on-civil-forfeiture.html]http://www.nytimes.com/20…-civil-forfeiture.html[/link]
[b]
New Mexico: Governor Signs Bill on Civil Forfeiture[/b][/h1]
Gov. Susana Martinez signed a bill Friday virtually ending the practice of civil forfeiture, making the state a leader in sharply restricting a contentious policy that critics say deprives citizens of due process and gives law enforcement a profit motive. This is landmark legislation to protect peoples property and due process rights, said Lee McGrath, a lawyer with the Institute for Justice, a libertarian civil rights group that has long campaigned against the practice. The law preserves criminal forfeiture, in which assets tied to crime can be taken if the owner is convicted.
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Lynch disagrees
[link=http://dailycaller.com/2015/04/15/rand-paul-blasts-loretta-lynch-on-civil-asset-forfeiture/]http://dailycaller.com/2015/04/15/rand-paul-blasts-loretta-lynch-on-civil-asset-forfeiture/[/link]-
My home state of Ohio looks to end civil asset forfeiture
[link=http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/09/30/gop-legislators-seek-end-to-civil-asset-forfeiture-under-ohio-law.html]http://www.dispatch.com/c…re-under-ohio-law.html[/link]
A national bipartisan coalition is pushing legislators in Ohio and other Midwestern states to overhaul civil forfeiture laws that critics say are ripe for abuse by governments and can leave innocent people stripped of their property.
The bill does not affect law enforcements ability to seize evidence, McColley said. It would bar forfeiture of property to the state without a conviction. Also, for assets to be held during a criminal proceeding, the bill would require the state to prove that the property is subject to forfeiture.
Mike Brickner, senior policy director for the ACLU of Ohio, called the bill long-overdue relief for people who lose their property with little hope of recouping it. Forfeiture runs counter to many of the most precious rights, such as due process, he said.
Prosecutors and FOP oppose.
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“Follow the money.”
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Legal thievery, legal so long as the police are the robbers.
[link=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/25/how-oklahoma-cops-took-53000-from-a-burmese-christian-band-a-church-in-omaha-and-an-orphanage-in-thailand]https://www.washingtonpos…-orphanage-in-thailand[/link]
Eh Wah managed the band’s finances, holding on to the cash proceeds it raised from ticket and merchandise sales at concerts. By the time he was stopped in Oklahoma, the band had held concerts in 19 cities across the United States, raising money via [link=http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2016/04/tickets.pdf]tickets that sold for $10 to $20 each[/link].
The sheriff’s deputies in Muskogee County, Okla., pulled Eh Wah over for [link=http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2016/04/20160413_091052.jpg]a broken tail light[/link] about 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 27.
All told, the deputies found $53,000 in cash in Eh Wah’s car that night.
“The police officer started asking questions,” Marvellous recalled. “I explained: ‘We are a music team. We came here for a tour.'” Marvellous tried to explain that the band was from Burma.
“He kept telling me, ‘You are wrong, you are wrong,'” Marvellous said.
“Everything I said, [he said,] ‘You are wrong.’ I said: ‘We are doing a good thing! And now you are accusing us of being like a drug dealer or something like that.'”
After that phone call, Eh Wah began to realize that no matter what he did or said, he wouldn’t be able to satisfy the officers’ questions. “I realized that they were seizing all of the money.
Under civil forfeiture, the burden of proof is on the property owner to prove their innocence to get their stuff back. This turns the common criminal-law principle on its head: When it comes to civil forfeiture, you are guilty until proven innocent.
Oklahoma has some of the most permissive forfeiture laws in the nation, according to [link=http://ij.org/pfp-state-pages/pfp-Oklahoma/]a 2015 report by the Institute for Justice[/link], a civil liberties law firm. The group gave the state a D-minus on its civil forfeiture laws, citing no conviction required to forfeit, poor protections for innocent property owners and a statute that allows up to 100 percent of forfeiture proceeds to go directly back to law enforcement, creating a possible profit motive.
Muskogee County authorities eventually charged Eh Wah with a crime, five weeks after he was stopped. They issued a warrant for his arrest April 5, for the crime of “acquir[ing] proceeds from drug activity, a felony.” For probable cause, [link=http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2016/04/affidavit.pdf]the authorities noted[/link] the positive alert from the drug dog, “inconsistent stories” and said Eh Wah was “unable to confirm the money was his.”
[link=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/26/why-oklahoma-cops-are-returning-53000-to-a-christian-band-an-orphanage-and-a-church]https://www.washingtonpos…orphanage-and-a-church[/link]
On Monday, I wrote about [link=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/25/how-oklahoma-cops-took-53000-from-a-burmese-christian-band-a-church-in-omaha-and-an-orphanage-in-thailand/]a strange civil forfeiture case[/link] out of Oklahoma, in which Muskogee County sheriff’s deputies seized over $53,000 in cash from a Burmese Christian rock band, a church in Omaha and an orphanage in Thailand following a traffic stop over a busted tail light.
After the story was published, Muskogee County District Attorney Orvil Loge decided to dismiss both the civil case (the cash seizure) and a criminal charge of “acquir[ing] proceeds from drug activity” against the principal defendant, Eh Wah, after reviewing the evidence and speaking with the officers involved.
Alban noted that Eh Wah had an initial hearing in court on the criminal charges on Monday, before the stories about the case had been published by The Post and [link=http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/muskogee-county-wrongly-seized-raised-for-asian-orphans-and-students/article_81e97275-db64-5fc5-8568-bf0d680bb2e3.html]other news outlets[/link]. At that hearing, the judge refused to hear an initial motion to dismiss the criminal charge and set Eh Wah’s next court date for July 19. “The attorneys at that hearing, they didnt know about the news stories. That was the sort of business as usual that you [usually] see in these forfeiture cases,” Alban said.
But later in the day, Loge decided to drop the criminal charge and return the money to the claimants.
“The real tragedy is not what happened in this case, but it’s what happens in all the other cases when there isnt a national public interest law firm to represent people, and there isnt story in The Washington Post and other outlets that explain what’s going on, and instead somebody cant fight this,” Alban said.
[link=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-took-more-stuff-from-people-than-burglars-did-last-year]https://www.washingtonpos…burglars-did-last-year[/link]In 2014, for the first time ever, law enforcement officers took more property from American citizens than burglars did. Martin Armstrong [link=http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/39102]pointed this out at his blog[/link], Armstrong Economics, last week.
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Needs to be changed at the federal level.
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Oklahoma getting creative. New device that can swipe someone’s money off a pre-paid debit card. The kicker is the company ERAD makes something like a 7% processing fee. Private and Public working together to steal people’s money.
[link=http://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2016/06/08/oklahoma-cops-can-now-seize-money-from-prepaid-debit-cards-without-filing-criminal-charges/#6d5032502c8c]http://www.forbes.com/sit…-charges/#6d5032502c8c[/link]-
That should be criminal..[:@]
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The criminals ARE the police in this. They just have nicer uniforms than the criminals wearing street clothes, uniforms we paid for.
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[url=http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/omni-pr/1827674-clarence-thomas-questions-legality-civil-asset-forfeiture.html]
Clarence Thomas Questions Legality Of Civil Asset Forfeiture[/url][/h1]
WASHINGTON Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas sent a strong signal on Monday about his feelings toward civil asset forfeiture, a controversial law enforcement tool that allows police to seize cash and property from people who havent been convicted of a crime and in many cases, havent even been charged.
In a one-line order, the high court declined to hear a case related to the practice. But in an accompanying statement, Thomas broadly questioned whether civil forfeiture could withstand legal scrutiny.
This system where police can seize property with limited judicial oversight and retain it for their own use has led to egregious and well-chronicled abuses, wrote Thomas. I am skeptical that this historical practice is capable of sustaining, as a constitutional matter, the contours of modern practice.
I don’t agree with Thomas on much … but he’s right on this time. -
OMG! Clarence Thomas? The invisible Justice that always votes against the regular guy & for the Big Guys?
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[url=https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2017/e1702.pdf]Review of the Departments Oversight of Cash Seizure and Forfeiture Activities[/url]
DOJ report says $3.2 billion taken by law enforcement from people not convciced of a crime.
[link=http://wonkwire.com/2017/03/29/since-2007-the-dea-has-taken-3-2-billion-in-cash-from-people-not-charged-with-a-crime/]http://wonkwire.com/2017/…-charged-with-a-crime/[/link]
The Drug Enforcement Administration takes billions of dollars in cash from people who are never charged with criminal activity, according to a report issued today by the Justice Departments Inspector General.
Since 2007, the report found, the DEA has seized more than $4 billion in cash from people suspected of involvement with the drug trade. But 81 percent of those seizures, totaling $3.2 billion, were conducted administratively, meaning no civil or criminal charges were brought against the owners of the cash and no judicial review of the seizures ever occurred. -
The police would never abuse their power.
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Just when you thought Jeff Sessions couldn’t me more of a total douche …
[url=http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/342702-doj-expanding-controversial-asset-seizures-programs]
DOJ expanding controversial asset seizures programs[/url][/h1]
Attorney General [link=http://thehill.com/people/jeff-sessions]Jeff Sessions[/link] on Wednesday advised his Department of Justice (DOJ) to re-establish a criminal asset seizure program that had been curbed under pressure from lawmakers and civil liberties groups worried that the policy is ripe for abuse.
The Justice Department, with President Trump’s support, will give new authority to law enforcement agencies to seize money, contraband and property when they can prove those assets are the ill-gotten gains of criminal activity.
In an agency-wide memo, the acting chief of the DOJ’s Criminal Division, Deborah Connor, characterized the program as an essential tool in starving gang members, drug traffickers and terrorists of their means and tools. -
can they seize Russian bought property in Trump tower with this–just saying
Quote from dergon
Just when you thought Jeff Sessions couldn’t me more of a total douche …
[link=http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/342702-doj-expanding-controversial-asset-seizures-programs]
DOJ expanding controversial asset seizures programs[/link]Attorney General [link=http://thehill.com/people/jeff-sessions]Jeff Sessions[/link] on Wednesday advised his Department of Justice (DOJ) to re-establish a criminal asset seizure program that had been curbed under pressure from lawmakers and civil liberties groups worried that the policy is ripe for abuse.
The Justice Department, with President Trump’s support, will give new authority to law enforcement agencies to seize money, contraband and property when they can prove those assets are the ill-gotten gains of criminal activity.
In an agency-wide memo, the acting chief of the DOJ’s Criminal Division, Deborah Connor, characterized the program as an essential tool in starving gang members, drug traffickers and terrorists of their means and tools.
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Supreme Court just unanimously ruled 8th Amendments Exessive Fines Clause applies to states as well. Even Clarence! Thats a WOW! all by itself!
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Well decided!
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[link=https://reason.com/2021/07/14/maine-…et-forfeiture/]https://reason.com/2021/0…aine-…et-forfeiture/[/link]
Maine Becomes 4th State To Repeal Civil Asset Forfeiture
A new law will require a criminal conviction before property can be seized.
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