US Laws: Civil Forfeiture

[Stiku]

WTF  :o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks

[mandru]

I've been aware of this practice for a few years.

Though handled here with humor it's really no laughing matter.  Funny because of the stark absurdity of this sort of theft and abuse of power from people we are supposed to trust.  It is so incongruous to the American sense of justice and our concept of those who are supposed to be upholding it.

It's easier to laugh than cry.  If you really examine the nature (the very root) of humor in almost every joke, someone is embarrassed, belittled or harmed.  :knockout


Here in the U.S. it is the basis of our laws that when a crime has been committed we are supposed to be assumed innocent until proven guilty.  But that foundational concept is not granted to physical property (as seen in this video) cash, cars, houses or even the underwear you have on at the time of a seizure.  If some $$$ motivated police department decides they can round up some significant operational funding (for toys) they'll auction your skivvies off on E-Bay.

Spoiler

*Hint: including the video of the seizure does drive up the bidding price  ::) *

It is exasperating that even if it could be proven that individuals or organizations are corrupt in the application of this quasi-legal loophole they would be treated as innocent until the very same courts (that have given them this indiscriminate power) determines otherwise.  :D

And though the laws that allow this sort of activity at the level of Federal and State enforcement officers it's only been over the last 30 or so years that this practice has been extended to local police departments who operate these seizures under the premise that they are serving as agents for those higher level law enforcement entities (that is the Fed and the State).  Dirty county and local police departments across the country are raking in the loot with almost zero recourse by the public.

This practice that elevates police enforcement powers above the law is a singularly significant argument against allowing Governments to grow too large.

[Stiku]

So they haven't put any safeguards against these seizures at all?

Horrifying part is that the local PD officer, can actually seizure the car your driving, just because they had a hunch of drugs or something illegal, and also that the profits go to the PD and not charity / others in need.
Its actually absurd that the profits can also be used anyway without any repercussions how its spend, so they can buy pretty much anything not related to the public security, like equipment that is designed to kill rather than pacify.

[Art Blade]

 ??? horror.

For some reason, "the land of opportunity" makes sense in a weird way..

[mandru]

*Nods in solemn agreement  with ^   :( *

Because the $ kick back the local police departments receive does not require documentation of where that money goes there's a good chance a cut of those funds may very well end up back in the pocket of officer who makes the seizure.

That's quite the motivation for an officer to find excuses to grab whatever they think they can get away with.

[Art Blade]

that's more or less what I think. No traces, no one reclaiming, no one asking questions, free for all money to be used on whatever they want.. might as well "go out in the street and make some money" -- tax free cash. And a nice watch, perhaps, every week, maybe.. oh, new TV.. everything for the take. And no one to question the police or end up in jail.

That's actually almost exactly like back in the days of pirat.. err, privateers. "Here's your badge, go get them and take their money, bring some back and keep whatever you need to stay self-sustained and to cover your expenses." And then cut the budgets because "obviously they can sustain themselves rather well." Which of course will end up in the police being forced to "collect" money.

[mandru]

I saw a news story a year or so ago about a man who had withdrawn $52,000 from his bank account.  He was planning to use the ability to pay cash in full to leverage a better deal on the price of a big pickup truck for his business.  He had communicated that plan with the bank teller as he was pulling out the cash.

Admittedly most banks do are require their tellers to inquire and possibly receive authorization from the manager when dealing with cash withdrawals that large.

He left the bank and was driving to the truck dealership which was within five miles from the bank but he was stopped and searched by a police officer.  When the officer found the cash (as if he knew what he was looking for) it was seized as potential drug money.  In spite of the fact that the man had no drunk driving or drug arrest history against his records he was never able to recover the money.

The song and dance the guy received from the local police department was "Oh! That money's already been forwarded to the Fed and we don't have it any more."

It sounded to me like the bank clerk (a possible relative, friend or just someone expecting a kick back for the finder's fee) had called to tip off the police officer who had in turn stopped the poor guy who was simply going to buy a truck.  With that much cash on him he was a ripe plum to pick.

[Art Blade]

Becoming a criminal that is on the police's radar is stupid. These days you just become a cop and do all that very same stuff but instead, with full backup of your fellow officers and according to the law you're even doing the community a great service and get a pension, too. Plus, avoiding trouble, you don't bust criminals. Instead, you bust harmless citizens.


??? AAAAAAAAAAAAAH :D

[mandru]

Yeah.  >:(

Welcome to the pre-Batman Olde Gotham City.

[fragger]

Civil forfeiture has been around since before 911, despite what the guy in the clip implied - it's just that since 911, it's apparently been ramped up as part of the general undermining of civil rights after that event in the name of maintaining "national security" (i.e. "let's find more ways to get our hands on other peoples' money"). Back in 1994, author Dean Koontz wrote a novel in which several of his characters suffer under these laws: Dark Rivers Of The Heart, one of Koontz's very few stories to not have a happy or just ending. Civil forfeiture wasn't the central theme of the story but was just one of the many tools employed by a small cadre of despicable people working at the highest levels of government to subtly establish what amounted to a clandestine dictatorship in the U.S. The novel has a postword from the author where he rails against the blatant injustice of these laws, so they've been around at least since he wrote that book, although they may have been collectively called something less euphemistic back then - "The Fleecing Of The Constituency Act" or something.

In one of his entertaining non-fiction books, Bill Bryson discussed the case of a woman in one U.S. state (her name and that of the state escapes me - I might try to look it up later, I've still got the book somewhere) who was quite high up in that state's judicial system and was an outspoken champion of civil forfeiture - and an avid applier of it. On her watch quite a number of people lost their homes via civil forfeiture on the grounds that drugs were being sold on their premises, even when evidence was later provided which proved that this was not the case. One day, this woman's son (or grandson, I can't remember which) was caught red-handed selling drugs from inside her home. So was this woman's home seized under civil forfeiture? No effing way. She kept her home but was quietly transferred to another department

Apart from its relatively few legitimate victories over crime, civil forfeiture has become a convenient revenue-raiser for the most appallingly corrupt people, in whose hands it becomes nothing less than state-sanctioned thievery. It hasn't happened here - yet - but given the trend to eagerly adopt The American Way by some in this country, it may only be a matter of time. I'm surprised that the current mob in power haven't tumbled to it yet. Maybe they've just got too many other rip-off-the-taxpayer schemes in progress to warrant having to put the time and effort into implementing another one. There are only so many hours in the day...

[Art Blade]

I split, renamed and moved this topic from non-animated short films to the rant board because it has become a topic of its own and a vivid discussion has ensued around the original post by Stiku.  :-X :)

[fragger]

Good move Art :-X This is indeed a rant-worthy topic.

[mandru]

And we've not even touched on the commonly abused practice known here in the U.S. as Eminent Domain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain

But at least in this we're not the only country with property seizure built into the laws though I suspect with our abundance of collages pumping out hungry young jobless lawyers all seeking a bone to pick in a currently downwards spirally economy we can expect a a swelling of occurrences where residents of generationally owned properties are put out on the street at pennies on the dollar to make way for shopping mall developers on the premise that their planned enterprises will generate abundant Tax Revenues for the city or county that stole the property from those families in the first place.

Home is castle?  You can forget that outmoded nonsense completely.

If you refuse to accept the ridiculous low under-bid on your property (when compared to the lavish amounts pre-bid to the city or county to be paid by the developer paid when they take possession) you can fully expect to have your home and land condemned on some obscure technicality.  Shortly there after the property will be jerked out from under you by thugs with guns (whose salaries you've been paying for years) with instructions to use them on you should you resist.

Wait long enough and you too can expect neighboring community growth and the happy progressive legal notice informing you that your family has been given the chance to experience the New American Tradition to show up in your mail box.

[Stiku]

Here in Finland, you actually need a court order, to seizure ANYTHING, and everything that is in your name is owned by you. Even stolen merchandise is owned by the one who bought it first and has the ownership to it. Only exception to this rule is, that the police can take stuff into evidence, if the nature of time crime can sentence you to minimum of 6 months of jail time, which is here usually considered a serious crime.

That eminent domain law is actually quite useless, and outdated,from what I read from Wiki, and seems that it has only been revisited but not overhauled to accommodate the today's needs.

[Art Blade]

our laws may not be perfect but they're definitely a lot better regarding a person's rights, ownership and protection than what is common in other countries.

That's probably the reason why so many people emigrate to Germany. Our imigration rules are almost non-existent. Anyone can move here and live off of our social system, you don't even need to speak the language.

[PZ]

On a slight tangent to the conversation, I was watching a documentary this morning on crime.  In 1926 a 50-ish woman was working as a housekeeper for an old gent, and she ended up killing him.  She was convicted of his murder and sentenced to hang, which the authorities promptly accomplished.  Simple and to the point.

Now, when a person is sentenced to death (which is rare), they spend decades on death row with the most common outcome being that their sentence is commuted to life, which in California means 14 years.  How just is that!

In my harsh opinion, the sentence should fit the crime.  If a serial killer is convicted of horrendous crimes on their victims, I don't care how bad they suffer. (bleeding hearts don't send your hate comments).  I would not hesitate to riddle a criminal's body with bullets should they choose to invade my home. I'm disgusted with the panty-waist way society is giving all the rights to the criminal.

[Stiku]

So, life sentence is 14yrs in California?

Almost none of the european countries has a life sentence that means life in prison, they are usually ranging from 10-20 yrs max, and after that its parole by presedential pardon or supreme courts ruling.  :(
And indeed, there is no way to repay or have enough punishment for taking someone's life, even death sentence isn't enough in my opinion.


But my beef is with the stupid leniency, I don't care if you were drunk, your dad was a SOB, or you were in the heat of a moment, or you were reckless with you car, there is no way to justify that, you have to take responsibility of your own action.

I remember a story few years back in here, that a drunk 26 yrs male was driving he's car drunk and was also speeding thorough a residential area, while a 12yrs girl was crossing the crosswalk with a bicycle, going home from practices, and she was run over and died just before the ambulance got there (15 minutes after the hit), this SOB actually got a leniency, because he did not meant to hit her. This is in my opinion bullshit.  :D >:((

[fragger]

I couldn't agree more, guys. I routinely get disgusted by the slap-on-the-wrist sentences handed down to people for committing the most heinous crimes or for displaying the most irresponsible behaviour with their vehicles which result in death or serious injury to others.

Just last month a teenage girl in Sydney was standing on a sidewalk waiting for a bus when she was run over and killed by a woman who was driving without having ever held a license. The woman apparently lost control of her 4WD, mounted the kerb, ran over the girl and continued right through the front windows of a shop. She's still awaiting sentence, but her crime carries a maximum penalty of ten years, and she'll probably get half of that. Ten years - for ending a young girl's life, inflicting a lifetime of anguish on the girl's family, and causing the business owner a massive amount of time, expense and worry, all because of this damned woman's arrogance and her contemptuous disregard of the law.

If it were up to me, that ratbag bitch would never get out of prison until she was in a wooden box

In conjunction with this case there was a report recently released by the police which stated that so far this year they had dealt with over 20,000 instances of unlicensed driving. Unless the actions of these jerks result in some kind of serious injury, death or damage, nearly all of them will get a fine and a stern talking to and that's about it. In these cases it's not the fault of the police but that of an idiotic out-of-touch judiciary which ties police hands and prevents them from taking the sort of action I'm sure they would rather take.

In regards to Eminent Domain, there is similar legislation here but which is referred to as "resumption" or "compulsory acquisition" (this is mentioned in the Wiki article mandru referred to). It's not too much of a problem here but there have been controversial applications of it, such as developers trying to snatch up homes or public parks in order to build shopping centres or apartment complexes, or something else that is clearly not in the public's interest but in the developers'. Sometimes the public wins, sometimes they don't. The ones that do only do so after lengthy and costly legal wrestling.

There was a win in my town's sister community where developers wanted to replace a lovely bit of parkland with a huge Woolworths supermarket, despite the fact that a huge Woolworths already exists just a few blocks away from where they wanted to build and another one is located just a few kilometres away in my town (the two towns are commonly referred to as a collective hyphenated name comprising both towns' names since they originally began as two separate communities on opposing sides of a lake, until a long bridge was built linking them into what is now essentially one big town). The total population of both towns adds up to about 20,000 and definitely does not need another huge supermarket, especially considering that there is also a very large Coles supermarket on my side of the lake - in the very same shopping complex that houses the Woolworths. 20,000 people don't need four massive supermarkets, so in this case some semblance of common sense prevailed, even though it cost the community a lot of time and money having to jump through all the legal hoops to get their win.

[Art Blade]

I don't post much in this topic because I simply wouldn't know where to start and when to end. I concur with everyone here as we share (hence "common") sense and reading those stories renders me speechless with disbelief and leaves me with a feeling of helplessness combined with anger. And knowing that we can't change the system without becoming part of it first, something I much rather abstain from or I'd end up wanting to remove myself.