Supreme Court Will Decide If Civil Forfeiture Is Unconstitutional, Violates The Eighth Amendment

[SMS]

I heard that the fella who had his $100K plus of church money confiscated here in Oklahoma back in 2012 finally got his money back, minus court costs and legal fees.

Hopefully this Supreme Court case starts to change this unconstitutional practice.

 

[doctorjj]

Was your house used in the commission of a crime? No? Then it's not seized. It has (at least in theory, it has been abused and that should be punished as well) nothing to do with revenue generation. It's a punishment. Same thing with speeding tickets. Instead of time in jail or community service, a small fine is paid for traffic violations. People see that as illegal, but yet they have no answer to how else you should punish someone for traffic violations.

Point blank is anything you use to commit a crime is first used as evidence then given to the municipality that arrested you after a guilty verdict. If you are found innocent or are not charged, those items should be returned. That is how it is supposed to work.

Maybe that’s how it’s suposed to work but it certainly never does work that way. Cash always becomes police property and is difficult to ever get back. No matter if there was never any connection to any crime or if charges are dropped or you are acquitted. They still try to keep your cash. It’s a revenue generator, as Dave mentioned.

 

[Tanis143]

Maybe that’s how it’s suposed to work but it certainly never does work that way. Cash always becomes police property and is difficult to ever get back. No matter if there was never any connection to any crime or if charges are dropped or you are acquitted. They still try to keep your cash. It’s a revenue generator, as Dave mentioned.

Yes, thats because it was seized under civil forfeiture, a practice that needs to be terminated. And I agree that CF needs to be stopped.

 

[doctorjj]

Yes, thats because it was seized under civil forfeiture, a practice that needs to be terminated. And I agree that CF needs to be stopped.

Ok yeah, we totally agree on that. This convo has flipped between the two forfeiture a couple times and I didn’t realize which we were talking about at the time.

 

[Dave70968]

Maybe that’s how it’s suposed to work but it certainly never does work that way. Cash always becomes police property and is difficult to ever get back. No matter if there was never any connection to any crime or if charges are dropped or you are acquitted....

...or if charges are never even filed.

 

[Tanis143]

Ok yeah, we totally agree on that. This convo has flipped between the two forfeiture a couple times and I didn’t realize which we were talking about at the time.

Yes, to put it plainly: You get arrested, all items are seized as evidence. Found not guilty, acquitted, or no charges = all items returned. Found guilty, all items are surrendered to the state for liquidation and goes towards the police funds. This only pertains to items that you were using to commit the crime. For instance: you get caught distributing meth, the car you were in, the cash you had in possession, cell phone and knife you had in your pocket for protect are all seized. Once convicted all items are liquidated and the cash is given to the police fund. You get picked up on a warrant for murder. You have the weapon on you, plus some cash, phone, some jewelry. Only the murder weapon is seized, the rest is put in a personal items box to be returned if you bail out or are released.

 

[Dave70968]

Yes, to put it plainly: You get arrested, all items are seized as evidence. Found not guilty, acquitted, or no charges = all items returned. Found guilty, all items are surrendered to the state for liquidation and goes towards the police funds. This only pertains to items that you were using to commit the crime. For instance: you get caught distributing meth, the car you were in, the cash you had in possession, cell phone and knife you had in your pocket for protect are all seized. Once convicted all items are liquidated and the cash is given to the police fund. You get picked up on a warrant for murder. You have the weapon on you, plus some cash, phone, some jewelry. Only the murder weapon is seized, the rest is put in a personal items box to be returned if you bail out or are released.

It shouldn't be given to the police fund; that creates a perverse incentive for them, and can lead to them "manufacturing" cases, or at least "enhancing" what they find to ensure a conviction.

Let it go to the state. Not even the city, the state. It needs to be sufficiently remote that the people actually doing the arresting, investigation, and confiscation don't feel a tangible benefit.

 

[SMS]

It shouldn't be given to the police fund; that creates a perverse incentive for them, and can lead to them "manufacturing" cases, or at least "enhancing" what they find to ensure a conviction.

Let it go to the state. Not even the city, the state. It needs to be sufficiently remote that the people actually doing the arresting, investigation, and confiscation don't feel a tangible benefit.

Exactly, it creates the situation we had here in Oklahoma with district attorneys contracting with "interdiction specialists" to train officers and increase forfeitures. The contract company got a cut of every seizure of course. The situation even resulted in a civilian "instructor" conducting traffic stops and questioning drivers, but the D.A. said it was ok because "there was a real cop there the whole time" LOL.

 

[Tanis143]

It shouldn't be given to the police fund; that creates a perverse incentive for them, and can lead to them "manufacturing" cases, or at least "enhancing" what they find to ensure a conviction.

Let it go to the state. Not even the city, the state. It needs to be sufficiently remote that the people actually doing the arresting, investigation, and confiscation don't feel a tangible benefit.

I can see that point of view. And in a way I agree with it. But then you get into the motivation aspect of law enforcement. Lets face it, a certain percentage of cops are lazy and will not enforce the law unless there is a tangible reason to do so. IMO those cops need to be removed and replaced with people who become cops to make their area safer for the average citizen. That being said people need motivation to do anything. Traffic fines, jail time, asset forfeiture, and loss of privileges/rights are all negative motivation to get people to comply with the law. Without a way to enforce negative motivation for cops not enforcing the law, there has to be a positive motivation. Its a double edged sword but such is the way with people. We could scream that all cops should be saints with guns, that they should strictly adhere to precise principles, but this is real life.

We could think up ways to make this better and with each new idea there would be probably a dozen new ways to abuse that idea. Until we can have robots that are not susceptible to laziness, corruption, poor anger management and basically everything that CNN shows us about cops, we have to work with the reality that some cops are going to abuse their power. We have to find a way to create an oversight for those few while providing sufficient motivation for the middle of the road cops to enforce the law.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[BReeves]

Shouldn't need any motivation to do the job you are being paid to do, different world today and I do not like it.