[HN Gopher] The Constitutionality of Civil Forfeiture
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The Constitutionality of Civil Forfeiture
Author : luu
Score : 58 points
Date : 2022-05-20 17:34 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.yalelawjournal.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.yalelawjournal.org)
| trevcanhuman wrote:
| (2016)
| dataangel wrote:
| didn't it already get ruled unconstitutional?
| wahern wrote:
| No. I believe the most recent high-profile case merely
| established that state civil forfeitures were subject to the
| 8th Amendment prohibition on excessive fines:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbs_v._Indiana
|
| It's unlikely it would ever be declared unconstitutional. More
| likely (but still not very) courts will eat around the edges,
| minimizing the ability of law enforcement to use asset
| forfeitures as a substitute for proper criminal prosecution.
| (Note that in the Timbs case he _was_ simultaneously criminally
| prosecuted, and (IIRC) it was undisputed his vehicle was used
| in the commission of a crime. Depending on how you look at it,
| this context could bode well or bode poorly for future judicial
| reform.) Much more likely still is legislatures passing laws to
| reign in law enforcement use of civil forfeiture. Still a very
| long way to go, though.
| lumost wrote:
| It occurred to me that civil forfeiture in the US may have
| been an attempt to regulate highway robbery. The US
| traditionally had giant swaths of lightly populated territory
| between population centers. Most other regions of the world
| with similar dynamics have struggled with lawmen or other
| highwaymen illegally confiscating property in such
| situations.
|
| Did we simply make highway robbery legal if it's done with a
| badge?
| s5300 wrote:
| I think it's a bit less nefarious than that & mostly just
| another way to fuck over minorities & make them submissive
| to authority.
|
| It isn't too often you hear about joe average white guy
| getting held up in a civil forfeiture dispute. Completely
| innocent aside from not being white on the other hand, it
| comes to light every now & then.
|
| Without trying to incite a political flame war in these
| comments - you don't really hear about the US Republican
| Party of personal freedoms & ability to shoot & kill
| anybody who steals from you trying to overturn civil
| forfeiture.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Right, they don't expect to have it done to them.
| dkackman11 wrote:
| This, along with the private prison systems, creates perverse
| incentives in criminal justice.
| rayiner wrote:
| It should be noted that the DOJ started phasing out private
| prisons last year, and most states don't have any significant
| number of people in private prisons:
| https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/private-
| priso.... Additionally, the prisons folks tend to hear about in
| terms of abuses, like Rikers in NY, are good old public
| prisons.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Private prisons are good at silencing prisoners.
| rayiner wrote:
| [citation needed]
| Supermancho wrote:
| https://www.fedemploymentlaw.com/blog/2022/03/a-spotlight
| -on...
|
| Google is there for your further investigation beyond the
| first result.
| badrabbit wrote:
| In Justice period. The victims often have no relation to crime
| or criminal prosecution.
|
| It's not a bug, it's a feature. The system is working as
| intended. It is no accident that the US has #1 incarceration
| rate on the planet. A significant portion of the population and
| and even higher portion of those in government believe
| manipulation and control of certain groups in the population is
| more important than any notion of justice or law an order.
| Their love for their country pales in comparison to their
| hatred and greed.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| > The victims often have no relation to crime or criminal
| prosecution.
|
| What does this mean?
| ncmncm wrote:
| Somebody else used their property to e.g. transport
| contraband. Often enough, stole it.
|
| Wasn't long ago a twin engine Beechcraft was stolen, used,
| and confiscated. The owner never got it back because the
| DEA argued they needed it.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| When they outlawed general slavery, they specifically enshrined
| the type of slavery taking place at state penns every day.
| Terry_Roll wrote:
| I'm surprised people still fall for a legal dictatorship
| masquerading as a democracy that has the audacity to not even
| teach a TL;DR of law in school to everyone and give periodic
| updates to the public ensuring all have seen and _agreed_ to the
| legal dictatorship!
|
| What about the taxation dictatorship? The beauty of institutional
| dictatorships like Law, Finance & Medicine is they dont die
| unlike people. Your enemies are the people who control these
| institutions.
|
| At least the human dictator's like Pinochet, Saddam Hussein,
| Hitler, Stalin, Franco, and others didnt attempt to hide their
| existence and their cruelty unlike the institutional
| dictatorships who pass the buck to another entity if they cant
| lay the blame on your failings whilst not recognising their own
| failings!
|
| Trump was more intelligent than most realise when he called for a
| protest outside the Capitol Building. These faceless individuals
| who control your life in return for monkey tokens are your real
| enemies because they control so many people's lives and they only
| allow you to change the diversionary puppets aka politicians
| every few years.
|
| When people wise up to whats going on, it always ultimately boils
| down to the most violent win, with that in mind, be mindful we
| could all be sleepwalking into another world war to make everyone
| humble to the puppeteers.
| jstx1 wrote:
| This is on the long list of reasons why the US sometimes seems to
| be hostile to its own citizens.
| Maursault wrote:
| That's lot of reaching around to dilute and negate the 4th, 5th
| and 14th Amendments.
| sudden_dystopia wrote:
| F'in lawyers. Scourge of humanity. Yea I know, there are good
| people that are lawyers. But F them too.
| a1369209993 wrote:
| > Yea I know, there are good people that are lawyers.
|
| As the saying goes, ninety percent of lawyers give the rest a
| bad name.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| Although I am not a lawyer, One weakness I see in this analysis
| is that it is taking as precedent things enforced mainly extra-
| territorially (smuggling) and using it to justify actions that
| have been mainly enforced domestically (civil forfeiture).
|
| I personally would have a lot less problem with civil forfeiture
| if it were mainly something enforced at the borders. If someone
| attempts to smuggle in a bunch of cocaine at the US-Canada border
| and gets their car and the cocaine confiscated, is not as
| troubling.
|
| I do have a bunch of issues if someone is driving along in the
| US, gets pulled over and then gets his car confiscated.
|
| The Constitution and Jurisprudence has made a distinction between
| actions performed extra-territorially and domestically.
|
| This analysis ignores that distinction and as such IMO does not
| establish that civil forfeiture as practiced currently is
| constitutional.
|
| EDIT:
|
| One example of this distinction is piracy. When America was first
| founded, pirates captured on the high seas were often summarily
| executed. However, the practice could not be used to justify the
| police doing that domestically.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| > If someone attempts to smuggle in a bunch of cocaine at the
| US-Canada border and gets their car and the cocaine
| confiscated, is not as troubling.
|
| But in this case, the person could be arrested and it should be
| (is?) possible to confiscate the possessions they have on them.
| But the confiscation should be "against the person", not the
| object. And if the judicial system can't prove the person was
| guilty of a crime, and that those possessions were involved,
| then they should need to return them.
|
| The way things currently work, that same person could be coming
| across the border with $20,000 in cash on them. The police see
| it and decide it _must_ be crime related because "who would
| carry that kind of money on them for any other reason" and
| confiscate the money... all without actually charging the
| person with a crime.
|
| And that's bad. And the fact that it's a border issue is
| irrelevant. At most, the border officers should be saying
| "we're not comfortable with you bringing that much money over
| the border in cash, you are denied entry", and sending them
| back along their way.
| hitovst wrote:
| We are occupied. All who are complicit can never allow us to
| become a lawful society.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> and the fact that claimants are not afforded the procedural
| protections that the Constitution requires for criminal
| defendants.
|
| This is a hit piece on the constitution. The secure in our
| possessions language is plain and simple. To pretend those
| protections are more nuanced is disingenuos.
| SnowHill9902 wrote:
| That's because forfeiture is a civil claim against assets not a
| criminal procedure against a defendant. It's argued that those
| assets were not the defendant's to begin with.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| It's basis is in abandoned property that was likely illegally
| obtained, where they can't find an owner.
|
| It's been stretched to include having $2k in cash in your car
| while driving.
| crooked-v wrote:
| Except for all the cases when they obviously are, making the
| whole process a blatant end run around the fourth amendment.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| That would be fine with me if the onus was on the government
| to prove the assets weren't legally acquired. Now it is up to
| the person to prove the assets were legally acquired.
| SnowHill9902 wrote:
| I'm just explaining the rationale. At this point it's a
| moral discussion rather than legal: does the "war on drugs"
| et al trump individual rights? If yes, you'd be in favor of
| forfeiture, if not, you'd be against.
| crooked-v wrote:
| Except it's not really a moral discussion, it's a legal
| one--and the most fundamental laws of the country
| obviously ban the tactic.
|
| The article uses a lot of sophistry to try and argue that
| the plain and obvious intended reading of the Fourth
| Amendment isn't correct, and that's obviously nonsense,
| both in a vacuum and in the context of when and why it
| was written.
| SnowHill9902 wrote:
| Laws codify the underlying morality of a society so they
| are not divorced and independent one from the other.
| There may be a significant lag between both, though and
| at times one may lead the other.
| ncmncm wrote:
| No. With no conviction, there is no legitimate claim of a
| crime.
|
| Very often the confiscation is not connected to an
| indictment, or even an arrest. "Oh, you have cash! We'll
| take that, you're free to go. Scram."
|
| Sometimes the cop just wants your Camaro.
| ncmncm wrote:
| A thief can always explain why he was perfectly justified in
| stealing.
| SnowHill9902 wrote:
| Probably won't cut it.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| Unless the thief is a cop, of course.
| [deleted]
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