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Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

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Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#231

Post by btilly »

dragonwriter wrote: post #214
btilly wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, yes. I know the legal fiction. You can find it well-described at https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/forfeiture . But my description of how it actually happens is still valid. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/30/why-t... for a recent case where exactly this happened. And it links to 3 other cases where money was seized from travelers, with no criminal charge ever being filed against anyone. In…

> And it links to 3 other cases where money was seized from travelers, with no criminal charge ever being filed against anyone. If the people from whom the property was seized were denied (or not notified of) their rights to contest the forfeiture action, that would be something to be upset about. I don't see why we should be upset that the government took civil action without filing criminal charges; the civil burde…

First, the reason to be concerned about civil forfeiture is well stated at http://uclawreview.org/2014/04/29/criminal-forfeiture-is-tak.... The problem is that we introduced it for a specific purpose, and over time the laws have been used expansively and creatively against an ever growing category of people and businesses many of which bear no obvious relationship to organized crime.

I believe that this long ago crossed the line to being actually used as civil rights abuse.

On this case, you're mostly right. The seizure happened under civil forfeiture law, a the second paragraph of The Economist article makes that clear. So this really is a question about civil forfeiture law. But it is tied to a potential criminal civil forfeiture.

Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#232

Post by pessimizer »

javajosh wrote: post #124
pessimizer wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another problem is when (usually) black America sees a police boot on someone's face, and notes that statistically it's usually a black face, and their instinct is to say, "Well, I guess it was because he was black." When confronted with stories where the face is white, they say nothing. This is nonsense that you're using to generate a false equivalence. White American media has absolutely no interest in what black…

If that's true, that's great. I would love to see more (well, any) black leaders talk about police brutality in general, and not in relation to race. Do you have any links? In truth, every time I've seen anyone speak in front of TV cameras about the police, it's always about race. Maybe it is selection bias. But somehow, I don't think so.

You're the one who made the claim. I'm the one that said that you had absolutely no evidence for the claim, and that you created it to fit your rhetoric.

> But somehow, I don't think so.

Reason by whimsy?

Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#233

Post by BookmarkSaver »

rayiner wrote: post #110
runako wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguments like this are why it's a good thing we don't base our criminal justice system on statistics. "Innocent until proven guilty" is very different from "Guilty because most people in similar situations are guilty, so let's not bother to prove it in this case." The cops would have a field day, for instance by arresting college students at random on the weekend because statistically most will test positive for con…

"Proof" by evidence is an inherently statistical process. E.g. cops find a DNA match between a suspect and skin cells found under a murder victim's fingernails under circumstances where it is clear she tried to fight off her attacker. Does that "prove" guilt? No, it proves that under similar circumstances, guilty is highly likely. The problem is not that the justice system is statistical. That's unavoidable. The prob…

Yes, but statistically analyzing the likelihood of guilt using given evidence is different than arbitrarily linking blanket cases where there is no defined connection. Just saying "cash is suspicious so we are allowed to seize it whenever we see a lot of it" is a blatant violation of property rights. There is absolutely no crime that can be linked directly to cash ownership.

Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#234

Post by geon »

humanrebar wrote: post #78
geon wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As George Carlin said; your rights can be taken away whenever convenient. Thus, they are not really rights at all, but temporary privileges. http://youtube.com/watch?v=m9-R8T1SuG4

Some rights are inalienable, so they cannot be taken away, just violated. The right to justice is one of those. The right to life. The right to free expression. It's pretty obvious that they exist, otherwise nobody would really care about murder, rape, theft, fraud, lying, etc. So the burden of proof is on those that want to limit or deny inalienable rights. George Carlin is hilarious (at least in general), but ironi…

> Some rights are inalienable

He addresses that. A right has to be granted by someone. Who grants these inalienable rights? If you answer is "God", or "they just are", your thinking is circular.

If your answer is "the government/state", you are wrong. The government/state grants you this "right", and takes it away as it pleases, so it is actually not inalienable.

TLDR; An inalienable right that is systematically violated is not very inalienable, is it?

Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#235

Post by geon »

humanrebar wrote: post #177
soylentcola wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his intention wasn't so much to say this is a positive thing but rather to cynically (and humorously) point out that "rights" are a human construct and susceptible to all of the associated weaknesses in practice. You can claim a right to something and if you can get enough people to agree with you, you can enforce someone's claim on the right to something. But it's not like there's a natural force that ensure…

> But it's not like there's a natural force that ensures, compels, or mandates these rights. A lot of really well regarded philosophers throughout the ages have disagreed with that. > I guess my point is that taken less cynically, rights... only exist [with] sufficient power If I follow that line of thinking, justice is only an extension of power. I don't think people agree with that. I don't believe you think that.…

> we don't say it was OK for Thomas Jefferson to own slaves (...) We say the slaves had their rights violated

You are confusing legality with morality. There isn't necessarily any connection.

Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#236

Post by anonbanker »

rayiner wrote: post #208
makomk wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a look at United States v. One Ford Coupe Automobile for a start. I'm not convinced you're entirely correct in saying that "the money isn't charged" either. So far as I can tell, the idea that the money is in fact being charged is an important part of the legal justification for asset forfeiture in the absence of an actual criminal conviction, or indeed actual culpability on the part of the owner. From Bennis v.…

That quote from Justice Story is precisely why such proceedings are not a "penalty for a crime [the Government] assert[s] [someone] committed." The purpose of such proceedings is to confiscate property used for illegal purposes (so it cannot continue to be used for illegal purposes), not to punish the owners of the property. Hence why in that case they confiscated the ship "whether [the owner] be innocent or guilty."

So, at this exact moment, I had someone asking me what the difference between brackets and parenthesis was, legally, and I was able to hand them the laptop, and say "that".

baader-meinhoff or just serendipity, thanks. :)

Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#237

Post by dragonwriter »

humanrebar wrote: post #78
geon wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As George Carlin said; your rights can be taken away whenever convenient. Thus, they are not really rights at all, but temporary privileges. http://youtube.com/watch?v=m9-R8T1SuG4

Some rights are inalienable, so they cannot be taken away, just violated. The right to justice is one of those. The right to life. The right to free expression. It's pretty obvious that they exist, otherwise nobody would really care about murder, rape, theft, fraud, lying, etc. So the burden of proof is on those that want to limit or deny inalienable rights. George Carlin is hilarious (at least in general), but ironi…

> Some rights are inalienable, so they cannot be taken away, just violated.

The concept of inalienable rights is a moral axiom accepted by some (sort of like the existence of a God with certain preferences, in fact, many conceptions of inalienable rights are specifically beliefs about the existence of a God with specific preferences); its not a material fact or a supportable conclusion.

And, of course, people who agree that inalienable rights exist disagree on what those rights are (even those that agree on the names of inalienable rights disagree on the definitions of the rights that those name attach to.)

> It's pretty obvious that they exist, otherwise nobody would really care about murder, rape, theft, fraud, lying, etc.

The fact that some people care about these things establishes that those people have certain moral preferences; it doesn't establish the existence of inalienable rights (in fact, many of the people who do care about these things do so based on justifications other than inalienable rights.)

Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#238

Post by humanrebar »

dragonwriter wrote: post #237
humanrebar wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some rights are inalienable, so they cannot be taken away, just violated. The right to justice is one of those. The right to life. The right to free expression. It's pretty obvious that they exist, otherwise nobody would really care about murder, rape, theft, fraud, lying, etc. So the burden of proof is on those that want to limit or deny inalienable rights. George Carlin is hilarious (at least in general), but ironi…

> Some rights are inalienable, so they cannot be taken away, just violated. The concept of inalienable rights is a moral axiom accepted by some (sort of like the existence of a God with certain preferences, in fact, many conceptions of inalienable rights are specifically beliefs about the existence of a God with specific preferences); its not a material fact or a supportable conclusion. And, of course, people who agr…

> its not a material fact or a supportable conclusion

Of course, the same argument apply to the axiom that the rights don't exist.

However, there is a lot of weight to the argument that there is a common list of universally reprehensible wrongs (murder, rape, etc.). Inferring rights from those wrongs is reasonable and doesn't require much in way of explaining where they come from.

I'm not sure why people are so eager to disprove the existence of rights, to be honest. The wholesale embrace of moral nihilism seems empirically worse. Or at least, more conservatively, empirically untested and therefore risky.

Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#239

Post by logfromblammo »

Pxtl wrote: post #145
bionsuba wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tons (if not all) of gun laws exist in the US that are unconstitutional. You many not know this as a UK citizen but the gun industry in the US is very regulated, e.g. creating a gun from scratch by yourself and selling it to someone else is illegal.

.... it would seem to be a fairly extreme interpretation of the 2nd amendment to support the creation of uncontrolled, unsafe, unlicensed, untracked firearms. The 2nd amendment just says you have to be able to own and carry weapons, with a rough implication that they should be fit for military purpose. The idea that registration or quality or safety requirements are somehow unconstitutional is and has always been abs…

They become less absurd in light of other abuses against civil rights.

~The 14th Amendment just says that blacks have equal rights to vote as whites. The idea that poll taxes or literacy tests or official intimidation while in transit to the polling places are somehow unconstitutional is and always has been... absolutely correct.~

In some counties, bearing a concealed firearm requires a permit issued by the sheriff. In some counties, the sheriffs do not issue any permits. In others, the sheriffs issue fewer permits to black people than the local demographic statistics would otherwise suggest.

Do you understand now why such subtle and apparently reasonable encroachments upon a right must be scrutinized so very closely?

Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#240

Post by humanrebar »

geon wrote: post #235
humanrebar wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it's not like there's a natural force that ensures, compels, or mandates these rights. A lot of really well regarded philosophers throughout the ages have disagreed with that. > I guess my point is that taken less cynically, rights... only exist [with] sufficient power If I follow that line of thinking, justice is only an extension of power. I don't think people agree with that. I don't believe you think that.…

> we don't say it was OK for Thomas Jefferson to own slaves (...) We say the slaves had their rights violated You are confusing legality with morality. There isn't necessarily any connection.

I am speaking strictly morally (or ethically if you prefer). Jefferson obviously had the legal right to own slaves. The fact that the laws themselves were unjust is my point.
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