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U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property

nytimes.com

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Re: U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property

#121

Post by HillaryBriss »

Retra wrote: post #88
saas_sam wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No country on Earth affords equal rights to citizens and non-citizens. If this "terrifies" you, I encourage you to reflect on your fears and whether some of them may be disproportionate to reality.

Everyone should have basic protections, or "fundamental" rights. Those are things that exist as a matter of basic human decency. Nonbasic rights are more like privileges, and they can apply discriminately.

A relevant recent case: the 9th circuit allowed to stand a federal law that limits 2nd amendment rights for certain non citizens unlawfully present in the US:

"... The panel affirmed a conviction for possessing a firearm while being an alien unlawfully in the United States in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(5)(A)."

http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2019/01/08/15...

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property

#122

Post by dragonwriter »

eco wrote: post #87
colmmacc wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a permanent resident who lives in the US, the idea that basic protections of law should only apply to citizens is terrifying. It's not the same outcome at all. Due process is afforded to "persons".

The 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause ("nor shall any State [...] deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws") means aliens are afforded the same protections as citizens.

No, it means that states must have a pretty good reason for treating aliens differently, but the fact that an act which would otherwise be within their power is federally prohibited when targeting citizens but not aliens—the outcome of a Privileges and Immunities basis for incorporation rather than the more historically common Due Process one—may itself be sufficient to allow a distinction.

I mean, your basic argument is that Thomas is just pointlessly making semantic disagreements with the majority that would have no effect on this or any other conceivable case because either basis for incorporation produces exactly the same result not only on the present case but all possible cases. While I have a low opinion of Thomas, it's not quite that low.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property

#123

Post by dsfyu404ed »

lostapathy wrote: post #42
qrbLPHiKpiux wrote: post #3

What is scary is that something like the Patriot Act can be signed in overnight and something like this will take decades.

The interesting thing, though, is that once a civil right is established and incorporated against the states, it's basically unassailable under our system. So while it takes a long time to get those rights properly enshrined, at least they seem to be safe.

>So while it takes a long time to get those rights properly enshrined, at least they seem to be safe.

Our rights are so unassailable that I need to repeatedly pay a non-negligible amount of money to the government bear arms and get the approval of my local police chief if I want said arms to be reasonably modern. /s

Some animals are more equal than others. Some rights are more unassailable than others. At least I can bitch about it on the internet and nobody's quartering troops in my home (edit: yet).

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property

#124

Post by mehrdadn »

dragonwriter wrote: post #109
whatshisface wrote: post #6

> Justice Thomas agreed with the result in the case, Timbs v. Indiana, No. 17-1091, but said he would have gotten to the same place by a different route. While the majority relied on the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, Justice Thomas said he would have ruled “the right to be free from excessive fines is one of the ‘privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States’ protected by the 14th Amendment.”…

No, the rest of the court found the the excessive punishment protection of the eighth amendment was applied to the states through the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment as an essential right and therefore a component of “liberty” as used in the due process clause. Thomas disagrees with this fairly conventional incorporation argument and the idea of the protection as a fundamental right, but feels instead that a…

> noncitizens necessarily do not enjoy the privileges and immunities of citizens.

Would you have more reading on this? It's something I've wondered about but never really come across a comprehensive answer to. What rights do noncitizens not have that citizens do?

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property

#125

Post by da_chicken »

The important thing to understand about this case is the background and what the SCotUS actually ruled on. It's actually rather narrow ruling even if it is extremely important. The court exercised judicial restraint here, and made the minimum ruling necessary.

Timbs was convicted of possession/sale/whatever, jailed for a year, and fined $1,200. The state confiscated his Range Rover as well.

Timbs sued or appealed the confiscation by Indiana, which he he could prove he didn't buy with drug money. The judge of the lower court of Indiana agreed.

The state appealed the judge's ruling. The Indiana Supreme Court reversed the lower court's decision, ruling that the 8th Amendment did not apply to the states.

The SCotUS unanimously disagreed and vacated the Indiana Supreme Court's ruling. The 8th Amendment does apply to the states. However, that's all that they ruled upon. They didn't not rule on whether or not confiscating the SUV was an excessive fine, and remanded the case back to the Indiana state courts.

Now the state of Indiana will be given an opportunity to prove in Indiana court that confiscating the SUV is not an excessive fine. That seems unlikely, however, since the charge Timbs was convicted of carried a statutory maximum fine of $10,000, well below the value of the SUV.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property

#126

Post by qrbLPHiKpiux »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #123
lostapathy wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interesting thing, though, is that once a civil right is established and incorporated against the states, it's basically unassailable under our system. So while it takes a long time to get those rights properly enshrined, at least they seem to be safe.

>So while it takes a long time to get those rights properly enshrined, at least they seem to be safe. Our rights are so unassailable that I need to repeatedly pay a non-negligible amount of money to the government bear arms and get the approval of my local police chief if I want said arms to be reasonably modern. /s Some animals are more equal than others. Some rights are more unassailable than others. At least I can…

> nobody's quartering troops in my home. At least, not yet!

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property

#127

Post by oh_sigh »

mehrdadn wrote: post #124
dragonwriter wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the rest of the court found the the excessive punishment protection of the eighth amendment was applied to the states through the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment as an essential right and therefore a component of “liberty” as used in the due process clause. Thomas disagrees with this fairly conventional incorporation argument and the idea of the protection as a fundamental right, but feels instead that a…

> noncitizens necessarily do not enjoy the privileges and immunities of citizens. Would you have more reading on this? It's something I've wondered about but never really come across a comprehensive answer to. What rights do noncitizens not have that citizens do?

Right to vote(though this can be stripped from felon citizens), right to peaceable assembly, right to bear arms.

The Constitution distinguishes natural rights of all persons vs rights and privileges of "the people" being citizens and non-citizen legal residents.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property

#128

Post by da_chicken »

larkeith wrote: post #111
Theodores wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the court case, a man had his car seized when caught selling a few hundred dollars of heroine. Interesting perspective there. Some people think that heroin dealers deserve to be fully hung, drawn and quartered, their head placed on a spike to be pecked at by the crows. Others might think that 'it was just a bit of dope, why should he have to forfeit anything for that?'. The car is potentially proceeds of crime i…

> The car is potentially proceeds of crime The car was reliably documented as being purchased from his father's life insurance proceeds. There was no question of it being potentially purchased by illegal means. Far more importantly, the entire question is irrelevant: we have standardized maximum fines and the burden of proof for very good reasons. Civil forfeiture skips both, making a mockery of the justice system fo…

> The car was reliably documented as being purchased from his father's life insurance proceeds. There was no question of it being potentially purchased by illegal means.

This is why it was such a perfect case for the Supreme Court to rule upon. It was clear that the only justification the state could give for the confiscation was the single conviction.

Cheers to Timbs for being willing to take this all the way to get such an important ruling!

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property

#129

Post by gumby »

burtonator wrote: post #26

What's frustrating here is that so much of our government depends on actual case law. This it's possible for massive injustice to happen for decades before we have a resolution. This is one of the reasons technology can be so frightening because there's no case law and the rate of technology is exponential which means there is the potential for GREAT evil to happen without any resolution except to fight it out and ge…

> What's frustrating here is that so much of our government depends on actual case law.

I'm not sure what's so frustrating about this in principle. It moderates a rush to judgment and lets people work out details, corner cases and flaws of laws.

There's nothing stopping legislatures changing statutes in response to court cases.

(This is not meant as a defense of civil forfeiture which I consider an abomination).

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property

#130

Post by vinceguidry »

GeekyBear wrote: post #57
colmmacc wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a permanent resident who lives in the US, the idea that basic protections of law should only apply to citizens is terrifying. It's not the same outcome at all. Due process is afforded to "persons".

Quite recently, we have had two Presidents claim that non-citizens had no right to challenge their imprisonment by the United States (Bush in Gitmo and Obama on Bagram AFB in the Middle East) who ran smack into a Supreme Court that found their actions unconstitutional. The notion that Constitutional protections cannot apply to non-citizens is simply not true, even when applied to non-citizens being held by the US off…

In the case of non-citizens being held outside of any US jurisdiction, what court has standing to rule? Where would I file a case if I had one?

This reminds me a bit of the Roman concept of the pomerium. Anything outside of the arbitrary line deciding what was Rome and what wasn't, was "anything goes."

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