I’m a firm believer in no rights removed without a trial, and the police have 0 right to seize $18k rolled up in a seat… but also, who does that? Incredibly stupid for a lot of reasons. Yes it’s your prerogative, but just because you can, didn’t mean you should
Using loophole, Seward County seizes millions from motorists without convictions
121–130 of 156 posts
Re: Using loophole, Seward County seizes millions from motorists without convictions
#122Until federal courts put a stop to this insanity, I think congress should pass a bill that cuts off Federal Highway funding to any state that allows this sort of thing to happen.
State of Nebraska can put an end to it, they choose not to.
What's worse: The county government can put an end to it, they choose not too.
Most discussions about reforming or ending civil asset forfeiture focus on statehouse and federal solutions, but there's nothing stopping local governments from simply reining in their law enforcement via policy direction.
Re: Using loophole, Seward County seizes millions from motorists without convictions
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
I get a yearly letter from county Treasurer demanding I pay them to avoid having my private, not commercial, house stolen. Government asset seizure is widespread.
wait a moment. do they auction the house and just keep the unpaid taxes or do they keep 100% of it?
They sell the "tax debt". After some time the purchaser of the debt paper can ask Treasurer to make a special deed for the whole property. Poof it's all gone.
Re: Using loophole, Seward County seizes millions from motorists without convictions
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
It creates many perverse incentives for law enforcement. Even if you require a conviction before CAF can be applied, it means that police funding is directly tied to number of convictions instead of the health of the community, and in particular ties funding to convictions in cases where large amounts of money are involved. This disincentivizes preventatory measures of any sort (because preventing crime brings no pro…
If he'd actually been caught trafficking, he'd have been guilty of the offense charged. I don't understand the conflict. It sounds like maybe you more broadly oppose cannabis prohibition in Nebraska? Most people here do!
Another way to see why this is a problem: Let’s assume the police has only time to investigate 1 case. But there are two currently to be handled. One is a high profile drug dealer presumably flowing in cash, the other one is a homeless potential murderer. Which case will the police solve, given that they know they will be able to keep half the cash from the dealer, but there won’t be anything to size from the homeless?
Re: Using loophole, Seward County seizes millions from motorists without convictions
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
I get a yearly letter from county Treasurer demanding I pay them to avoid having my private, not commercial, house stolen. Government asset seizure is widespread.
When you bought your house in that place you agreed to pay that tax. You could have bought it somewhere else (with fewer services or job opportunities). I'm not disagreeing that it sucks, but you could just move to rural Mexico and not have to deal with your county treasurer.
>> you agreed to pay that tax.
It is not in seller's disclosure. It is not a recorded lien against the property. I did not sign a services contract with county. Most everbody pays the bill because government power.
Re: Using loophole, Seward County seizes millions from motorists without convictions
#126This raises a question: why carry that much cash with you? Two things can be true at the same time: cops should not be seizing cash from folks on the side of the road without clear evidence of a crime, and it looks shady as hell if you are traveling with $18k in the backseat of your car.
About five years ago, I was moving apartments, and some of my coworkers offered to help me. I decided to withdraw about $100 to buy them pizza or something in gratitude (spoiler alert: they didn't accept any material gratitude.)
So I went to an ATM that belonged to a local credit union and I withdrew 5 $20 bills. Then I popped into a pharmacy, where I was a regular customer and the workers knew me, and I requested that they break the $20 while I purchased some candy or something inexpensive.
The pharmacy technician looked suspiciously at the bill I gave him, turned it around in the light, asked a coworker what he thought, and he handed it back to me, saying, "This is counterfeit money. We can't accept it."
A bit more context: this pharmacy was at a very busy crossroads of tourism, college students, and rambunctious homeless people.
So I slightly freaked out but I promptly reached into my wallet and pulled out a second $20 and said "here, how about this one?" and each bill was roundly rejected in turn. They didn't say why or point out the deficiencies on them, they just flat refused to accept them as legal tender.
So I got out of there and I took my wallet full of funny-money directly to my credit union. Hey, what do you do when you've just been caught passing $100 in counterfeit currency? You stick your neck out and try to get arrested or something?
So I approached the teller window and I showed them the money, and explained how it was rejected. And the banker started examining it, and called over a second guy to check it out, and they scoffed and they said it's all real, don't worry about it. And then we had an interesting conversation about what a retail worker is really supposed to do when presented with counterfeit money.
Of course I learned my lesson that day, and I was very silly to ever doubt the authenticity of the money. I am fairly well-versed in the common security features of American money, and I could tell just by look and feel that they were all present on these bills, so if they had been counterfeit, they were really, really good!
Re: Using loophole, Seward County seizes millions from motorists without convictions
#127While the cited behaviour is really astonishing, as a EU citizen, I must say that I still find it very curious that somebody drives around the country with that large amount of cash. I'd never (and most people here wouldn't either) travel with more than, say, $1000 in cash, and I would rely on ATM/electronic transactions/checks for additional money. Surely it wouldn't be illegal in any EU country that I know of (but…
> but just any law enforcement would find such an amount of cash suspicious, and probably trigger an investigation It feels like it's almost illegal to own cash when I read this. Would someone please tell why? It's OK to live in a debt, probably a very high one, buying expensive things like luxury car in credit. Is it forbidden to save cash? If it's OK, then why is it suspicious to travel in a car with cash?
It is not forbidden, but certainly inconvenient.
Get a burglar visit your home, and poof! Your savings are gone. Also, zero interest on those (admittedly less of a concern in the 2009-2022 era).
Travel with car, drop the bag somewhere, or have an accident. Poof! Money gone.
It’s just so inconvenient to move such amount of cash that I’d probably ask myself _why_ somebody would do that in 2023.
Re: Using loophole, Seward County seizes millions from motorists without convictions
#128Until federal courts put a stop to this insanity, I think congress should pass a bill that cuts off Federal Highway funding to any state that allows this sort of thing to happen.
Comments like this, however well-meaning, are so frustrating because they invite such a wide variety of reality checks that correct the specific impossibilities … but there is a very clear imperative and nothing to attach it to. Federal courts should, and won’t. Congress should, and won’t. There are numerous others who should, and won’t. We have countless examples of impenetrable injustice like this, and there isn’t…
To clarify, I’m under no delusion that there’s a chance this would actually happen. I was really just making a comment about how I think this should be handled in the hypothetical of the US having a functioning political system.
Re: Using loophole, Seward County seizes millions from motorists without convictions
#129Without wanting to offer an opinion on the case presented in this article, and certainly not wanting to argue in favor of civil asset forfeiture, which is obviously abused nationwide, the author of this news piece definitely smoothed down the facts alleged in Bouldin's case: The officer testified to various pieces of information that he obtained during the stop that led him to believe that Bouldin intended to purchas…
> Again: obviously, there's a counterpoint that people shouldn't have to hire lawyers to keep their cash, I get it.
Given this, I don't understand the point of the rest of your post. The cop suspects he might commit a crime in the future, but there is no evidence of a crime being committed. It should just end right there.
Re: Using loophole, Seward County seizes millions from motorists without convictions
#130Without wanting to offer an opinion on the case presented in this article, and certainly not wanting to argue in favor of civil asset forfeiture, which is obviously abused nationwide, the author of this news piece definitely smoothed down the facts alleged in Bouldin's case: The officer testified to various pieces of information that he obtained during the stop that led him to believe that Bouldin intended to purchas…
I have to agree here. The author, I would argue, does the topic a disservice by not presenting the details of the state's arguments and evidence against Bouldin, and not more clearly distinguishing stories of two methods here. The "abandonment" form and negotiation, sounds quite a bit like legalized bribery. But with Bouldin, given the evidence (to what you quote, the supreme court summary [1] adds that his prior con…
> he was, more likely than not, on a trip to smuggle marijuana.
> The money was more likely than not to be for the purpose of smuggling marijuana.
What is the basis of these claims? Do you have any statistics backing it up? Do you, for example, know how often Bouldin drives with cash in his car and do you know how often Bouldin engages in smuggling of marijuana with said cash?