Without 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.
Using loophole, Seward County seizes millions from motorists without convictions
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Re: Using loophole, Seward County seizes millions from motorists without convictions
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I'm not taking a stance on drugs. I'm not saying him losing $18k as a fine would be a problem. I'm saying that the police requisitioning his $18k and that money going towards the department budget creates perverse incentives for the police. If that money went to funding schools the problem would be much less severe. But when the head of the police department gets CAF money added to the top line of his budget, it…
(a) The money does go to funding schools (roughly half of it). (b) I still don't understand the conflict you're talking about. In your hypothetical, this money is exactly what civil asset forfeiture was designed to capture: the proceeds and instrumentalities of a crime. If you want to argue that he wasn't guilty of any crime, and therefore the money should have been returned, that makes perfect sense! But the hypo yo…
> this money is exactly what civil asset forfeiture was designed to capture: the proceeds and instrumentalities of a crime.
No, you've confused criminal asset forfeiture (which exists for that purpose, and hinges on an actual conviction of an actual crime) with civil asset forfeiture (a product of admiralty law meant, in theory to make ship owners exert tighter control of their crews without extending criminal liability to them for the crews crimes, by making ships themselves forfeit for those crimes even though crews weren’t owners, that mostly hung around as a disused appendage in American law until it got seized on as an end run around criminal process in Prohibition, and later exploded in the War on Drugs.)
Re: Using loophole, Seward County seizes millions from motorists without convictions
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure I follow. If he'd actually been caught trafficking, what would the conflict of interest be?
Police funding should not scale with the number of arrests they make—otherwise they have a direct interest in making more arrests, which leads to the corruption described in TFA. I'm fine with the money being seized by the state in the above scenario, but only after conviction, and never for direct use by the police.
I mean, I mostly agree with this, though I agree more with the first half (about police funding) than about the second half (about the article describing corruption, which it mostly doesn't). I think a lot of the issue here is a lack of coherency in the threads about inchoate crimes.
Re: Using loophole, Seward County seizes millions from motorists without convictions
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not just cash. Cars and even houses too! Policing in the us is a nightmare.
For those unaware, here is an example: https://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2017/05/30/... She let her son live with her, he sold less than $200 of marijuana, and her home (lived in since the 1970s) and car were seized as facilitating a drug transaction. She eventually won, after more than seven years.
I was about to reference the same story! Glad I wasn't the only one that remembered this.
Re: Using loophole, Seward County seizes millions from motorists without convictions
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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?
The "more likely than not" here was from a legal perspective, not a statistical one. The state presented evidence that doesn't seem like it would be nearly enough to convict Bouldin, but they could argue was suggestive of the smuggling: the cash, the vacuum sealer and bags, a previous conviction with a large quantity of marijuana, some text messages the state argued were a negotiation of a sale, and so on. Meanwhile,…
I guess I just don't understand the law in question. I didn't see any evidence whatsoever of a crime in that article. So more likely than not wouldn't apply since I see no evidence of likelihood of crime at all.
To me it's quite obvious this is just government condoned theft. The police and politicians involved should all be ashamed of themselves. And then frankly they should be punished.
Re: Using loophole, Seward County seizes millions from motorists without convictions
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "more likely than not" here was from a legal perspective, not a statistical one. The state presented evidence that doesn't seem like it would be nearly enough to convict Bouldin, but they could argue was suggestive of the smuggling: the cash, the vacuum sealer and bags, a previous conviction with a large quantity of marijuana, some text messages the state argued were a negotiation of a sale, and so on. Meanwhile,…
I guess I just don't understand the law in question. I didn't see any evidence whatsoever of a crime in that article. So more likely than not wouldn't apply since I see no evidence of likelihood of crime at all. To me it's quite obvious this is just government condoned theft. The police and politicians involved should all be ashamed of themselves. And then frankly they should be punished.
Presumably, the prosecution would charge criminal attempt of Neb. 28-416. The burden would be on them at court to establish that the cash, the text messages, the vacuum sealers, the person they were contacting in Colorado, and their itinerary constituted "substantial steps" towards (1) buying a bunch of hash oil in Colorado and (2) driving it across Nebraska on their way back to Virginia.
Re: Using loophole, Seward County seizes millions from motorists without convictions
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess I just don't understand the law in question. I didn't see any evidence whatsoever of a crime in that article. So more likely than not wouldn't apply since I see no evidence of likelihood of crime at all. To me it's quite obvious this is just government condoned theft. The police and politicians involved should all be ashamed of themselves. And then frankly they should be punished.
Presumably, the prosecution would charge criminal attempt of Neb. 28-416. The burden would be on them at court to establish that the cash, the text messages, the vacuum sealers, the person they were contacting in Colorado, and their itinerary constituted "substantial steps" towards (1) buying a bunch of hash oil in Colorado and (2) driving it across Nebraska on their way back to Virginia.
> Presumably, the prosecution would charge criminal attempt of Neb. 28-416.
What?
> Bouldin made his decision while standing on the shoulder of I-80 as cars whizzed by. He decided he wasn’t worried about the felony charges – there was nothing illegal in his van. He wouldn’t sign.
> The Seward County deputies didn’t arrest him, as they had said they would. But they did seize his cash while charging him with a misdemeanor for possessing drug money – charges that were later dropped.
> The county attorney continued with the seizure in civil court in order to keep the $18,000. Bouldin received only a warning for the traffic violation that started it all.
What do you say they would presumably charge him with criminal attempt of Neb. 28-416? They charged him with a misdemeanor for possessing drug money. Then they dropped it.
Frankly I'm amazed they wasted their time charging with anything when they can simply steal his money regardless of any charges.
Re: Using loophole, Seward County seizes millions from motorists without convictions
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
Presumably, the prosecution would charge criminal attempt of Neb. 28-416. The burden would be on them at court to establish that the cash, the text messages, the vacuum sealers, the person they were contacting in Colorado, and their itinerary constituted "substantial steps" towards (1) buying a bunch of hash oil in Colorado and (2) driving it across Nebraska on their way back to Virginia.
> Presumably, the prosecution would charge criminal attempt of Neb. 28-416. What? > Bouldin made his decision while standing on the shoulder of I-80 as cars whizzed by. He decided he wasn’t worried about the felony charges – there was nothing illegal in his van. He wouldn’t sign. > The Seward County deputies didn’t arrest him, as they had said they would. But they did seize his cash while charging him with a misdemea…
As I understand it, they charged him with a misdemeanor because he signed a civil forfeiture of the money, and their leverage was their ability to charge him with felony criminal attempt.
Re: Using loophole, Seward County seizes millions from motorists without convictions
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Presumably, the prosecution would charge criminal attempt of Neb. 28-416. What? > Bouldin made his decision while standing on the shoulder of I-80 as cars whizzed by. He decided he wasn’t worried about the felony charges – there was nothing illegal in his van. He wouldn’t sign. > The Seward County deputies didn’t arrest him, as they had said they would. But they did seize his cash while charging him with a misdemea…
As I understand it, they charged him with a misdemeanor because he signed a civil forfeiture of the money, and their leverage was their ability to charge him with felony criminal attempt.
> As I understand it, they charged him with a misdemeanor because he signed a civil forfeiture of the money, and their leverage was their ability to charge him with felony criminal attempt.
?
>> Bouldin made his decision while standing on the shoulder of I-80 as cars whizzed by. He decided he wasn’t worried about the felony charges – there was nothing illegal in his van. He wouldn’t sign.
That is from the post by me that you're currently responding to. Notice the last sentence.
Re: Using loophole, Seward County seizes millions from motorists without convictions
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
The us doesn't have wide spread fast direct money transfer. So cash is a good way to get stuff done in many cases. Such as buying a car.
But you can literally walk into a branch of your bank with a debit card and withdraw that amount in like 5 minutes. The only reason to carry this much cash across multiple state lines I can imagine is him not wanting to leave a paper trail and withdrawing large amounts outside of his home state.
What if your bank doesn't have a branch in colorado? Many people use regional banks. They're not going to let you pull 18k at an out of state bank.