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Police Seized Innocent Peoples Property, Kept It for Years. What Will SCOTUS Do?

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Re: Police Seized Innocent Peoples Property, Kept It for Years. What Will SCOTUS Do?

#31

Post by lesuorac »

phkahler wrote: post #16
mikece wrote: post #5

The key question is "What will SCOTUS Do?" There have been numerous cases where Civil Asset Forfeiture has been overturned, but only AFTER the wronged party sued for actual and punitive damages. I wish the law required that LEOs who steal people's stuff to be automatically criminally charged for theft upon the overturn of civil asset forfeiture (along with treble damages awarded to the wronged party)... but that woul…

>> I wish the law required that LEOs who steal people's stuff to be automatically criminally charged for theft upon the overturn of civil asset forfeiture At that point the defense would be Qualified Immunity.

Well, either the courts will circle the wagon or thats going to be backfiring soon.

People have started to try to apply Eminent Domain to the Qualified Immunity defense [1]. They're not disputing that you are a LEO acting in official government capacity but Eminent Domain requires that you compensate a private party for use of their stuff.

https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/investigates/police-...

Re: Police Seized Innocent Peoples Property, Kept It for Years. What Will SCOTUS Do?

#32

Post by klyrs »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #11
klyrs wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree that everyone across the political spectrum agrees on this: Thin Blue Liners have considerable sway over politics, and they're happily on the take.

Can you provide a reference where you have seen someone take this stance? I personally have never seen it, and I think I know a lot of pro police types. I think most pro police types would see this as corruption.

Does the Society that a majority of Supreme Court Justices belong to count as credible to you?

https://fedsoc.org/commentary/publications/forfeiture-is-rea...

Re: Police Seized Innocent Peoples Property, Kept It for Years. What Will SCOTUS Do?

#35

Post by DebtDeflation »

banannaise wrote: post #29
jkubicek wrote: post #2

Severely limiting the scope of civil forfeiture seems like one of those political issues that everyone across the political spectrum can agree on. I'm constantly hearing horror stories like the ones in this article and I've never heard any reasonable defense of our current system. In fact, I've never even heard an unreasonable defense.

Generally speaking, the political argument against is "If you do anything that gives even the appearance of curtailing police powers in any way, we will create the illusion of a crime wave, attribute it to you, and absolutely hammer every form of media with that narrative." (If, God help you, you manage to pass a law that actually curtails police powers, they'll generally act in open defiance instead of doing their j…

It's not just an empty threat either. It's happened numerous times in NYC when the mayor or city council has attempted to reign in the NYPD, they simply stop responding to calls for service and then blame it on the politicians. Even if it doesn't lead to an uptick in crime, it still angers voters that police won't respond to their calls and they take it out at the polls.

Re: Police Seized Innocent Peoples Property, Kept It for Years. What Will SCOTUS Do?

#38

Post by biomcgary »

The fact that the Supreme Court is taking up this case is good news. The Court could have ignored it, but chose to consider it. The facts of the two related cases are reasonably favorable to striking down or curtailing civil asset forfeiture (CAF).

Surprisingly, part of the the right wing of the Supreme Court is skeptical of CAF: "Conservative U.S. Supreme Court justice Neil Gorsuch criticized asset forfeiture as an “extravagant punishment” in a 2018 decision. Justice Clarence Thomas said outright in a 2017 case that modern civil forfeiture schemes are likely unconstitutional."

From: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/south-carolina-supr...

Re: Police Seized Innocent Peoples Property, Kept It for Years. What Will SCOTUS Do?

#40

Post by kevin_nisbet »

jkubicek wrote: post #2

Severely limiting the scope of civil forfeiture seems like one of those political issues that everyone across the political spectrum can agree on. I'm constantly hearing horror stories like the ones in this article and I've never heard any reasonable defense of our current system. In fact, I've never even heard an unreasonable defense.

> In fact, I've never even heard an unreasonable defense.

I suspect like many things, there was some logic to the introduction. But it's just gotten to really batshit levels that there is probably nothing to do but stop the practice.

As I understand it, some of the origins were that for debts owed to the government, with the person not present in the country, it was much more practical to target assets that may exist within the country than try and get the individual.

Even in the introduction in the criminal context, I sort of understand the logic. In criminal organizations, there are likely people profiting a lot, that have engineered enough doubt that proving their connection to the beyond a reasonable standard is so difficult. But meeting a preponderance of the evidence standard in the civil context to reclaim those assets I can understand the argument.

So I think there are some bad and weak arguments, but they certainly don't outweigh what's happening now.

I think one of the worst argument I heard for not returning the money, was the police department wasn't able to follow the judges order, because they deposited the money into a bank account and transferred to another agency. And they'll never be able to find the exact same bills again that they gave to the bank, so are unable to follow the court order to return the money they took to the rightful owner.

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