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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?

#131

Post by Gibbon1 »

nostrademons wrote: post #125
DebtDeflation wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Interesting. Seems like the logical thing to do would be to fire the whole PD and replace them with another group. Except that's basically the model used by secret-police dictatorships (eg. Russia, Iran) and anarchist failed states (eg. Haiti, much of Africa), so it doesn't seem to work very well either. Seems like the root problem is that we grant the state a monopoly on physical violence because the alternative (no…

I seem to remember some city in the east coast fired their whole department and then hired back selected ones. And hired new cops to replace the guys they wanted to get rid of. And it helped.

A suggestion I've thought of before and have seen in the wold increasingly is pay cops a stipend to pay for their own insurance. If they can't get insurance they get fired automatically.

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

#132

Post by kmeisthax »

biomcgary wrote: post #38

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…

The thing about right-wing politics is that half the time, right-wingers will very justifiably fear government power, but the other half of the time they'll shout about their thin blue lines. Much of the time you'll even see the "no step on snek" and "thin blue line" flags in the same place. Furthermore, a lot of the worry about government overreach is specifically about gun confiscation. While not everyone who owns a gun is a tyrant in waiting, obviously, a lot of people have specific fantasies about seizing power from governments they think are oppressive, while still saying we need to ignore power abuses of local police officers when they aren't targeted at them[0].

I call this mentality "no stop snek from stepping on other snek". It is not an ideology, but the consequence of right-wing outrage perverting that ideology. Right-libertarians do write long rants about police brutality, civil asset forfeiture, and so on; but right-wingers more broadly care solely for identity politics that benefit them. Think about how Louis Rossmann, who is very vaguely right-wing and very libertarian, got shat on by the right-wing half of his audience[2] for interviewing Sam Seder about right-to-repair.

What SCOTUS decides will likely be informed by the calculus of who exactly is petitioning them and what benefits the people who put them there. They aren't yet willing to completely shit on the concept of stare decisis[1], but we have to at least present a case to right-wingers that not only civil asset forfeiture is bad and unconstitutional, but that it's bad and unconstitutional in ways that hurt the kinds of people they are sympathetic to.

[0] Case in point: the relative lack of outrage in right-wing circles whenever black people get their guns confiscated or are summarily executed for having them

[1] The overturn of Roe v. Wade is concerning me, though

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DR1AIsyzZ0&lc=UgxdShhyG9NmA...

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

#133

Post by ThePowerOfFuet »

sambeau wrote: post #17

This graph from the 2015 article "Law enforcement took more stuff from people than burglars did last year" really rammed this home for me: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-...

https://archive.li/fhkvp

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

#134

Post by gwbrooks »

staplers wrote: post #109
gwbrooks wrote: post #71

Cities and counties can address this on their own, without waiting for the statehouse or Washington. The nonprofit I work for has a model policy and research that makes it nearly turn-key. https://better-cities.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/BCP-ref...

Most law enforcement is "above" local jurisdiction practically speaking. Police are local militias with a near-military supply of weapons, technology, and surveillance. Cities often seek judgement or ways to control law enforcement but police unions and silent strikes render their attempts futile. If your city had George Floyd protests, you're likely aware of these silent strikes. The police simply stop doing their j…

It's a political problem rather than a legal-powers problem; most mayors and city council members are (rightly) afraid of the local police union publicly calling them out.

That's why, even at the local level, forfeiture reform usually needs to be bundled with other, more broadly popular policing reforms. There isn't a critical mass of people lit up over asset forfeiture in most communities. Other attack vectors include:

* Qualified immunity reform packaged as a way to more easily get rid of bad cops.

* Collective bargaining transparency so the public (and even the city council) can see what tactics the union is using in contract negotiations.

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

#135

Post by tempodox »

soneil wrote: post #85
danbruc wrote: post #59

Wait, what? In the US law enforcement can just take peoples' stuff and then the people have to prove that they are innocent in order to get their stuff back? Should this not be the other way around, law enforcement has to prove - within some reasonable amount of time - that the person is guilty, otherwise they get their stuff back, plus some compensation for incurred costs? But even if the person is guilty, why can t…

You should read up on civil asset forfeiture - it's hilariously obtuse. They arrest your money. You are not accused of a crime, your money is. Your money is not a person, and thus has no constitutional rights. Your money is not innocent until proven, that's a silly system reserved for persons - instead, your money must prove its innocence. And thus you get cases with absurd titles such as "United States v. $84,740.00…

In the middle ages they had a lawsuit against the woodworms that ate a pulpit because a preacher fell when it eventually broke down, but one can always optimize for more absurdity.

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

#136

Post by Borg3 »

Yes yes.. And yet many many young people in US are against second amendment. I wonder how they will be able to defend they property from criminals and goverment (police) without all those guns.

Unless they want live "easy" life (as someone famous said):

Do not own anything, so you will have no problems.

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

#137

Post by winrid »

soneil wrote: post #85
danbruc wrote: post #59

Wait, what? In the US law enforcement can just take peoples' stuff and then the people have to prove that they are innocent in order to get their stuff back? Should this not be the other way around, law enforcement has to prove - within some reasonable amount of time - that the person is guilty, otherwise they get their stuff back, plus some compensation for incurred costs? But even if the person is guilty, why can t…

You should read up on civil asset forfeiture - it's hilariously obtuse. They arrest your money. You are not accused of a crime, your money is. Your money is not a person, and thus has no constitutional rights. Your money is not innocent until proven, that's a silly system reserved for persons - instead, your money must prove its innocence. And thus you get cases with absurd titles such as "United States v. $84,740.00…

United States v. One Solid Gold Object in Form of a Rooster

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._One_Solid_G...

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

#138

Post by beej71 »

ThePowerOfFuet wrote: post #133
sambeau wrote: post #17

This graph from the 2015 article "Law enforcement took more stuff from people than burglars did last year" really rammed this home for me: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-...

https://archive.li/fhkvp

(Did anyone ever solve the captcha loop issue with archive.*?)

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

#139

Post by enterprise_cog »

kmeisthax wrote: post #114
enterprise_cog wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a bit bizarre to read about a system of exploitation that has flourished under a capitalist police state and then mention communists.

During the Cold War, Soviet states and the socialist economic system they had were propagandized in America as "the government can take your stuff at any time because COMMUNISM". This was aided by the fact that, in practice, the Soviets could and did do that. However, it was not at all a unique feature of socialism or communism. Police states don't care about who nominally owns the economy, they care about what can b…

I’m not going to go homeless, be starved, imprisoned, or killed by security forces if I stop using Twitter.

If people start organizing and forming mass strikes and unrest, all those things would, and already have, happened.

As for the rest of your comment, I have no clue what it has to do with what I posted. My point was that when talking about a system and its negative outcomes, it is pointless and often disingenuous to immediately mention another system. It blurs the topic and takes away from real analysis and critique.

Let’s talk about how this system developed in the US on its own merits, and when that is well understood, maybe then compare it to other systems.

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

#140

Post by black_13 »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #20
sambeau wrote: post #17

This graph from the 2015 article "Law enforcement took more stuff from people than burglars did last year" really rammed this home for me: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-...

Both those sums are further eclipsed by wage theft but that's another topic. This is also only based on federal police statistics, because we don't have data available on state and local police forces who all participate in this looting. Previous discussion, which mods removed from the frontpage once it was at the top: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36975143

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