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How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

washingtonpost.com

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Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#131

Post by anigbrowl »

rhino369 wrote: post #43
VieElm wrote: post #12

Why hasn't this been challenged in court? Seems like civil forfeiture violates the 4th amendment.

It doesn't violate the 4th amendment because, despite the inaccuracies in the article, you do get a trial and the government does have the burden of proof. The DEA agent they are quoting is either ignorant or means that there is no due process before they seize the money in the first place. But you do get the due process after the fact. Most of the time there is no trial because the person they took the money from do…

You're about people not claiming it in some some situations - for example, if cops burst into a warehouse and find a briefcase full of cocaine and a briefcase full of cash, it's reasonable to guess that one was being traded for the other. In this case it's also appropriate that the cash be charged, as in 'US vs $1 million dollars,' because the erstwhile traders haven't stuck around to be arrested.

But it makes absolutely no sense to apply those methods to cash confiscated from individuals not charged with a crime. Having cash isn't a criminal offense, even while black - although as a practical rather than a moral matter, this young man would have been smarter to open an account with a large national bank or get a cashier's check to open an account in LA rather than carrying the cash around.

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#132

Post by tsotha »

adventured wrote: post #54
andrewchambers wrote: post #22

It is amazing that Americans allow this sort of thing then say they are a world leader in personal liberty.

The scale of the civil forfeitures industry has increased drastically in the last 15 to 20 years. Most Americans are not yet aware of how large it has become, because it affects a relatively small percentage of people, and only in the last few years have the major news outlets begun to write about it (eg NY Times or Washington Post). When you have a country of 330 million people as large geographically as the US, it'…

Civil asset forfeitures are like those towns in BFE that operate on ticket revenue - the situation rarely gets dealt with because the number of people getting tickets is an insignificant proportion of the voting population.

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#133

Post by nandemo »

[deleted] wrote: post #116
Qantourisc wrote: post #101

As a potential tourist or traveller (I am not to be fair), I wouldn't risk travelling to the US. I'm not sure if there are actual tourists who feel the same, but I'm sure there are other avoiding the US.

[deleted]

Can't you just refuse? Or can the police/DEA forcibly search a random person's belongings without a warrant?

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#134

Post by Tomte »

tsotha wrote: post #118
zaroth wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could imagine reading it this way: DEA agents confronted the only black man in the train car and demanded he open his bags, shook him down, and stole his cash. In a brazen theft which DEA agents later claimed was legal under the veil of "civil forfeiture" the state prosecutor has refused to press charges, and the judge on the case has refused to provide relief for the plaintiff... I hope we continue to see a rele…

It's hard to get your money back because the government treats it as if it weren't your money. What happens is since the DEA can't prove you're involved in a crime they sue... your money. There will be a case in federal court that will be something like "Leonhart v $23,174". They don't even have to notify you. So. At this point you're not a party to the proceeding, so you can't do any of the normal things you'd do if…

I find it hard to believe that the US have anything like "presumption of innocence" in civil court.

Are you sure you're not mixing up civil and criminal proceedings?

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#135

Post by anigbrowl »

MCRed wrote: post #11
mr_luc wrote: post #5

I'm sure that this is a valued asset in the fight against crime ... ... but as this story illustrates, it's so shockingly immoral as to constitute robbery. Shut it down.

I'm not aware of any instances where it was used to fight crime. Seriously, not one.

Then you['re not trying. Read a legal journal, you'll see plenty of legitimate uses documented in court reports. I have no problem with it when agents seize cash that's found along with a pile of drugs or illegal weapons (a common enough occurrence in any major port city), but those are cases where you have very obvious cause to suspect criminal activity even if the criminals have fled.

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#136

Post by mattlutze »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #129
imroot wrote: post #10

While civil forfeiture is scary, my (very very brief) stint doing criminal law as a public defender showed me that there's also a bigger side of this -- seizing the assets of individuals who are charged with a crime so that they cannot attain private counsel, make bail, or receive any creature comforts while incarcerated. What will generally happen is that after sitting in jail for 120+ days, they'll jump at any oppo…

Fuck that. Even criminals deserve fair legal council. And to not be treated like filthy animals. Shame on you. Edit: downvotes deserved. I read it several times and still interpreted the first paragraph to be in support of taking money because it denied full legal access. My brain flipped a word into "good". Despite being a public defender no less! Leaving comment anyways because that seems like the honest thing to d…

OP was a public defender.

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#137

Post by j42 »

DigitalSea wrote: post #6

Civil forfeiture rules are disgusting. Sadly there are plenty of stories out there like this, people have lost their homes, cars and livelihoods because of these draconian laws around asset forfeiture. The circumstances under which your property can be taken are incredibly overreaching and unfair. There have been situations where people have had their homes taken away for ridiculous situations like this one: http://w…

Honestly we're really lucky to have these asset forfeiture programs in place; money has been given a free reign for far too long.

The DEA is looking out for our safety by implementing this well-intentioned protocol... If the government didn't, who would hold our money accountable for the criminal behavior it's been involved in? Just look at the facts... almost 80% of bills have touched drugs! Appalling!

And they're transparent about the process--they put that filthy money on trial even though it keeps refusing to talk. Enough 'shock and awe' from our DA's and I know we'll get there eventually... We need harsher sentencing guidelines!!

[United States vs. $1,058.00 of U.S. Currency](https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-105800-in-us-curre...)

I certainly sleep better at night knowing that the currency loitering in my pocket doesn't get a pass on its delinquent past just because it's an inanimate object...

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#138

Post by vidarh »

adventured wrote: post #79
AwesomeGriffin wrote: post #33

I've heard this sort of thing happening in Third World countries. Perhaps the US is - for all its advanced technology and creature comforts - essentially now a Third World kleptocracy. Silicon Valley and Manhattan are like Dubai - gaudy showcases that don't represent the true nature of the hinterland. I would be very wary about working in Dubai; I would be equally wary about working and living in the US for the same…

The US still ranks among the best nations on earth when it comes to low corruption in fact. The civil forfeitures problem is non-trivial, but you're drastically exaggerating. The whole of the US has a very highly functional, low-corruption judiciary system, and a mostly still intact and strong property rights system. Most of America is low crime, low corruption, the opposite of what you're implying. In fact it's beca…

> The US is less corrupt than France for example

Careful there. The Transparency International page you link to is the perception index.

It measures what a set of people perceives corruption to be like in each country, and composits results from a number of different surveys in a way that as far as I know is not benchmarked against other data to verify if survey results actually matches reality.

You can not use it as a measure of how corrupt a country actually is. It's likely that it's an indicator when the numbers are very far apart, or that it can be used to spot trends in a country over time, but the relatively small difference between France and the US seems unlikely to be sufficient to draw any conclusions.

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#139

Post by jkestner »

dankohn1 wrote: post #68
a3n wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, vote 3rd party. That is essentially "none of the above."

3rd party voting is largely a wasted vote in First Pass the Post [0] systems like the US. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting

Perhaps. If a third party candidate gets 5% of the vote, they're eligible to draw public money from the Presidential Election Campaign Fund. That could be huge.

And aside from that, numbers build legitimacy. If a third party is obviously not going to win, but gets 10% of the vote, we start taking it seriously, and it can build on that success over multiple elections, just like individual candidates do.

The 'wasted vote' trope assumes that the sole point of a vote is to elect a candidate. Your vote is also an act of free speech - it can send a message to your fellow citizens and your government. Even in our stupid two-party system, politicians watch which way the wind is blowing.

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#140

Post by vidarh »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #129
imroot wrote: post #10

While civil forfeiture is scary, my (very very brief) stint doing criminal law as a public defender showed me that there's also a bigger side of this -- seizing the assets of individuals who are charged with a crime so that they cannot attain private counsel, make bail, or receive any creature comforts while incarcerated. What will generally happen is that after sitting in jail for 120+ days, they'll jump at any oppo…

Fuck that. Even criminals deserve fair legal council. And to not be treated like filthy animals. Shame on you. Edit: downvotes deserved. I read it several times and still interpreted the first paragraph to be in support of taking money because it denied full legal access. My brain flipped a word into "good". Despite being a public defender no less! Leaving comment anyways because that seems like the honest thing to d…

It would seem you might want to read the comment you replied to again.
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