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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

#231

Post by m_mueller »

adventured wrote: post #112
visarga wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a mostly still intact and strong property rights system The practice of civil forfeiture on people who can't defend legally, like this guy, sure doesn't indicate that. Maybe for the HSBC guys who laundered $378.4 billion over several years there will be a small fine, their profit for a few months. But no bank was forfeited. No board members were sent to jail for it. It seems property rights are solid, if you are ri…

Yes, the DEA forfeiture racket is vile, and yes it needs to be stopped. Nobody should undercut how terrible what they're doing is. The reason the US still ranks high on the low corruption index, is because you have to take the value of the whole, not just one small problem such as this. It impacts an extraordinarily small percentage of Americans today, and the dollar sums are extraordinarily small in such a large eco…

Until you respond to the very good counter arguments brought forth about your linked source, you have nothing to back up your claim that the US has low corruption. Why are you still calling it a "low corruption index"? Please allow your viewpoint to be challenged by arguing rationally rather than just repeating the same falsehoods.

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

#232

Post by dTal »

anigbrowl wrote: post #131
rhino369 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 absolu…

>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.

Um, what?

"US vs kitchen knife covered in blood" "US vs flaming car wreck"

Ridiculous. If an inanimate object is involved in a crime, it is evidence. Not a suspect!

What does it mean to charge money with a crime? It clearly cannot defend itself, so the concept of a trial is moot to begin with. If the money is "found guilty", which of course lacking a defense it will be, does the government put it in prison (sorry, "correctional institution") to prevent it from doing further damage to society? No, of course not - they keep it and spend it. How terribly convenient. Got to keep that bad money off the streets, eh?

The entire thing is inconceivably preposterous, and the fact that it ever got off the ground in the US is a sign that something is terribly, fundamentally broken in the judiciary at the deepest levels. I'm frankly shocked that anyone could consider any application of it reasonable.

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

#233

Post by m_mueller »

Frondo wrote: post #180
api wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So do I vote for s Republicrat or a Republicrat? Or maybe s third party with no chance?

You know, I hear this attitude all the time. I think it reflects lazy thinking, and the conflation of cynicism and "cool". Yes, money in politics is a corrupting influence, yes, neither major party gets it right on some big issues (like the size of our military and how ready we are to use it, how much wall street gets away with ripping us off, etc), but are they the same? No, of course not. Had McCain won in 2008, th…

Furthermore, look at Tesla. I think that's a pretty good win for the Obama administration, in that without them throwing some money in, the US right now wouldn't have a promising player in the new market of all-electric cars.

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

#234

Post by notahacker »

itistoday2 wrote: post #226
notahacker wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never signed a contract with my landlord. Someone born in a particular house with a third party claiming ownership rights faces exactly the same keep paying up or vacate dilemma as someone born in a particular country. In both cases, they might find it difficult to find a piece of territory that is both appealing to live and doesn't involve paying someone else for their right to occupy it.

This is not at all the same situation. The relationship governments have with their citizens is unique. It goes like this: give us a chunk of your entire income forever or else we'll throw you in prison. Don't like it? Say good-bye to all your friends and family and enjoy surviving in a country where you don't understand anything anyone is saying, which will probably just give you the same ultimatum. That's simply ma…

I can assure you both that my landlord will be equally keen to exercise the full force of the law if I don't continue to pay him the rate he asks for each month, and that I'd have to move quite a long way from my friends and family to find somewhere I can live rent free. If he puts the rent up too much then my flatmates and I don't have any hope of voting him out either!

Finding a jurisdiction in which English is widely spoken and there's no income tax is actually surprisingly easy...

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

#235

Post by tsotha »

adventured wrote: post #147
tsotha wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We're fortunate it has become, essentially, a national government scandal at this point, with perpetually wider awareness. The national media has taken to aggressively writing about it lately. In this case I'm confident we're going to see the forfeiture racket neutered in the next few years. It seems to have finally gotten large enough to draw serious Congressional and White House scrutiny to stop it.

I hope you're right. I doubt it, but we'll see.

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

#236

Post by learnstats2 »

gmac wrote: post #194
fencepost wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that you're paying for legal representation. Even if you get the money back by the time you pay legal bills there may not be much of it left.

So this 'civil forfeiture' is appalling and Orwellian enough in its own right, but it's also one of those cases where the apparent inability to award costs in US courts seems truly insane. If this happened under the English legal system, you can be pretty sure the courts would make the DEA pay both sides' legal costs for meritless seizures like this one. So if you were prepared to take the risk of going to court you'…

In my opinion the English courts don't even go far enough.

There are plenty of cases where it's worthwhile for a malicious actor to antagonize someone, safe in the knowledge that the most they can lose is the legal costs. That is, if the victim is able to offer the significant effort and cash enough to seek legal recourse.

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

#237

Post by tsotha »

zaroth wrote: post #158
tsotha wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But there is some process by which you can prove the money is yours and you are entitled for it to be returned? For example, petitioning to be involved in the case, can it be denied? Is it just a procedural nightmare? Then what? I'd just be interested in the deeper story about actually trying to get the money back. If you show the paper trail of exactly where the dollars came from, are the judges still ruling against…

>I'm not reading about the massive backlog of forfeiture cases, mostly it seems like people don't even try.

For two reasons. One, you can't afford a lawyer because the government took your money. And two, there's not a lot of point in spending $300k to get $12.5k back from the government. The DEA is using tax dollars - they can stretch out the proceedings until you run out of money.

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

#238

Post by danieltillett »

j42 wrote: post #137
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 t…

I see a future in politics for you.

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

#239

Post by wil421 »

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.

Don't believe the hype. I've been searched more times on busses in Costa Rica and Nicaragua than I have ever been searched in the U.S.

Lived in the U.S. for 29 years and only been patted down or searched by police a handful of times while entering a Govt building or a Concert.

I agree issues need to be addressed but it's not a police state. The media likes to portray it differently.

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

#240

Post by vfclists »

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…

How many commenters here have a deep personal commitment to press their representatives to change this law?

Is this all jaw-jaw and no action?

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