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U.S. Supreme Court to hear civil forfeiture case

nytimes.com

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Re: U.S. Supreme Court to hear civil forfeiture case

#151

Post by odonnellryan »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #91
gamblor956 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The table is correct. 100% correct. It's maintained by a law school, and is verified by a professor of Constitutional Law at least annually. As a lawyer, I trust the Cornell Legal Information Institute. I have used it in my practice.

You know how the CDC was banned from advocating gun control in 1996 because of the junk studies the Clinton admin pushed for in 1992 as justification for their upcoming gun control legislation? It came out of Harvard and Princeton. Almost all discredited, full data never released, one of the main "researches" still employed at Harvard. Bloomberg just gave Johns Hopkins and Yale money to "study" gun control (with outc…

What point are you trying to make? That Cornell law school is trying to be political here?

Re: U.S. Supreme Court to hear civil forfeiture case

#152

Post by 8note »

macintux wrote: post #131
394549 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Miranda v. Arizona was decided over 50 years ago. How relevant is the behavior of SCOTUS 50 years ago to predicting their present-day behavior? The membership is completely different, and there have been countless other changes in law and American society and culture over that period. Because the Supreme Court is an institution with an institutional culture. Furthermore, its members obsessively study it's past deci…

There are some disturbing indications that the more conservative current members feel less constrained by traditions and precedent. I don’t have the quotes handy but they were pretty explicit.

that inherently seems off; conservatives are defined by trying to follow traditions and precedent. Not changing is their thing

Re: U.S. Supreme Court to hear civil forfeiture case

#153

Post by downandout »

UncleEntity wrote: post #141
downandout wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're correct that this isn't really the type of case that will set a precedent for the most troublesome applications of civil forfeiture. I wish cases like these [1] would reach the Supreme Court. In one of those cases, a man that had just won $50,000 in cash from a casino had it seized, even though he wasn't cited for a traffic offense or charged with any crime. It would be nice if legislators simply outlawed the…

If they just drop the case or the person wins in the lower courts and gets their money back then it will never get to the Supreme Court, they have to fight to keep the money (which they don't if it's obvious they'll lose) in order for it to reach the higher levels. I've heard previously that they go so far as saying the charges are against the property itself so the owner has no standing to sue the government which k…

I've heard previously that they go so far as saying the charges are against the property itself so the owner has no standing to sue the government which keeps them from ever determining the constitutionality of civil forfeiture.

This is generally how the cases are titled - U.S.A vs $200,000 US currency, for example. Here's a list of recent federal court cases where the defendant is "currency" [1]. You can also view publicly posted forfeiture notices, which give an indication of the magnitude of this problem, here [2]. But the owner can still attempt to get it back, it's just usually at a very high legal cost.

[1] https://prnt.sc/jzcl8c

[2] https://www.forfeiture.gov

Re: U.S. Supreme Court to hear civil forfeiture case

#154

Post by sjwright »

ericabiz wrote: post #130
asimpletune wrote: post #121

Can someone please argue the position of the side in favor of civil forfeiture?

Although I don't agree with it, I am knowledgeable about the side in favor of civil forfeiture. (I grew up in Indiana, and my dad was an attorney there.) The "other side" says: Seizing Land Rovers from drug dealers helps fund underfunded rural police departments, and keeps them from having to raise taxes on law-abiding citizens. I have no doubt that every aspect of this viewpoint is debatable. However, that's the vie…

You could also charge a fee to everyone who calls 911.

Seriously though. The police are a service provider who are employed by and act on behalf of all citizens. If we want functioning law enforcement, we should be willing to pay for it.

We might not appreciate it on a daily basis, but functioning law enforcement saves individuals a lot of money. Imagine if they didn't exist and everyone had to to organise their own security.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court to hear civil forfeiture case

#155

Post by gonational »

topmonk wrote: post #145
lostcolony wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you were pulled over, and it was discovered? I mean, even if you were, that constitutes X data points, which is hardly representative.

You're asking him to prove a negative. The onus should be on you.

@lostcolony didn’t ask anyone to prove anything. I just read his comment; he merely asked for clarification.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court to hear civil forfeiture case

#156

Post by learc83 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #96
Someone1234 wrote: post #37

Civil Forfeiture is essentially "guilty until proven innocent." And I don't mean that hyperbolically, I mean literally if the state takes property or cash under Civil Forfeiture you have to prove your property innocent to get it returned (via expensive civil litigation). That means that they can seize property or cash under a certain value with near impunity because the cost of recovering it is greater than the cost…

> Civil Forfeiture is essentially "guilty until proven innocent." And I don't mean that hyperbolically, I mean literally if the state takes property or cash under Civil Forfeiture you have to prove your property innocent to get it returned (via expensive civil litigation). False generally, and specifically false for federal law forfeitures, where the burden is explicitly on the government to prove that the property i…

When the feds seize an asset they general do it via administrative forfeiture, which generally only requires probably cause. Once they seize it, the owner has 60 days to file a claim. If no claim is filed, the government keeps the asset.

If a claim is filed, the government can either pursue civil or criminal forfeiture. In the case of civil forfeiture there is a right to a trial by jury.

However, this isn't automatic. The person has to either have the legal knowledge to know how to file a claim, or they need a lawyer. In many cases no claim is filed because the legal fees necessary to recover the asset will be greater than the value of the asset.

Basically if the government sizes a few grand in cash, it will cost you too much to recover it to make it worth it. Also if you're not legally sophisticated, or too poor to pay a lawyer (and can't find free legal help), you're not going to get your money back.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court to hear civil forfeiture case

#157

Post by macintux »

8note wrote: post #152
macintux wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some disturbing indications that the more conservative current members feel less constrained by traditions and precedent. I don’t have the quotes handy but they were pretty explicit.

that inherently seems off; conservatives are defined by trying to follow traditions and precedent. Not changing is their thing

I assume it’s related to Originalism: it’s time to return to first principles.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court to hear civil forfeiture case

#158

Post by 18pfsmt »

techsupporter wrote: post #115
r00fus wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the margin, people would begin moving to different states. "They can simply move away" is a fantasy solution. 99% people would/could not move until/unless it became a crisis situation. Sure, you could move, but what about your infirm parents? The costs are already high for between-states moves.

Completely agreed. The argument I heard made before is "if people can just move, why do gay people live in [state with no civil protections for gay rights]?" It's an easy one to answer. Family, job, social connections, money; those are just a few. Then comes the question of how free should each state be or not be? What if you are born, for example, both gay and a native Texan[0]? Should Texas have the right to "force…

I grew up moving as my father changed jobs, and I continued the practice on my own when I turned 18. I'm at least 1k miles from any family, and I've had to make new friends many times. It's really not that big of a deal for many people. I think most people I know in Colorado were not born here.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court to hear civil forfeiture case

#159

Post by [deleted] »

coldseattle wrote: post #117
Someone1234 wrote: post #37

Civil Forfeiture is essentially "guilty until proven innocent." And I don't mean that hyperbolically, I mean literally if the state takes property or cash under Civil Forfeiture you have to prove your property innocent to get it returned (via expensive civil litigation). That means that they can seize property or cash under a certain value with near impunity because the cost of recovering it is greater than the cost…

Maybe so, but did you read the article? This is a person who the Government decided to do a forfeiture after a conviction. I'm glad the SCOTUS is looking at this because it seems to be adding additional penalties after a conviction. However, in the past additional penalties implemented after a conviction (like sex offender registries) have been upheld.

[deleted]

Re: U.S. Supreme Court to hear civil forfeiture case

#160

Post by another-one-off »

sjwright wrote: post #149
shawn wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has always fascinated me. It's very strange to think about the fact that society works this way, and that it has to.

It doesn't seem strange at all. It's not the Supreme Court's fault that the defendant or plaintiff in any particular case are scummy or sympathetic, nobodies or famous, weak or powerful. They are aware that their decisions will affect many more people. They need to create law which caters for the for the wrongly accused as much as it does the rightly accused.

Everything you said is actually pretty strange. I'm on board with it, but the default what-humans-try-on-the-first-pass approach is to consider each case on its own merits including the people involved (and runs smack-bang into the various -isms, eg, racism). The idea that a scummy and a sympathetic defendant will get the same treatment is genuinely weird and not at all an instinctive approach to justice. This system is under constant pressure to revert back to more primitive approaches, where 'good people' get good outcomes and 'bad people' get bad outcomes. It just happens that, in practice, what we have now is better than that.
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