Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

U.S. Supreme Court to hear civil forfeiture case

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 258 posts

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

#231

Post by pc86 »

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.

It's not a good thing SCOTUS is looking at a convicted drug dealer for a CAF case. If this gets upheld the bar to get another CAF case in front of the Court will be even higher, and police departments will continue stealing from citizens on the side of the highway with impunity.

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

#232

Post by avar »

sbarre wrote: post #227
avar wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: > "calculated ignorance of illegal > activity is not an acceptable excuse" I.e. the court's argument is that he was perfectly aware that he was building these for drug cartels. If we take that judgement at face value I don't see the problem with this. You don't get to wink wink nudge nudge your way out of being a knowing accomplice to a crime.

By that logic, shouldn't gun companies be prosecuted for the crimes committed by the drug cartels who use their weapons? Given the current state of affairs in the US and the publicly available statistics on gun crime, one could argue that continuing to manufacture guns is knowingly supplying criminals, no? It's a slippery slope..

That's absurd. The legal test is whether a reasonable person could have known that they were an accomplice to a crime.

The article makes it clear that this man knew he was building these for cartels, and tried to weasel his way out by claiming he'd never seen drugs with his own eyes, but had seen almost a million in cash from some very shady guys.

This would be like running a "Taxi service" that catered to Balaclava wearing gentleman exiting a bank, claiming that you had no idea you were helping with a robbery. Perhaps they're just really ugly businessmen in a hurry? Would that mean nobody could drive a Taxi anymore? Of course not.

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

#233

Post by MachineShedFred »

pc86 wrote: post #231
coldseattle wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not a good thing SCOTUS is looking at a convicted drug dealer for a CAF case. If this gets upheld the bar to get another CAF case in front of the Court will be even higher, and police departments will continue stealing from citizens on the side of the highway with impunity.

I think this case is actually a really good one to look at, as there are clear 8th Amendment issues. He already was sentenced for the crime in question, but the asset seized has over 4x the value of the maximum fine for the crime he was guilty of.

How is that not "cruel or unusual" ? Also, it presents a hardship for his rehabilitation- he needs to have employment as terms of his release, and if he can't get to work because of the forfeiture of his means of transportation, that presents additional burden to holding up his end of the agreement.

He was handed a $40,000 penalty for a $250 crime because the law enforcement agency wanted to sell his Land Rover. How is that justice?

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

#234

Post by logfromblammo »

larkeith wrote: post #119
defen wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Article states that both the Land Rover and the drugs were purchased using the payout from a life insurance policy. It is unclear whether any of the drugs were ever sold at a premium over the original purchase price. Money is fungible, so I would be sympathetic to an argument that claimed he had made in the vicinity of $40k from selling drugs (which could not be confiscated for whatever reason, maybe he spent it al…

By my limited understanding, I believe that they could, as there is no limit akin to maximum fines with regards to civil forfeiture - as in this case, where the maximum of $10k was circumvented. Moreover, it does not require proof of guilt or a conviction, ripening its possibility for abuse.

Well, there is a constitutional limitation on excessive fines and punishments. But the statutes typically don't specify.

They would allow seizure of one's shoes for jaywalking, and not just the shoes the offender was wearing, but all those in his closet, too. The laws as written are insufficiently protective against official abuse, so now that they have become routinely abused, it would be wise to revise.

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

#235

Post by ct520 »

spookyuser wrote: post #223
ct520 wrote: post #189

Feel like I should be hosting a reddit ama for this subject. 3x civil forfeiture victim chiming in. 3k 10k 48k Never charged with a crime. What would you like to know LOL.

Out of curiosity, why were you carrying that much cash anyway?

Lol I didn’t exactly have a legal reason. But definetly very legal in many states today. Just an entepneur a little ahead of his time I guess.

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

#236

Post by AnimalMuppet »

syshum wrote: post #220
gamblor956 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Generally, after ratification the 10th Amendment was treated as a truism: essentially a useless amendment that simply confirmed the federal system of government. The words of the man who drafted the amendment, and who opposed it's inclusion: I find, from l…

>the Commerce Clause, which was extremely broadly written. Not really, however in Wickard the Supreme Court simply ignored the entire words written, any context, and any rational thought processes around the words written to come up with a massive expansion of federal power that basic renders the enumeration clause pointless, and granting the federal government almost unlimited authority over everything >>>>[The Cong…

Because they didn't decide based on the Constitution, or on the facts of the case. They decided based on what would be convenient for the war effort in World War II.

As Francis Schaeffer said, "If there are no absolutes by which to judge society, then society is absolute." If your ultimate value is "whatever is good for society" or "the nation", there is nothing you cannot trample on in support of that value - even the Constitution.

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

#237

Post by AnimalMuppet »

chasontherobot wrote: post #192
arwineap wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a background in law? Reading through this comment thread is very interesting, I just can't help but try to understand how so many geeks are so well versed in case law :)

The law is just a programming language for government, thus a lot of programmers are attracted to it.

Especially since we see the government in need of debugging, but we don't see the cause of the bugs in the source code...

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

#238

Post by topmonk »

mannykannot wrote: post #150
topmonk wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not at all - one can very reasonably assume that 'very frequently' means after it has been discovered during a traffic stop, in which case it is valid to ask how often djrogers has been in that situation.

His main point was we don't have enough data for the 'very typically' label. To prove this, you need some sort of data.

Instead lostcolony was asking for evidence that this is not the case, implying that we should accept 'very typically' with no evidence, and expect proof of absence to change our minds.

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

#239

Post by s73v3r_ »

Sacho wrote: post #217
s73v3r_ wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but that's an argument for after the crime has been proven. It's not an argument for seizing property just on the thought that one might be involved in crime.

The counter-argument here would be that the drug dealer should not be able to use the cash(and other assets) they obtained through their crimes to defend themselves. Waiting until conviction would mean that the alleged criminal could exhaust those assets as part of his defense.

I don't think that counter argument can be made. Until the crime is proven, the assumption has to be that those assets were gotten legally. Otherwise, really, what's to stop police from seizing the assets of anyone who's case might be shaky?

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

#240

Post by s73v3r_ »

harryh wrote: post #228
s73v3r_ wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're usually argued against the actual item being seized, not the owner of the item. Since a pile of money can't really hire an attorney, there's no argument to the contrary, and the state wins.

That's not how it works. Anyone can put in a claim on the property (most commonly the person that it was seized from) and argue in front of a court (with a lawyer) that they are the rightful owner.

That's after the seizure happens. But during the seizure, you'll have cases like State of California vs $25,000 in cash.
Post reply on HN