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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

#241

Post by AnimalMuppet »

jdpedrie wrote: post #100
koboll wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be a wild dereliction of the duty of SCOTUS to let the facts of a particular case influence their judgement on a broader legal question. Many cases get sent back to lower courts without resolving a broader legal question because the facts of a particular case weren't quite perfectly aligned to make it an appropriate vehicle to resolve a broad question. The political gerrymandering cases decided thus far this…

> The political gerrymandering cases decided thus far this term are a good example. Masterpiece Cake Shop was as well. The court ruled in his favor, but was able to wiggle out of resolving the constitutional questions because of explicit bias on the part of the CO Civil Rights Commission.

This is getting off topic, but: I read Masterpiece as saying that, if you're going to apply the rules against a Christian baker, you have to apply the same rules against a gay baker (CO Civil Rights ignored complaints from Christians against gay bakers who wouldn't put some Christian message on their cake).

I think this is the right approach. A Christian could go to a gay baker, asking for a cake that quoted a Bible verse that said that homosexuality is a sin. A gay rights convention could ask a Christian baker for a cake that said "Christianity is bigotry". The rules for one have to be the rules for the other.

My preferred answer: Put a gay baker and a Christian baker in a room. Tell them to come up with the rules. The rules will apply to both of them. Give them two hours. You'll get a reasonable proposal. Make that the rules.

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

#242

Post by harryh »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #240
harryh wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It doesn't really matter what sort of administrative name is put on the case. An individual who files a claim on the property still gets their day in court. That trial represents a check on the power of the police which means (as I originally stated) that this power is not unfettered.

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

#243

Post by eric_h »

djrogers wrote: post #142
eric_h wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is unclear whether any of the drugs were ever sold at a premium over the original purchase price. The number one reason for addicts to get into the business of selling drugs is to support their own habit - you can only do that if you turn a profit, even if you put that profit right back into buying drugs for yourself.

It’s not a given that an oddity would be capable of running a successful dealing business. After all, they’ve already broken the #1 rule of dealing - don’t get high on your own supply...

A successful business is not the goal of an addict who deals, just enough flow of cash/product to skim some (product) off the top for themselves.

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

#244

Post by ataturk »

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..

Why? Don't the cops carry guns, too? Aren't guns value neutral, like all technologies? It is humans that do evil deeds with guns, not the guns themselves. Guns don't enable crime anymore than they enable to ethical application of the law. If you look at Brazil, there is a thriving underground gun manufacturing industry that supplies the criminal element because guns are a 200+ year old technology that is well understood by pretty much all of humanity at this point. It's a lost cause to ban technology like that.

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

#245

Post by syshum »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #236
syshum wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 t…

Which highlights the problem as the Supreme Court should not factor what is "good for society" nor what is "good for the nation" neither of which has any relevance to what is constitutional or not.

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

#246

Post by gamblor956 »

int_19h wrote: post #208
gamblor956 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wickard's use was not purely personal. He grew more wheat than he used, and he sold that excess on the interstate market (or, from a different viewpoint: he sold wheat up to the allowable limit and gave the rest to his livestock). This directly impacted the interstate commerce of wheat, because growing his own wheat meant there was less demand for wheat from other farmers. Scaled up to an entire nation, this would ha…

As I recall, the argument in the decision, however, was specifically that self-production for personal consumption affects the market (because you're not buying the product that you're producing). Following that logic, Congress can regulate breathing, so long as there's a market for air.

That would be an incorrect understanding of the ruling and a misapplication of legal logic.

Wickard is limited to cases where there is a tangible good, produced and sold as part of an interstate market. Subsequent cases have limited the scope of Wickard further than that--Lopez held that the transaction or good regulated must actually be a part of an interstate market or would have a direct and discernable impact on the interstate market for the regulated good or transaction.

In the case of air--there are already markets for air in the context of medical treatment and transportation (i.e., airplanes). But breathing is not a transaction since there is no economic exchange nor is it even a voluntary act. Even if breathing could be treated as a transaction, the breathing of uncontained air is one of the few goods that can be classified as purely local (the only other physical goods I can think of that are purely local are real estate and improvements to real estate because they are immovable). Moreover--as breathing is currently free--Congress would have to establish that a market for breathable uncontained air could exist in a meaningful sense.

However, the ICC has been used to regulate water...Theoretically it could even be extended to regulating the act of drinking water that has or would flow through multiple states, but any such attempt would likely not receive sufficient support in Congress to become law, and any court ruling on this point would likely result in a law overruling the decision.

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

#247

Post by gmiller123456 »

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..

No. The guy in the article wasn't prosecuted for every hidden compartment he made, just the ones he made that he was well aware were going to be used for illegal activity. Just like guns, the vast majority of them won't be used for anything illegal, even though some of them will be. But the moment you knowingly and willingly facilitate criminal activity, you become a party to the crime. That's true with guns, secret compartments, candy bars, or anything else.

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

#248

Post by cuckcuckspruce »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #129
cuckcuckspruce wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The colloquial definition used by most of the US citizenry and on television news programs on both 24-hour cable networks and broadcast television. That doesn't make that definition correct...

> The colloquial definition used by most of the US citizenry and on television news programs on both 24-hour cable networks and broadcast television. Could you be more specific?

'Liberal' in the US is associated with the expansion of the welfare state, preferring having government solve all social problems, and abridging individual freedoms if the greater good is served.

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

#249

Post by smsm42 »

gamblor956 wrote: post #169
jmalicki wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Obama eventually did plug the hole..." citation?

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-prohibits-fe...

This - from 2015 - seems to pre-date my link from 2016 that says equitable sharing was reinstated. So he maybe temporarily plugged the hole but then took the plug out. Well, technically Lynch did, but we don't assume she'd do it over Obama's disagreement.

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

#250

Post by smsm42 »

gamblor956 wrote: post #90
docker_up wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would think a professor in Constitutional Law would be eager to plug a whole that the police were taking advantage of, namely suing the money instead of suing the person. Yet all there was was deafening silence. So disappointing when people don't see things like this.

Obama eventually did plug the hole... It wasn't that big of an issue until after the recession (i.e., during his second term), so it simply wasn't on his radar while he dealt with more pressing issues. Moreover, civil forfeiture is allowed under federal law under very broad terms. It took quite a bit of time after it became an issue to draft a policy that would allow it to continue but end the excesses. Obama couldn'…

I don't remember any serious effort at ending civil forfeiture while Democrats held majority in both House and Senate. Could you provide the link?

I think both parties have very little interest in ending civil forfeiture currently, and the executive has even less as it's reducing their power. Placing it on the GOP only is just wrong - they both share the blame on this.

> Obama couldn't simply stop enforcing the law because the GOP and various state/local law enforcement agencies were prepared to sue

That didn't stop him from discretionary stopping to enforce other laws he didn't like. Surely, they could sue, but he has the resources of the whole Federal Government, and as we've seen recently, single injunction from a friendly federal judge (Obama must have had at least one?) could stop any regulation nationwide. If he really wanted it, he could organize it so that the practice would be stopped at least until it propagates through the courts up to SCOTUS (probably several years) and he surely could stop any federal participation in the practice, and issue guidelines severely deprecating the practice. And of course one shouldn't underestimate the power of the President, especially one like Obama, just plain speaking on the matter publicly. Obama did so with many matters. On the matter of civil forfeiture, he did the exact opposite. I see no other explanation for this but his complete approval of the practice.

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