U.S. Supreme Court to hear civil forfeiture case • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by LyndsySimon » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 11:16 PM UTC

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #63

torstenvl wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are incorrect, Sir. Grandparent is correct. May I recommend that you re-read the link? It says exactly the opposite of what you claim.

Someone at Cornell wrote that 2A was incorporated then, but that's ridiculous as if ANYTHING it would have been incorporated federally during 2008's Heller vs DC. If someone attaches the name of a university to something do you automatically take it as fact?

Respectfully, I think you should take a breath and re-read the comments to which you’re responding. I’m as big a supporter of the RKBA as you’ll find, and I didn’t read anything “anti-gun” into them.

This discussion is around the incorporation doctrine, not the Second Amendment.

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

#72

Post by mmt » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 11:16 PM UTC

downandout wrote: post #12

archon wrote: post #3

I'm worried that because this is a case in which the defendant actually did deal drugs, the court will rule in favor of the civil forfeiture laws and the SC case will then be used as a precedent to justify broader use of civil forfeiture. But IANAL, so maybe the danger isn't as big as I fear.

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…

> A Supreme Court case where property was seized without any charges is likely the only way we will see any progress on civil forfeiture.

I posit it's a better way (assuming SCOTUS makes decides an actual Constitutional question) than legislation, since it precludes legislators merely reinstating the practice later.

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

#73

Post by apo » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 11:17 PM UTC

It boggles the mind to think that forfeiture is alive and well today, some police departments even brag about the state-sponsored hooliganism they're committing, and the practice has never been seriously challenged in the Supreme Court.

This looks to be the defense:

The Indiana Supreme Court ruled against Mr. Timbs, on interesting grounds. It said the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of excessive fines did not apply to ones imposed by states.

From the 14th Amendment Section 1, it's disturbing that the following isn't obvious to any high school graduate:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Equally disturbing is the thought that Illinois might just win this case anyway.

It's interesting to consider what might happen if reason prevails. A lot of people have lost a lot of property over the years to to forfeiture. I can't imagine all of them will pass on the opportunity for compensation and punishment.

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

#74

Post by gamblor956 » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 11:17 PM UTC

ricree wrote: post #64

jdmichal wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interstate commerce has been interpreted very broadly... So broadly that consuming things you grew yourself is under subject of interstate commerce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich

Even before that, there was a case where the federal government had limited the amount of wheat a farm could grow (to control prices), and came after a farmer who exceeded those limits for the sake of feeding his own livestock. This is, to the best of my knowledge, the earliest supreme court case where purely personal use counted as "interstate commerce". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn

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 have rendered the wheat control law toothless. Generally, this law has been upheld consistently in this context, though SCOTUS has struck down cases where a good was tangentially related to Congress but the targeted act/good was not actually a commercial transaction (or the avoidance of a commercial transaction, as in Wickard).

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

#75

Post by VectorLock » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 11:17 PM UTC

slowburning wrote: post #53

RIMR wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's worse is they don't even need a shred of evidence to take your stuff. In some states, having more than $10,000 in cash on your person is automatically considered "evidence of criminal activity". That means that the police, just by seeing that you have more than $10k in cash, can simply seize it and then force you to spend your time and additional money proving that the money didn't come from crime. And, of cou…

In some states it is illegal to defend against civil forfeiture practices using hidden compartments in your vehicle to store 100% legal property (e.g. cash, jewelry, confidential information)

Which states?

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

#76

Post by LyndsySimon » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 11:19 PM UTC

amarkov wrote: post #70

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone at Cornell wrote that 2A was incorporated then, but that's ridiculous as if ANYTHING it would have been incorporated federally during 2008's Heller vs DC. If someone attaches the name of a university to something do you automatically take it as fact?

How would Heller vs. DC have incorporated anything? DC is a federal district; there were no states involved in that case.

As I recall, Heller v. DC established the precedent that the RKBA is an individual right, while McDonald v. Chicago established that the Second Amendment was incorporated through the Fourteenth Amendemnt’s “Due Process” clause.

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

#77

Post by mlindner » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 11:20 PM UTC

Navarr wrote: post #66

dhd415 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because of selective incorporation. ( https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/incorporation_doctrine ). For example, the Second Amendment wasn't incorporated against the states until 2010 in McDonald v. City of Chicago.

Thanks for this link! I'm learning a lot that I never really even knew to know about. It's a mess. It's probably the best mess they could put together - but it's still a mess.

Those are the cases that Supreme Court likes to take on.

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

#78

Post by mlindner » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 11:22 PM UTC

shawn wrote: post #22

Analemma_ wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever its other faults, SCOTUS is usually pretty good about not letting crummy defendants blind them to setting good precedent. For example, Miranda warnings came about when they threw out the conviction of a man who had almost certainly kidnapped and raped a teenager.

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's called rule of law, not rule of monarch (monarchy) or rule of mob (pure democracy).

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

#79

Post by nostrademons » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 11:23 PM UTC

docker_up wrote: post #50

smsm42 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obama never showed any desire to curtail executive powers. In fact, he was championing exactly the opposite approach - that executive has the power to produce new regulatory legislation and ignore existing legislation they don't like, as soon as they perceive Congress does not do what they want it to do. No wonder Obama did nothing for civil forfeiture reform - that would be the exact opposite of his policy of infini…

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.

Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy [1] presents a problem for anyone seeking to rectify the problem of an organization having too much power. In order to fix the problem, you first need power, which means that you need to create the institutional structures needed to secure that power, which means you have just exacerbated the problem. If you then actually follow-through with your original goal, nobody will listen to you, because you have (by definition) removed your power. More pithily, "Organizations whose top priority is not the continued existence of the organization are replaced by organizations whose top priority is."

The only way to fix an organization that's outgrown its social purpose is for that organization to fail, outright, and then have its functions subsumed by other entities outside of the organization that can pick up the pieces. Sometimes the failure comes from internal dysfunction, sometimes it comes from external competition, but most of the time it's a mix of both, as internal dysfunction drives away competent insiders who then form the locus of external resistance.

[1] https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html

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

#80

Post by SlowRobotAhead » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 11:25 PM UTC

throwaway76543 wrote: post #55

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For example, the Second Amendment wasn't incorporated against the states until 2010 in McDonald v. City of Chicago. No. The second amendment was always incorporated "against" (for) the states. McDonald only clarified what was always the reality. That a state can not preempt federal laws with keeping and barring arms for self defense. Notice that last part, the SPECIFIC INTENTION of the case is for self defense. Your…

"Your own link makes note that selective incorporation doesn't apply to the bill of rights." No, it doesn't. In fact, it clearly states the opposite noting that the 3rd, 7th, 9th and 10th amendments in the Bill of Rights have not been incorporated. On that page you can even find a table noting when each amendment in the Bill of Rights was incorporated. It quite clearly tells you that the 2nd amendment was incorporate…

Oh I agree, the table on your site says that. It's extremely wrong. Would have been much less obvious if they had selected the more important SCOTUS case just 2 years earlier.

By pushing the agenda you implied with "2A against the states" you showed your cards to not care about the facts.