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civil asset forfeiture

2K views 41 replies 20 participants last post by  br549arkie 
#1 ·
this interview was at the Virginia gun rally yesterday, just wondering what law enforcement and others on marlin thinks of this, I have been hearing these stories for decades and they are usually similar so I don't think everyone is lying,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
 
#9 ·
Back in the 80's I got stopped early one morning going through Grande Isle headed to Fouchon In a company car for doing 28 in a 25 zone. I learned Cajun Justice real quick, the only way I was getting out of town was to pay fine in cash...................they had to take up a collection on the rig so I could get to the dock.................. Lucky I was good at booray as I won enough money on the hitch to pay the rig folks back........
 
#4 ·
One of the reasons I did not drive through New York State over Thanksgiving to visit my nephew and is Fiance is that New York State is run by the Communists. They look for out-of-state plates and find a reason to pull us over. I will add that at my age, I don't care for driving long distances during the winter, especially on the busiest travel week of the year. My nephew lives above the "Snow Belt" in NY State. When its dry where I live, they can have 10 inches of snow. All-in-all, its not a very friendly place to go. :frown:


Mike T.
 
#5 ·
yea this makes my blood boil! then cops wonder why some people don't trust them! criminal actions like this makes good law enforcement look bad, really bad,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
 
#6 ·
No trial, no jury, no conviction, no recourse. I remember a 60 Minutes expose' 40 or more years ago about some small towns using this for funding as furlong mentioned. What's scary is it's no longer small, isolated departments with little oversight. This was the state police. Federal as well. I understand this is a powerful tool to fight drug and human trafficking and I'm a law and order guy, but without due process, as described in this video, it's nothing more than piracy.

Keith
 
#8 ·
they also can seize homes and land guns ect. with this theft! if they, "law enforcement" suspect drugs or illegal activity is happening from a residence but do not have proof for arrest, then they can steal your land and home and property with no conviction! I live in SC and here I understand that can't be done. but nothing surprises me, never say never,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
 
#10 ·
The "war on drugs" and civil asset forfeiture are the greatest sources of official corruption in this country -- and the public gets absolutely zero benefit from either.
 
#12 ·
I have heard the stories too but I can say this from a Federal Asset Forfeiture standpoint, which might be different from the State Asset Forfeiture statutes/procedures.

Lets take a house for instance. The search warrant is for drugs, as the home owner has already sold drugs to either an officer or informant and another sale is negotiated but an arrest and search warrant is executed instead. You look to take away all ill gotten gains from the drug dealer. You can only do this by proving the drug dealer purchased or is making payments with drug money. How do you do this? Fairly easy, as you take down the SN’s of the major appliances and fun toys such as ATV etc and follow that appliance/item to the retail store and then see how that major appliance/item was paid for. Most/some times the payment is in cash, so that is documented but the main thrust comes through his taxes filed. He reports $150,000 AGI but you can prove he spent/acquired $425,000 that year. This is how you allege and prove money laundering and seize and forfeit assets.

Now stopping people and searching their vehicle is something else and finding large sums of money and seizing it - well, that’s all together a different animal. In my opinion, some counties and States thinking may be like this. This guy didn’t pay tax on this money, so he won’t fight for it, so we’ll just seize it. That’s usually true, because if the person can prove he recently withdrew the money from the bank, they will give it back but that’s not usually the case. Used car dealers, antique dealers etc have a few people in those professions who wheel and deal with cash to get the best prices and at times don’t record their profits “correctly”. Is that a legal reason to seize their money? HELL NO it isn’t.

What that amounts to is making the person prove he is innocent, as opposed to making the authorities prove their case. Some individuals who may have a couple thousand dollars seized and can’t articulate where they received it from will just let the money go, as an attorney will cost them 5X’s the amount seized to attempt to fight the case. That is not right and must be stopped and replaced with strict guidelines - but I think politicians look at it as free money and in turn, that turns some LEO’s into revenue producers for the city, county or state. Just not right, no matter how you look at it.
 
#13 · (Edited)
Once again a 'Well Intention-ed Law' to primarily fight the drug traffic morphing into a venemous Medusa snake. We had a special class for utilizing it and the lawyer teaching it predicted that it would be abused. It is a soil on the Constitution in my opinion. My department only utilized it with probable cause (backed up in court), however, neighboring small beach side departments basically financed their departments utilizing the Forfeiture Act.

AC
 
#14 ·
The issue that I have with Civil Asset Forfiture is that the burden of proof is reversed. Due to its civil nature the burden is not on the Government to prove that the property was the result of nafarious activity. The proof instead is on the individual whom is deprived of that property to prove to the Court that the property was gained through legal activity, or did not participate as an instrument in illegal activity.

The whole process is rediculous and a violation of the 5th, 8th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution. You could also argue a violation of the 4th as well.

Having worked for the federal government for more years than I can remember you see both sides of civil asset forfeiture. Good Aspect: A guy gets stopped in his car at a check point. In the course of the interview/inspection a duffel bag full of $100 dollar bills is located. It is obviously greater than $10K... The driver is interviewed, and claims that he never saw the bag before and it isn't his. Bag gets seized, driver in many cases is released... and is never seen again when he tells his boss that he lost the cash.

Bad Aspect: LE Cowboy Ranger. There exists a few in law enforcement who will throw the book at and seize anything that they can to either pad their stats or make themselves look good. While these people are few and far between, when you pair them up with unscrupulous prosecutors, city managers, or upward mobile supervisors... that's when things have a tendency to get out of control, and property under an individual's control is seized for all kinds of weird reasons. Get pulled over with a quantity of marijuana over what is considered for personal use? The car you were driving could be seized as potentially ill-gotten gains and the burden of proof is on you to prove to the court that your car was paid for with legal funds... which will probably cost you more money in court costs than what the vehicle is valued at.... etc....

The courts need to look into the constitutionality of Civil Forfeiture, IMHO.
 
#15 ·
I hear of this stuff but don't know anyone who has been hit by it. There are many things our government does that is outside Constitutional rules. Another simple one is traffic cameras that hand out speeding tickets or red light runners. You are supposed to be able to face your accuser, however, camera's can't talk. If I had almost $100k taken from me I don't know what I'd do. It probably wouldn't be good.
V
 
#16 ·
more than 20 years ago I first heard about it. I was listening to the G Gordan Liddy show. he had a man on that had a 10,000 stolen from him at an airport by the cops. a woman saw the cash when he was paying for a ticket and turned him in. he owned green houses and was flying to south America to by exotic plants and they only deal in cash, he never got the money back. and the best one was a man he had on the show with this story,

a man was a gun dealer, he worked mostly gun shows. he was home in the morning drinking coffee, his wife was in the shower, the son had went behind the house turkey hunting. there was a banging on the door and men screaming ATF! he opened the door. several armed agents/thugs in ninja suits with masks covering there face stormed in with guns in his face. his wife was pulled from the shower naked but was allowed to put on a robe. they demanded to know where the machine gun was! he said he had no such gun. they started tearing his house apart. his son came home and the ATF agents/thugs took him into custody. he said they trashed the entire house! he had 15,000 dollars on the top of the TV the he was going to buy a truck with that day. he said they took the money, it was Christmas time and they had a tree. the wife had a kitten. she said on the way out the door one of the agents/thugs stomped the kitten and killed it and kicked it under the tree, and said if they ever told anybody they were there they would come back and do the same to them! this aired on the Gordon Liddy show about 1992 I guess it was true I do not know but I heard it there,,,,,,,,,,,,
 
#17 ·
They do it full time on I-75 here in this area. The Alachua County Sheriff has more patrols on the county stretch of 75 than the Florida Highway Patrol does and they have plenty of them out every day. They are in blacked out SUV's with dogs and I go by all the time and they have the people in cuffs and all the stuff out of the truck and the inside of the car with the hood up. I have never been stopped even with my dark tinted windows. They know what they are looking for. And of course they make money off of what that seize. That is why they spend the resources out there.
 
#19 ·
I believe it more than I don't! just look at the way some people are treated by the police on youtube. the videos don't lie. cops are terrified of cameras more than they are a gun,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
 
#22 · (Edited)
I don’t agree with this to an extent. I’m speaking for myself of course. I do remember back in the day some officers/deputies being upset when the car cameras came out. I disagreed with those folks too. I was glad to have them. On more than one occasion the camera has backed me up when someone has shown up to file a complaint based on lying about me. They always changed their tune when they realized the whole incident was recorded, audio and video. Funny thing is, I never could get the chief to get them to commit to their lies in writing so I could submit that to my attorney.

So I for one am not in fear of a camera, except for the fact that I don’t exactly look like a supermodel, maybe more like a basset hound.

As far as this asset forfeiture stuff, there are times that it needs to be done. For example, the drug task force in this area made a rather large bust on a grow operation. The guy actually hadn’t worked in years. I’ll give the guy credit, he straight up told them that’s what he had been doing for a living for several years and had bought his house, tractor and atv, among other things, with those proceeds from his drug sales. They seized all of it. That’s one case where it was a legitimate action. There are many others just like it.

Also, I assume most everyone is aware of the fact that a LOT of proceeds from drug sales goes to fund terrorism. So I am very much in favor of some drug dealer having their assets seized. There are also times when it becomes necessary to seize a habitual drunk driver’s vehicle after they keep driving it on the road while schnockered.

However, on the flip side of this issue, there are many cases where that is abused. I might venture to say that there might even be more cases where it’s grossly abused than there are legitimate cases.

I’ve been observing people for a living for the last 24 years and I really don’t know whether to completely believe that guy’s story or not, but I do know that something doesn’t feel right about his story to me. Hard to describe. That’s all I know.

BUT, I will tell you that I have had a lot of gut wrenching concern over that law for many years because of the fact that I believe it is abused. Part of that is the fact that I operate under the apparently antiquated standard that if I am going to accuse someone of committing a crime, the burden of proof is on me. Somebody is carrying a few thousand in cash? OK, can I prove that they got that money from being a drug dealer or a thief or a hitman or whatever?

I can understand if a someone is stopped with a literal tractor trailer full of vacuum packed cash (it happens very frequently). A wad of cash with a bunch of drugs and scales and baggies, quite obviously intended for distribution? Sure, hook it up. But what about Joe Schmoe carrying a few grand in cash to go buy a car. How in the crap do these people legitimately expect Joe Schmoe to prove right there on the side of the road how he earned that cash? Could be a drug dealer who’s been filtering money into an account and drew it out. But it could be hard earned cash earned from Schmoe’s Widget Manufacturing Inc. I’ve never quite understood how someone can seize someone’s property without proof that said property was the fruit of criminal enterprise.

All that to say that I don’t agree with lumping all asset seizures into the “all are crooked” category. But I also don’t agree with the unfettered free reign that some of these agencies seem to have with regard to asset forfeiture. And I DANG SURE don’t agree with these agencies deciding to fund their budgets depending on asset forfeiture. In my view, THAT LEADS TO TEMPTATION AND CORRUPTION.

I hate drug dealers and thugs and other criminals, but I get hot under the collar when I think an honest citizen of this country is getting his/her rights violated.

And another thing - at times I'm starting to think that maybe, just maybe, I don't fit in any more with today's law enforcement.
 
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#21 ·
I won’t say where I heard it, but I know of an incident where a large truckload of drugs was allowed to be delivered and they seized the truck heading back west with literally a truckload of cash, because that’s what they wanted. It was one of our wonderful federal agencies.
 
#28 ·
Stayed out of this one until I hear the BS. .............Asset forfeiture has been abused, yes of course. Across the board, having worked with DEA, BNE and Customs, I can say the process is a valuable tool, and with due process applied .......which, is the case with the agencies I have worked with.

Can't help guys, the 'broad brush' BS don't go with me.
 
#30 ·
if due process is applied and guilt is found then it is what it is as they say. the problem is taking/stealing another mans property without due process. and that dose happen! then there is a problem. there is no broad brush except when a mans "stuff" is took and keep by another man without a trial and a guilty verdict,,,,,,,,,,,,
 
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#33 ·
I’ll clue some in, IF a federal agency such as DEA, want to allow drugs into the traffic, that office has to articulate the reason and received permission from HQ, which is no easy feat - AND we aren’t talking a vehicle “load” - at most 1, maybe 2 kilos, and the justification to “hurt” the general public better be well documented. Yes, there are some decisions made on the street by seasoned agents but those cases are rare and the drug amount would be small, like 1 to 8 ounces. An after incident report on the release better be well documented as to the justification or both the agent and his 1st line supervisor will be fired and possibly indicted. It’s no small matter relative to releasing drugs into the public from a FLE standpoint. Talking about opiates/cocaine.
 
#36 ·
In my opinion, civil asset forfeiture is just legalized theft. Much like a good majority of the taxes and insurance premiums we have to pay. I'm sure there are legitimate and proper instances when it is appropriate but when it comes to the real world, like many things the government has given themselves authority to do, is corrupted for politician's and bureaucrat's benefit.
 
#38 · (Edited)
Let's start at the very beginning. Somebody, either LEO, a Lawyer, or just a concerned Citizen please enter in the space below any Article, Amendment, Section, Subsection, or Addendum to the Constitution of the United States of America that empowers the Federal Government to regulate, restrict, or prohibit a Citizen from putting in his/her body any specific intoxicant.

All the hype, all the corruption, all the laws in this glorified War on Drugs, and by extension all laws subsequent, have no Constitutional basis, other than a 10th Amendment issue. To be decided by the individual States. On a Federal level, the laws are Unconstitutional. Prove me wrong. Post the part of the Constitution that applies to this discussion.
 
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#39 ·
It all starts with someone saying "It ought to be a law!". Enough people get the same idea and a politician catches wind of it. Enough politicians like the idea and vote into law. No constitutionality factor is even considered until someone gathers up enough cash to take it to court over and over again until it gets to the Supreme Court. Then, it anyone's guess as to whether they will go with the Constitution or manufacture some way that it is Constitutional. Kinda like the "Affordable" Care Act.
 
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