According to this article (an opinion piece, actually) despite the House passing it by overwhelming majority, it’s not clear that the Senate will go along. Also, for unspecified reasons, the House chose to do it as a defunding measure instead of outlawing it, so there might be a way around this vote even if it makes it into law.
Regardless, it’s at least a step in the right direction. Asset forfeiture is one of those things that sound great when you conjure up images of the Good Guys seizing assets of crime kingpins whose obvious guilt is hard to pin down legally (e.g. drug lords, mobsters), but end up being consistently used against small-time people whose guilt is highly dubious at best.
Any asset forfeiture supporters want to defend it (as actually practiced, not in theory)?
Apparently the law only applies to the actions of the federal DOJ. State asset forfeiture laws are unaffected. I would have thought that Congress could control what powers the DOJ has. (If not, then who does?)
It’s hard to imagine that the DOJ has the power to seize people’s property not based on any laws passed and subject to amendment and repeal by congress.
As civil asset forfeiture laws (are widely reported to be) actually practiced, I would say Congress has the power to curtail such abuses under the Fourteenth Amendment:
People who have not been found guilty of any crime (and reportedly in many cases, people who have not even been tried for, or formally accused of, any crime) having their property seized in an arbitrary and capricious manner by local or state law enforcement authorities is not “due process of law”. Civil asset forfeiture abuses are also reportedly being done in a racially discriminatory manner (and also in a way which discriminates on the basis of class or economic status–poor people are way more likely to be subject to these abuses than are well-off or middle-class people). Those factors would also raise “equal protection of the laws” issues.
I don’t really feel like reading that decision, so let me just ask you: Did Bennis v. Michigan actually say “people having their property seized in an arbitrary and capricious manner by local or state law enforcement authorities is ‘due process of law’ and totally A-OK”; or did the decision hold that the procedures in place (over twenty years ago, in Michigan, in that particular case) were not actually “arbitrary and capricious”?
So, Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment (“The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article”) is just an inkblot, then?
What a great case to cite. Seizing a car jointly owned by a man and wife after the man engaged the services of a prostitute without his wife’s knowledge is exactly like the US seizing a pirate ship commissioned by the King of Spain. If that’s not due process I don’t know what is :rolleyes:
Which right there is a major difference between that case and these cases that people (on the right, left, center, and off to the side) are upset about. It’s possible that Bennis was also a crappy case, but at least it was a civil action (by the State of Michigan) that took place after a criminal conviction, which is totally not what people are talking about with regard to these abuses.
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No law permits any property to be seized in an arbitrary and capricious manner. It’s likely that what you think of as ‘arbitrary’ or ‘capricious’ really isn’t.
Not at all. The inkblot, to the extent one exists, is the one that obscures your understanding of what that section means.
Bricker, I understand that you haven’t stated an opinion either way about Civil Asset Forfeiture and how it’s applied, but I am curious about whether you think it has been applied reasonably on the state level.
But, more interestingly, do you think there’s a way to improve how it’s handled at the state level by making law at the federal level? Could the feds withhold funds unless the states handle CAF a certain way? That worked for the 21 minimum drinking age but was found too coercive for the ACA and medicare expansion.
I personally hope that, if nothing else, seeing this change at the federal level (if it happens) would at least prompt state legislatures to revisit it at their level. I imagine that, sometimes, states follow the Feds’ lead.
I think it’s a poor public policy choice to proceed with asset forfeiture absent a criminal conviction.
I don’t go so far as to say it’s unreasonable. But I think the far better alternative is to say, in effect, “We won’t claim that this property was the proceeds or instrument of a crime until we’ve proved that a crime happened.”
I strongly reject the tendency that I see on this board to elevate any disagreement over what constitutes wise public policy to a denunciation of the morals and ethics of those on the other side, and the seeming confidence that “unwise” and “unconstitutional” are synonyms.
I oppose forfeiture laws that allow a confiscation without a criminal conviction. I don’t claim that my view is the only right one, or that the opopsing practice is unconstitutional, or that it was forged in the depths of Satan’s oven.
I’d say that there was some fertile ground there, especially if the funding carrot related to the very things that civil asset forfeiture typically funds, like police equipment or salaries.
Thank you both. For an issue that seems opposed by both the right and the left in Congress and on this board, it’s surprising that it’s still a thing. I guess the money that comes into the local communities is a powerful incentive.
To outlaw it in every state? As practiced it is clearly a violation of the 4th Amendment. There is no way that the State should be allowed to seize assets on no evidence of a crime (other than being there with cash) and then force the person to jump through hoops, hire an attorney and if there is one little misstep they lose the asset despite no crime ever being committed.
I know you can pull up legal theory about how CAF is proper but I am talking how it is practiced today which in many cases is improper.
