For those of you who don’t know what this, it’s basically a way for law enforcement agencies to seize your property if they suspect you of a crime. In recent years, it’s basically been turned into a legalized form of highway robbery.
It’s great that he’s done this, and it’s an important step in the right direction, but it won’t fix everything, because plenty of states have their own laws on the books that allow police to keep the proceeds of their asset seizures. Holder’s decision gets the Feds out of the racket, but doesn’t stop the states from continuing to steal people’s shit.
It’s worth noting that any attempts at reform on the state level will probably see some incredibly ferocious push-back from law enforcement. Some departments fill over 20 percent of their budget using the proceeds of [del]theft[/del] civil forfeiture.
Gotta say, many of us who have worked in government policy are appalled at how popular it has become among the political element (i.e. elected officials and their patronage appointees) to legislate/regulate that the proceeds of seizures, forfeits and fines should go wholly or in part to help finance the entity executing or levying them; and at how the judiciary has generally said “yup, that’s fine and dandy!” It’s a blatantly perverse incentive.
The drug war killed the 4th amendment, and the war on terror ritually desecrated the corpse.
We’re not getting back the 4th until the drug war is over. Civil asset forfeiture is the literal opposite of the founders’ intent, as well as the opposite of the actual text of the amendment. God, I’m embarrassed what this country is doing to itself.
My point was that even Republicans, who are typically very pro-cop, found this practice distasteful enough to laud Holder, a guy they have very little love for.
Yeah, States definitely need to follow Holder’s direction.
A landscape-company owner guy that paid me to help him out on big installs (when I could, around 20-25ish years ago), had his truck/flatbed ‘car hauler’ trailer forfeited after being pulled over for a supposedly non-working brake light. He proved it worked when he had me verify in front of both LEO’s, but it made no difference. There was a locked box with close to ten thousand dollars in it to be used at the eqpt auction we were headed to, and it also had the ‘official admission’ paperwork for auction itself affixed to wad of cash - just in case something like what happened actaully did happen. Evidence contrary to LEO’s “might be a smuggler” was superflous; owner was not getting his stufff no matter what he had to show that there was ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ evidence of what cash was for! No indication of malfesance anywhere other than possession of cash and his being of dark-skin from years of sun exposure from job. Cash was preferred payment over having checks or exact-amount money orders; even said so on the auction’s ‘guidelines’ in bolded print! LEO’s said there was a chance it was all a ‘front’ for smuggling drugs, and they had to take possession of all items present! It was hilarious when boss-man threw keys into a murky river as they were explaining why he was going to be losing his truck/stuff and the LEO’s were furious at that since they had to spend a chunk of Dept money to move truck from where he had pulled over and haul it a non-short distance for ‘storage’. LEO was told that there had not yet been a seizure of stuff, so his action was perfectly acceptable as a ‘fuck you both’ from owner. Owner was wise enough to know that LEO’s statements of “we are going to seize…” -v- “We have now seized…” meant he could toss keys without any legal issue, LOL. LEO knew they had screwed up in their process, and became severe assholes, so Supervisor(s) had to verify that no seizure had taken place, so not possible to fuck with owner’s eiddance of key(s) to eqpt on trailer and truck itself. LEO’s were also dicks to me since I had not brought wallet with money (for them to take as well) and I was giving them every needed bit of ID that law required. I laughed at them demanding MY Driver’s license because I was not driving in any manner - something Supervisors told LEO was lawful on my part.
When he sued to get his money/possessions back, it ws disallowed by the known rubber-stamping/crooked judge immediately. Judge would not even allow the auction’s paperwork to be presented as it was irrelevant to case! Riiiight. It would have cost more in attorney costs than value of seized stuff, so owner just had to accept the crookedness of LEO’s actions. Utter bullshit since I knew the ‘employer’ was staunchly against any of his employees having any illegal items aboard when using his truck(s)/eqpt as it would affect him seriously as well. I know of another VERY similar case (different place/time) that had exact outcome with similar circumstances, fwiw, but forget when/where it was.
Anything LEO wants to seize seems to get rubber-stamped as ‘legal seizure’ despite whatever evidence otherwise produced is given, IME. Good for Holder, absolutely, and I hope States see the wisdom of what he just did. Not holding my breath, though, since many small LEO depts DEPEND on seizures to keep their fleets of non-needed stuff maintained or whatever. This was told to me by at least 6-7 different LEO’s of various Depts I played rugby with on weekends at that time, so that is my ‘cite’, so to speak.
Like I already said, the drug war killed the 4th amendment, and the war on terror desecrated the corpse.
We’re not getting the 4th amendment back until every drug is legalized. They all used to be legal, and society, mysteriously, didn’t collapse. Regulate and tax recreational use, identify the addicts early, and get them into treatment. It would be cheaper than what we have now, far less violent, and we’d get the 4th amendment back.
Things like crack cocaine are recent inventions and were never legal, right? We could legalize opium poppies and coca plants but these would inevitably be processed into new, more destructive forms.