# How is civil forfeiture a thing?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-civil-forfeiture-a-thing/791804>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [July 21, 2017, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-civil-forfeiture-a-thing/791804 "2017-07-21T15:17:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 108

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**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2017, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-civil-forfeiture-a-thing/791804/108 "2017-07-23T20:58:08Z")

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> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#):
>
> So it’s rather nice to see that literally everyone thus far in the thread has made it clear that they oppose these laws wholeheartedly. At least we can all get behind that one; we can’t even all get behind whether the holocaust happened around here half the time.

I’m not so persuaded by your disparate impact worries, but you’re right that I oppose the laws wholeheartedly. From either prince or pauper, the state should not take property without a better showing than mere preponderance of the evidence. At a minimum, we should require a criminal conviction. The whole idea of forfeiture is to take property because it was used in a crime, and now the state wants to do that even when it can’t prove the crime happened.

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