In this corner: A guy who has had to hire five different law firms, still has the better ones on retainer -
including a law firm that specializes in and has handled actual civil asset forfeiture cases for many years - and has paid almost $200,000 in legal fees. A guy who is
living this.
And in the other corner: Quickseller, a guy with a humble opinion.
IMO civil forfeiture need to be addressed at a federal level, not a local one.
Let's see where would you start? The executive branch that makes billions of extra dollars from this? The do nothing but what their corporate masters want them to do Congressional branch? Or your best idea yet: the "fox guarding the hen house" Judicial branch who also directly profits from this practice?
I would not doubt that there will eventually be a supreme court case ruling civil forfeiture unconstitutional in the future,
"Take it to the supreme court by God!". Just two of the many, many, times this has already been done that I found in quick search:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2014/02/kaley_v_united_states_terrible_supreme_court_decision_lets_the_government.htmlhttp://www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-ruling-on-civil-forfeiture-2014-11Fifth Amendment's stipulation that you can't "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."
The Supreme Court has ruled otherwise. That court has issued a number of rulings upholding civil forfeiture, including one in 1996 that said seizure of an innocent person's property didn't violate due process. In that case, a Michigan woman named Tina Bennis fought the seizure of her car after her husband was caught having sex with a prostitute in it.
however the fact that, in the 81% of cases when no crime is charged, the government will usually return the property when the forfeiture is disputed,
Even if true (where is your source) this would mean that in 20%, oops sorry 19%, of the cases where the seizure is disputed the government keeps the property anyway, right? Let me tell you what actual attorneys that deals with this shit all the time actually told me:
If I am totally acquitted of all criminal charges the government will
probably drop the civil asset forfeiture suit (which is a totally separate case from the criminal case). However, due to the supreme court you put your trust in rulings, they
can pursue the civil asset forfeiture case even in light of a total acquittal of all criminal charges. How can this be? Because in the criminal case I am I trial but in the civil case I am not on trial,
the seized property is on trial. Also, while you are getting a source for your 81% figure please also find out how many of those people that "won" got
all of their seized property back or were not irreparably harmed by the whole ordeal.
A quick search found one of your "81%" so called "winners" (
http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeleef/2014/09/12/time-for-civil-asset-forfeiture-laws-to-meet-the-same-fate-as-jim-crow/):
a 35-year old African American owner of a small barbecue restaurant in Staunton, VA was stunned when police took $17,550 from him during a stop in 2012 for a minor traffic infraction on I-66 in Fairfax. He rejected a settlement with the government for half of his money and demanded a jury trial. He eventually got his money back, but lost his business because he didn’t have the cash to pay his overhead.
along with the fact that challenging such laws are very expensive
No shit Sherlock. Now what you might not know, not having this happen to you, is that the prosecutors in these cases will drag them out as long as they possibly can in the hopes of totally bankrupting the victim through their attorney's fees.
and suits would need to be brought by people who, by definition have a lot to lose by not settling (the government often makes settlement offers when suits are filed) and do not have a lot left means that few people are going to have standing to petition the supreme court to hear their case.
and who know they will lose anyway, just like all of those before them.
The Washington Post published an
in depth article late last year about civil forfeiture (I believe the linked article is the one, but they have written about it several times) which has since caused a lot of public debate about the issue. The Wall Street Journal has also
published a number of articles critical of civil forfeiture. This is interesting because the Post is traditionally a very liberal publication while the WSJ is a very conservative publication.
cool
I would not be surprised if the issue of civil forfeiture is a major issue in the 2016 (US) election.
That would be nice, not holding my breath.
