Posted on 08/16/2016 11:29:39 AM PDT by dtroxx
August 15, 2016 the California Assembly voted 66-8 to pass a bill that not only bolsters restrictions on state officials from seizing property without due process, but throws a wrench into federal efforts to do the same.
Sen. Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles) introduced Senate Bill 443 (SB443) last year. The legislation sets additional restrictions on the state to prevent abuses from civil asset forfeiture, a controversial practice that observers such as the Institute for Justice (IJ) have called “legal plunder.”
SB443 passed in the state Senate last summer by a resounding 38-1 vote. But the Assembly failed to pass the bill. It failed 44-24. Assemblyperson Chris Holden made a motion to reconsider that passed. SB443 was then placed in the inactive file and finally brought up for a vote in the full Assembly today.
(Excerpt) Read more at realityofsense.com ...
CA, of all places, leading the nation in restricting the Police State.
Worst case I saw was a small, independently-owned hotel in the midwest, owned by a nice retired couple just getting by.
Someone rented a room and a couple times someone there sold pot from it; the hotel was therefore technically a tool used in the commission of a drug crime.
The DEA understood the couple likely couldn’t afford a lawyer for a long, expensive legal fight and so they simple seized THE ENTIRE HOTEL.
Check out south Louisiana parrish forfeitures along I-10. Big scam. Pull over out-of-state cars, seize cars and money, no charges.
I know, right.
But even a broken clock, is right twice a day.
From the dealers’ point of view? It’s a tax.
And it’s an incentive to governments not to really ever win the so called “WOD”. Just keep the “sin tax” going at an optimal rate for them. They look like good moralists when they are actually riding high on milking a system of sin and misery.
If governments really cared? Almost all this “cream” would go into rehab centers — not into police — and it wouldn’t even matter who used them, it would be treated like grants.
Drug war whores aren’t going to like this.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-texas-profiling_wittmar10-story.html
In Texas, the police department doing the seizure gets to keep 90% of the assets, California is doing something right.
guy I know from my Moose lodge... his son had been driving his car (a shared family car) when need be (a early 2000 lexus, and this was in early 2000’s so it was pretty new).
Kid racked up a few tickets for noise violation (I guess it had a very nice sound system, dad said it was a stock sound system, but very nice).
Dad had no idea the kid was getting the tickets because they were citations and not sent to the state or anything.
The following summer, his car was seized under our city noise ordinance laws.
I don’t know if the car was financed, paid for half paid for or whatever, but I do know he got an attorney and pursued the case to get his car back... which he did, but he incurred over 5 grand in storage fees over the year from the impound yard, which the judge (again going back to court) refused to let him off the hook for.
He said he talked to a newspaper reporter from the Tribune or Sun Times (I forgot which) but the story never made it to the paper.
He did get his car back, I don’t know any more of what happened after the facts though, I’m not a good friend of the guy, but this is how the story was related to me.
“Check out south Louisiana parrish forfeitures along I-10. Big scam. Pull over out-of-state cars, seize cars and money, no charges.”
Pardon me if I don’t care when such armed robbers get shot because, after all, they’re armed robbers.
This was a true non-partisan/multi-partisan bill to stop (or at least drastically slow down) the outrageous “asset forfeiture” larceny by police agencies in California. A representative of Democrat State Senator Holly Mitchell attended the California Libertarian Party’s convention earlier this year to give a pitch for SB 443 and ask for help in urging Assembly Members to pass it. Libertarians were more than willing to lend their support, and I personally contacted my Assemblyman (who I know well) to persuade him to vote for it.
Of course the various law enforcement lobbies had strong motives to oppose SB 443, since it will mean the loss of lots of free (i.e., stolen) money from their slush funds. They tried to paint it as a “law and order” issue which would hamstring them. But fortunately an overwhelming majority of both Democrats and Republicans have now passed it. Governor Brown will likely sign it, but even if he doesn’t there appear to be more than enough votes to over-ride his veto.
These days it is incredibly rare that the California state legislature does something right. So let’s savior this brief happy moment.
Nice to get good news here in California.
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