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FReepathon day 47.
Two percent a day keeps the 404 away.
Posted on 08/17/2014 2:25:43 PM PDT by Kid Shelleen
--snip-- This week, he and two other Philadelphia homeowners whose houses have become targets of civil forfeiture actions sued the District Attorney's Office, the city and the Police Department, seeking to close down what their lawyers call one of the most aggressive forfeiture units in the nation.
"The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office has turned this tool into a veritable machine, devouring real and personal property from thousands of residents, many of whom are innocent, and converting that property into a $5.8 million average annual stream of revenue," said Darpana Sheth, a lawyer with the Virginia-based Institute for Justice, a nonprofit public-interest law firm with libertarian leanings.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in a federal court in Philadelphia, alleges that the city's Public Nuisance Task Force makes millions each year in a Kafkaesque system designed to grind down or trick often innocent property owners until they give in or make procedural missteps that can result in the loss of their property.
(Excerpt) Read more at articles.philly.com ...
Name that Bill of Rights amendment...
Easy source of revenue. Like obamacare fines.
Easy...the Fifth.
Civil forfeiture programs are predatory. It’s one of the worst outcomes of the WOD, but even with legalization, it won’t go away. The cat’s out of the bag. It’s a lot easier to seize property than chase bad guys who shoot back.
Oh yeah?
Maybe under your archaic, racist, sexist, homophobic ways of doing things.
But this is Obamaland. :)
One of my least favorite men.Might be up for Mayor.
It started back in the 80s, when police realized they could tap “funds” confiscated in drug deals for new municipal projects. Then it snowballed. Now, you don’t even have to be a criminal to have your home taken away from you.
The legalization has happened in the form of the Kelo vs. New London SCOTUS decision in 2006. No longer do you have to be a criminal to have your property seized. A municipality can "eminent domain" it away from you based upon such metrics as the increase in tax revenue that a new owner will generate. SCOTUS reinterpreted the Fifth Amendment's "public use" into "public benefit" which signs off on such seizures. We own nothing anymore.
At least with Kelo, they pay you something that’s supposed to be fair compensation (although it might not be, and the transaction is forced). With Civil Forfeiture, they take the property, and the property owner has to spend additional legal funds to get it back.
That doesn’t mean Kelo is a good thing—its not, it’s bad. But, in many ways the Civil Forfeiture program is worse.
FMCDH(BITS)
Cops on I-10 in south Louisiana routinely pull over out-of-state cars that are high dollar (Caddy, etc) and seize the car and and money of the driver, asserting that they are attempting to buy drugs. (CBS 60 Minutes)
As part of the Kelo Decision, the Supreme Court stated that the States or local governments were free to define the limits of eminent domain. In Virginia, the year after the Kelo decision, the State Constitution was amended to prohibit the use of eminent domain for economic purposes, in addition it limits eminent domain for public use only. Examples cited include schools, roads, bridges, tunnels, public buildings etc.
I really wouldn’t mind it if more than just a few DAs started vanishing without a trace.
Pfizer NEVER did build that plant on the Kelo property.
It all still stands empty.
I wonder how many states have followed Virginia’s lead in defining domain. I would guess that Virginia isn’t the only one.
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