Bull Cheese. Forfeiture laws work. They are a very effective tool in the WOD. Naturally there will be abuses, but the majority of cash and cars siezed are uncontested. Why? Drug dealers write off these losses as a cost of doing business.
Other effective tools in the WOD would involve eliminating the entire 5th Amendment, the 6th Amendment, and the 8th Amendment. Too many protections there for drug dealers. We just know that they are usually guilty anyway, so why not eliminate all of the costly formalities?
Also, eliminating the 3rd Amendment and quartering troops in private houses would be quite an effective deterrent against drug dealers.
Only Libs would be against such reasonable, common-sense measures to control the scourge of drug dealers.
Civil forfeiture laws can punish innocent people by depriving them of their home or livelihood for their property being used illegally by others that they have no knowledge of or can’t take reasonable steps to prevent. Every one agrees that is unjust and unfair. No one should be deprived without a prior judicial hearing of their assets just because they’re related to someone who committed a crime.
But that is exactly what civil forfeiture does and it does not breed respect or understanding for law enforcement especially when you are not even being charged with a crime but they can still decide your assets can forfeited to pay for what someone else may have done. Its worse than that because there is no due process that comes into the picture. Unlike in a criminal case where you can be punished after you’re convicted, in a civil forfeiture, the state’s action against you can have no connection whatsoever with whether you are criminally culpable in the first place.
Perhaps because the deck is stacked against the owner: "The government must initially prove by a preponderance of the evidence [NOT beyond a reasonable doubt] that the property is subject to forfeiture. The owners must then prove by a preponderance of the evidence that they had no knowledge of the underlying crime." - http://www.nhbar.org/publications/display-news-issue.asp?id=7171