Posted on 01/19/2015 11:40:11 AM PST by Boiler Plate
Attorney General Eric Holder announced he is terminating the Justice Department’s three-decade-old civil asset forfeiture program called Equitable Sharing that allowed state and local law enforcement agencies to keep 80% of cash, vehicles, real estate and other assets seized under federal drug laws before formal warrants or criminal charges were filed.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
That's the scam Holder is ending.
“Even more important, police departments and sheriff departments aren’t allowed to profit.....all money from seized assets go to the state’s general fund.”
That is true in many states, and that is where this “equitable sharing” program came in. It was designed specifically to skirt laws like Maine’s. All a local police department had to do was bring in Federal officers on a raid. Then, the Feds would be the ones who technically seized whatever was taken in the raid, and the Feds would then “share” 80% of it back to the locals. Since it wasn’t seized by the locals, state restrictions on the use of seized goods/money did not apply.
All in all, good move by Holder. Never thought I would write such a sentence.
Asset forfeiture laws allow us to take the ill-gotten gains of drug kingpins and use them to put more cops on the streets and more prosecutors in court.
In the last 5 years alone, the Justice Department shared over half a billion dollars in forfeited assets with State and local law enforcement.
“They probably are not stopping the forfeitures.
They probably are stopping the high-percentage sharing of the take with local law enforcement.”
Which would stop the forfeitures. The only reason the locals bring in the Feds on these forfeitures is because the Feds share the take with the locals. Get rid of the sharing —> the locals have no reason to bring in the Feds —> the locals have no reason to continue the forfeitures at all
Did an associate of Hold or Obama recently get busted on drug charges and have some things confiscated?
Maybe he is trying to “hep a brutha out”
I am waiting for the Paul Harvey, “Now for the rest of the story”, moment.
Holder is going to keep ALL the money!
I see two effects from this:
Holder gets a 20% greater profit per raid and therefor will make more raids.
Local cops cooperate less.
“Does that include money seized by the federales?”
____________________________________________________
I don’t know. Maine is mostly rural, so there aren’t a lot of feds running around here, to my knowledge.
There supposedly are a lot of hoops for the powers-that-be to jump through here in Maine when it comes to asset forfeitures.
Also, Maine has an “A” rating when it comes to asset forfeiture....”A” being good. Florida is rated a “D”. Wish I remembered the web site where they posted these stats.
Holder gets a 500% increase in his profit.
He'll be making a LOT more raids.
I never thought I could find common ground with Eric Holder, but when it comes to this ‘Equitable Sharing’, that ability should have been done away with long ago. The reason being that when local police departments benefit heavily from ‘assets seized’, then the temptation to fund their own departments override common sense.
I totally agree that when ‘cops can keep what they seize, it is like letting the IRS keep income tax money.’.... we know how honest our IRS agency is, just look at Lois Lerner and her crew. There is still some limitations needed where the Federal Government is concerned. Let us hope it isn’t federal greed behind this change.
The civil asset forfeiture program is unconstitutional theft under color of law. Why has this not been struck down by SCOTUS?
....nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
We never should have put up with this program, let alone support it.
Guess it’s back to the pick-up for Crockett.
The courts should have slapped it down the very first time it reared it's ugly head.
How can anyone in the legal system think it is acceptable to seize someone's assets without a trial?
I bet the police will still have to seize large sums of cash like always but now they will have to turn it in to the IRS!
So, now any seized monies will become Federal property!
Yeah, he’ll get 400% more from each seizure.
...My math instincts have turned on me lately!
"Asset forfeiture laws allow us to take the ill-gotten gains of drug kingpins and use them to put more cops on the streets and more prosecutors in court."
"In the last 5 years alone, the Justice Department shared over half a billion dollars in forfeited assets with State and local law enforcement."
George H.W. Bush and his big government Country Club Republicanism is a lot of the reason the country has subsequently been in a mess. It's his Limousine Liberalism that got Clinton Elected, and it is policies he put in place that have undermined efforts to move society back towards some normal accountability.
His legacy is a significant part of the problem that we have been dealing with.
If, and it is a big if, there is not something nefarious of the details. What is scary is that some rights have been restored in the same manner they were taken away, by edict of an unelected bureacracy.
The very most significant aspect of the problem and also the very question I have been wondering all along. How does this get past the fifth amendment? How could the courts have ever let this past?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.