"People are still entitled to due process of law before you deprive them of their property. Determining whether it's their property or not is part of the due process requirement."I hope I didn't give you the impression that I disagreed with the above.
I don't know the details of the Texas forfeiture laws and how they apply to the case in the article. But The Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 tightened up the federal laws whereby the government is required to prove by a preponderance of the evidence (it used to be only probable cause) that the property is subject to forfeiture.
If the property was used to commit or facilitate the commission of a crime or was involved in the commission of a crime, the Government must show that there was a substantial connection between the property and the crime.
Given the facts contained in the article (and we can even ignore the criminal charges to make it simple), I would say the property could be seized. There was a forfeiture hearing. He lost the property. What "due process" was lacking?
You don't believe in the current asset forfeiture laws? Fine. I even think there's room for improvement. But to say that Ronnie Plunkett's property shouldn't be seized because you don't like the Texas asset forfeiture laws is irrelevant. That's a different argument.
You think asset forfeiture should be applied to "big time drug dealers"? You better define "big time" because some would say 250 pounds of marijuana is getting close. What would Plunkett's operation be worth left unchecked? I'd call it big time.
By the way, you've exhausted every argument but one -- aren't you going to proclaim that Ronnie Plunkett had no idea that marijuana was being grown on his farm? That he shouldn't be subject to asset forfeiture because of that?
I've argued all along that it is possible that Puckett did not know the pot was being grown on his land. I wouldn't call it "Puckett's operation" because I don't know that he had anything to do with it. The jury sure didn't seem to think there was enough evidence to prove he knew that pot was being grown on his land. You trudge on as if he was guilty of a crime. Personally, I need to see proof before I go convicting anyone. I've see plenty of cases where the circumstantial evidence looked bad for the defendant and then it turned out that the guy was clearly innocent.
We've beaten this horse to death. The more we get into it, the more apparent it becomes that we need more information about the case in order to have a fair and rational debate about it. And even if we did have more evidence, I'd say we’ve gone about as far as we are going to go with this one and we're getting to the point where nitpicking is more descriptive than debating for what is actually occurring on this thread.
You are correct in assuming that I do not like asset forfeiture laws. If it were up to me, we'd severely limit the instances under which forfeitures would be appropriate. And aside from just trying to make the forfeiture system fair, we'd make for strict oversight as to what happens with the forfeiture proceeds. The lion's share of the money would not go to the arresting law enforcement agencies and the local prosecutors like it does now. It would be earmarked for other purposes like programs designed to help people get off drugs or leave them alone in the first place. The other way turns our police into predators with screwy priorities and it leads to corruption and disparate treatment for different defendants.
Thanks for the debate. I have a feeling that deep down inside you have the many of the same complaints about our laws that I have. You're just not ready to stop defending failed policies yet. Give it time, sooner or later if you maintain an interest in these issues you'll start adding up all of the things that are really wrong with our system and you'll start pushing for reform too.