This was never anything but a ruse to allow the sale of Marijuana .
Whatever it is doesn’t matter. It’s the principle.
There is no principal in passing a law for an express purpose when the intent is something else.
The drug trade long ago became more than a state problems. Most of these laws we are speaking of were brought about at the behest of state AGs.
While the case you stated in it’s content are deplorable one assumes the guy had access to counsel.
I would not begin to justify this kind of abuse , sadly there are Mike Nifongs among us. The bastard that did this should be prosecuted.
The principle is state sovereignty. Whatever the ruse, it is a state issue to resolve.
I would not begin to justify this kind of abuse , sadly there are Mike Nifongs among us.
When it comes to seizure the Nifongs are not a tiny minority. This isn't one rape case, it's hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of victims.
It is policy. Where outraged citizens finally got state governments to do something, the police simply went around them. New Mexico clamped down, requiring conviction, a reasonable amount seized, and nothing goes to the police (eliminating their greed motive). No problem, the police started letting the feds "adopt" all their forfeiture cases, in return for 80% back. It took years of litigation and an appeals court ruling to finally force the police to comply with the law.
Having to go to court to force police to comply with a law that protects citizens -- that's what asset forfeiture has brought us to. Of course, those officers who broke the law at the expense of citizens will probably not be prosecuted. They should be convicted, and then their assets should be seized, equal to the value of what they illegally seized from the citizens.
This isn't an aberration or a rare miscarriage of justice. It is endemic as seizures tempted the greed of every law enforcement officer, office, department and agency in the country. And that temptation bore fruit with a huge number of them -- almost half of local authorities are now dependent on forfeiture money for their operations. Whatever the benefits of this program, they are minuscule compared to not only the damage done to law-abiding citizens, but to the Constitution.
There is, of course, another aspect: Police will go after lucrative targets instead of the ones they should be catching. Police used to pose as buyers in order to nail the dealers in possession of a lot of drugs. Not so much anymore. Now they pose as dealers so they can nail buyers and thus seize their money. You see, five kilos of coke in the possession of a dealer isn't really worth anything to the police, but the guy who was trying to buy a small baggie might have several thousand dollars on him.