Black's Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition, page 165:
Bill of attainder. Legislative acts, no matter what their form, that apply either to named individuals or to easily ascertainable members of a group in such a way as to inflict punishment on them without a judicial trial. United States v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437, 448-49, 85 S.Ct. 1707, 1715, 14 L.Ed. 484, 492; United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303, 315, 66 S.Ct. 1073, 1079, 90 L.Ed. 1252. An act is a "bill of attainder" when the punishment is death and a "bill of pains and penalties" when the punishment is less severe; both kinds of punishment fall within the scope of the constitutional prohibition. U.S.Const. Art. I, Sect 9, Cl. 3 (as to Congress);' Art. I, Sec, 10 (as to state legislatures).
also (same site)
Constitution, Article 1, Section 9, Clause 3:
"'No State shall pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts.'" A bill of attainder is a legislative act which inflicts punishment without a judicial trial.
I do not care whether the people who wrote the law like it or not. It seems pretty clear that they have overstepped their bounds.
Civil action for deprivation of rights
Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress, except that in any action brought against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such officer’s judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable. For the purposes of this section, any Act of Congress applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be considered to be a statute of the District of Columbia.
They have, but what anyone is willing to do about it is a different story.
Well, getting a warrant may be "due process" but taking private property and not paying for it is just wrong. This is about as bad as the "civil forfeiture" highway robbery foisted on us by the war on drugs.
Regards,
GtG
This “civil forfeiture,” or state-sanctioned armed robbery to be more precise, is an abomination. First, they used these unConstitutional tactics against those accused of dealing drugs; now it’s gun owners.
It’s not going to stop until we, the People, decide that the tactic is unacceptable in all cases.