Posted on 08/26/2014 10:41:36 AM PDT by george76
Chris Sourovelis has never had any trouble with the law or been accused of any crime. But that hasnt stopped the City of Philadelphia from trying to take his home.
The Sourouvelis family, along with thousands of others in Philadelphia, is living a Kafkaesque nightmare: Their property is considered guilty; they must prove their innocence and the very prosecutors theyre fighting can profit from their misery. Now the Institute for Justice has filed a major class-action lawsuit to end these abuses of power.
Back in March, Chriss son was caught selling $40 worth of drugs outside of the home. With no previous arrests or a prior record, a court ordered him to attend rehab. But the very day Sourovelis was driving his son to begin treatment, he got a frantic call from his wife. Without any prior notice, police evicted the Sourovelises and seized the house, using a little-known law known as civil forfeiture.
...
Under civil forfeiture, property owners do not have to be convicted of a crime, or even charged with one, to permanently lose their property. Instead, the government can forfeit a property if its found to facilitate a crime, no matter how tenuous the connection. So rather than sue the owner, in civil forfeiture proceedings, the government sues the property itself,
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the owners who want to defend themselves and retrieve their seized property must venture to the Orwellian-sounding Courtroom 478. Despite its name, there are neither judges nor juries in Courtroom 478. Instead, there are only assistant district attorneys and a scheduler, who deal with up to 80 forfeiture cases in a single day.
With the prosecutors running this kangaroo court, the DAs Office clearly wields enormous power.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Just advertise it as a peaceful gathering of like minded spirits communing with whatever, yadda, yadda, yadda. Mebbe wear Guy Fawkes masks....
“Thank the First Prez Bush for putting this kind of stuff in place.”
In what way? No argument,I really don’t know.
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Technically it was under Reagan and his Drug War.
He pushed through the seizure laws. So if police suspect property is drug related it can be seized without court action. The owner must prove their innocence.
They’ve taken multi-million dollar yachts due to a single pot seed.
If they catch you with too much cash they can seize it. You have to prove its not drug related, that you earned it legally, and that you paid taxes on it and then they might give it back to you.
We've had a visit from the FTB on our ranch.
In Wyoming.
The Park County Sheriff advised them not to come back ever again and if they did that he was okay with them being shot for trespassing. We're deeply happy that we left California and we deeply appreciate the reasons why we have an elected sheriff.
“He pushed through the seizure laws. So if police suspect property is drug related it can be seized without court action. The owner must prove their innocence.”
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Thanks for the info———and this is outrageous.
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If I got this frantic call from my wife, I would tell her to hang up the effing phone and reload for the next wave.
Do a search on “drug seizure laws” and do some reading. This stuff is happening everywhere.
Your fault for being STOOOOOPID enough to own a home in Philadelphia in the first place.
There really should be scare quotes around the word “earns”.
If the legislature specified that the penalty for a crime was to forfeit all your assets to the jurisdiction in which your crime was committed, courts would probably strike it down.
For me, stories like this often give rise to thoughts of 'exactly where would I move to in order to experience the least amount of guvmint lunacy and thuggery in the future'..... the choices seem to be diminishing by the day.
The CA Franchise Tax Board levied our accounts this year and took over $2000 out of our checking for 1995 taxes they said my girlfriend owed before we were married in 1999.
I had to hire a tax attorney to get my accounts released, and my money returned. It was a nightmare. Cost us $500. Can you imagine not being able to pay your bills, or get your DD Form 214, and birth cert. from your safe deposit box?
5.56mm
Those of you who support the war on drugs support and enable this. If someone tried this crap with me there would be dead bodies involved.
Why limit it to Bush? I lay the blame squarely on everyone who supports the war on drugs. None of this is news. We've known about it for some time.
It's not the potheads that are out there taking people's houses, cars, and bank accounts with zero accountability.
JBT Ping list
I like your sheriff already!!!!!
I wonder which political parties passed asset seizure and other such unconstitutional laws nationwide over the last few decades?
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.
http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research/public_papers.php?id=2764&year=1991&month=3
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