My family and I supported and contributed to Donald Trump’s candidacy and were delighted that he won the presidency. Our son proudly wore a red Trump "Building and Making Things Again” shirt around his liberal university and wrote pro Trump messages on some white boards in the engineering building there before the election. We thought Mr. Trump had made a good choice in having Jeff Sessions as Attorney General.
Recently though, something VERY disturbing has come across the Internet’s horizon. That is Mr. Sessions’ decision to expand the Civil Asset Forfeiture law allegedly to fight drug crime. It does not work like that. The drug criminal element usually has the resources to fight this with both the necessary ready thousands of dollars and certain contacts. However the middle and poorer classes do not. This law fundamentally reverses the basis of our civil law, which has been the presumption of innocence on the part of the accused. Instead it treats the accused as guilty and gives the punishment first. The target here, and hence “crime”, is anyone having money and/or other assets. Sometimes those in law enforcement even search county clerk records to find properties where the mortgages have been satisfied and go after those. Even if states have laws against Civil Asset Forfeiture, jurisdictions can circumvent these by making use of the federal law.
If one searches civil asset forfeiture on the Internet, a ream of cases involving innocent people losing their personal property to unjust seizures shows up. One egregious example involved a middleclass family who owned Motel Cazwell in Tewksbury, MA, had worked hard, and paid their mortgage off. Unfortunately within that area, a few people rented rooms in motels and carried out some drug deals unknown to the owners of the motels. The local police searched mortgage records, saw this particular motel’s mortgage was satisfied, and seized that motel. This Civil Asset Forfeiture law allows the police to confiscate the asset without a trial, summons, or conviction. They just grab the asset. In some cases, if people refused to sign a waiver for their cash or possessions, they were threatened with jail and losing their children to foster care. In Tennessee, out-of-state vehicles would be stopped, and assets, especially money, confiscated and the people threatened if they tried to protest. The police would pocket the money and sometimes refuse to give receipts. As the federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies would share in the ”booty” they confiscated, they liked this legislation. A few brave souls fought back. Some of these interviews can be found on You Tube and in articles on search engines like Bing.
The confiscatory actions of the police have severely dented whatever good reputation they might have had. If they abuse the Civil Asset Forfeiture law like they have certain ticket situations, our country will have a VERY large problem. It opens up the potential for nasty possibilities. Justice Clarence Thomas has written some excellent information including wise warnings on this highly unconstitutional matter.
Some points to consider:
1. Civil Asset Forfeiture denies the plaintiff the resources (money) even to fight the charge or get property returned. One has more rights and protection with Criminal Asset Forfeiture.
2. Civil Asset Forfeiture obviously leads to police corruption, being that law enforcement obtains a large portion or all of the confiscated assets.
3. All such Civil Asset Forfeiture assets and money should only be confiscated after conviction or, if before, at least returned in 30 days if no charges are brought.
4. No Civil Asset Forfeiture should take place without state (not Justice of the Peace) court approval first.
5. Too much discretionary authority has been given to law enforcement with this Civil Asset Forfeiture law and with it, the loss of our liberty.
It is a risk to individual freedom, but it could be a powerful tool against organizations that support terrorism, drug dealers (the original rationale) and gangs - perhaps even foreign intelligence operations, like the wide-ranging Chinese operations.
It might foreshadow a targeted crackdown.
The Police State Fanboys love Civil Asset Forfeiture.
His biggest agenda items in these trying times have been this and going after weed.
Yours was a great post. Cogent, informative, and spot on.
And it made me mad.
Civil Asset Forfeiture is unconstitutional. Its state sanctioned theft. Sorry I cannot support it in any form. And anyone in Washington that supports it is an enemy of the Constitution.
A big factor promoting abuse of forfeiture, is that the police dept gets the seized funds. If seized funds had to go to the state general treasury, it would remove much of the motivation for abuse.