Free Republic

Remember the oral arguments in this case? Sure you do. They went so badly for the state of Indiana that Court-watchers took to predicting a lopsided defeat afterward, something they normally refrain from doing. It’s the justices’ job to be skeptical during questioning, after all. Can’t read too much into when they’re hard on one side. Usually.But they were right, this was an unholy whupping. 9-0 decisions aren’t unusual for the Court but it’s a bit unusual to have everyone on one side for a landmark constitutional ruling, finding that the “excessive fines” clause of the Eighth Amendment applies...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks at an event in Claremont, N.H., January 18, 2019. (Brian Snyder/Reuters) Elizabeth Warren is not proposing a tax; she’s proposing asset forfeiture.History is very short, if you look at it the right way. The American Revolution seems like it was a very long time ago, but looked at with the right kind of eyes, it was the day before yesterday: The revolution of Washington and Jefferson inspired the French Revolution, which unhappily perverted the classical-liberal principles of the American Founders and created instead an ersatz religion purporting to be a cult of pure reason —...

Senator Warren apparently has found her guiding spirit and has announced along with her presidential campaign a campaign of economic terror based on force, not law. Specifically, she has proposed to begin seizing a portion of the assets of some wealthy Americans, a course of action that the federal government has no constitutional power to undertake. The seizure of assets is a fundamentally different thing from the taxation of income, which itself took a constitutional amendment to implement. What Warren is proposing is essentially a federal version of the hated asset-forfeiture programs that have been so much abused by law-enforcement...

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in a case that may rein in abusive property seizures by state and local governments through the highly controversial legal tool known as civil asset forfeiture. The case at issue involves a man named Tyson Timbs, who sold $225 worth of heroin to undercover police officers on two occasions, as a means of raising money to support his own drug habit. Police arrested Timbs while he was driving to a third drug deal, and he ultimately pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to a year of home confinement and five years of...

Judicial Watch Sues for Documents on Obama DOJ Effort to Shut Down Clinton Foundation Investigation Judicial Watch Files Supreme Court Brief against Government Abuse Judicial Watch Fights for Rule of Law in Battle with Anti-Trump Politicians Not Forgotten – Judicial Watch Sues for Vietnam POW-MIA Docs Is Maxine Waters Fit to Chair House Financial Services Committee? Judicial Watch Sues for Documents on Obama DOJ Effort to Shut Down Clinton Foundation Investigation A major scandal, largely uninvestigated, is the Obama Justice Department’s protection of Hillary Clinton. As per usual, Judicial Watch is taking the lead on this issue. We just...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court left little doubt Wednesday that it would rule that the Constitution’s ban on excessive fines applies to the states, an outcome that could help an Indiana man recover the $40,000 Land Rover police seized when they arrested him for selling about $400 worth of heroin. A decision in favor of 37-year-old Tyson Timbs, of Marion, Indiana, also could buttress efforts to limit the confiscation by local law enforcement of property belonging to someone suspected of a crime. Police and prosecutors often keep the proceeds. Timbs was on hand at the high court for arguments...

Members of an immigrant family in Ohio say US Customs and Border Protection seized $58,100 of their life savings. Now they want it back. Rustem Kazazi, 64, was headed to his native Albania to visit relatives in October, according to a federal lawsuit that he, his wife, Lejla, and son, Erald, filed this week in Ohio against the agency and others. The suit alleges Customs and Border Protection used civil forfeiture laws to take the money without arresting or charging anyone with a crime. Kazazi had planned to spend six months in Albania and buy a vacation home for retirement...

Anthonia Nwaorie spent years saving up thousands of dollars to open a medical clinic in Nigeria, where she was born. Finally, last October, she walked down a jet bridge at Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport to board the plane to get there. The 59-year-old registered nurse had more than $37,000 in her carry-on bag and $4,000 in her purse. It was all cash, stowed in separate envelopes, some of it earmarked to help ill or aging family members. In her checked luggage she packed medical supplies and over-the-counter medication, which she planned to use to provide free basic care and checkups...

Utah Supreme Court to decide whether police can avoid ban on taking money from motorists not charged with any crime by calling in the feds. Voters in Utah banned state officials from seizing property from people who committed no crime almost two decades ago -- or so they thought. Ever since Initiative B passed with 69 percent of the vote, police have evaded its provisions by seizing cash, turning it over to federal authorities, and then taking a cut of the proceeds in a way that is prohibited under state law. The Utah Supreme Court last week held oral arguments...

By Brian McVeigh, Calhoun County District Attorney and president of the Alabama District Attorneys Association; and Dave Sutton, Sheriff of Coffee County and president of the Alabama Sheriffs AssociationThe Alabama Legislature is considering legislation that would change the way civil asset forfeitures are handled in Alabama. While well-meaning, some of the proposed changes would essentially gut what is an effective crime-fighting tool while making it easier for drug dealers and other criminals to hang on to their ill-gotten gains. The result would be more crime. Unfortunately, several special interest groups have pushed a narrative that law enforcement - police, sheriffs...

DENVER -- The Problem Solvers have uncovered a city law that's making Denver millions of dollars before defendants have even been convicted of a crime. The Denver statute is called a Public Nuisance Abatement Ordinance and it allows police to confiscate property, usually cars, for a crime you may later be found innocent of. It's exactly what happened to 57-year-old Semere Fremichael, a native of Eritrea. The immigrant from East African has been driving a taxi in Denver for the past 28-years. In April, he was arrested in an undercover prostitution sting. An undercover female cop tapped on Fremichael's taxi...

A lucrative battle against Mexican drug cartels is being fought on the sides of an interstate in three of Alabama's more rural counties. Civil asset forfeiture has come under fire in recent years, as some law enforcement agencies across the country have deployed the tactic in ways that have been widely criticized as abusive. But a small drug task force operating in Greene, Marengo and Sumter counties - collectively, Alabama's 17th Judicial Circuit - has leveraged the practice to take millions of dollars worth of cash, drugs and other property off the street in recent years, much of which they...

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are instructed to select property for forfeiture primarily based on its value, with the legal status of the property only a secondary concern, according to ICE forfeiture guidelines leaked to The Intercept. The 71-page “Asset Forfeiture Handbook” governs forfeiture practices for Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a branch of ICE, The Intercept reported Friday. Civil forfeiture is the government practice of taking property from a private citizen. In civil forfeiture cases, the state prosecutes a person’s property, rather than the owner themselves, and assumes the property’s guilt because property has no due process rights. While...

When Philadelphia police use civil asset forfeiture to seize millions in cash, cars, and homes every year, the money is put into secretive municipal bank accounts. Long-hidden documents reveal what happened to at least some of the money. It went for submachine guns, outboard motors and "tens of thousands in mysterious cash withdrawals over the past five years." Some $5 million is unnaccounted for, this investigation reckons. From Philadelphia Weekly: Attorneys at the Virginia-based nonprofit depict civil asset forfeiture as one of the greatest threats to property rights in the nation today. Under the Trump administration, Attorney General Jeff Sessions...

Next week, the House of Representatives will consider an appropriations bill,.... Some members, Republican and Democratic alike, have submitted amendment to the bill that would defund the directive issued by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to ramp up the use of civil asset forfeiture. Sessions is a vocal advocate of civil asset forfeiture, the process by which local law enforcement can permanently seize property or money that is suspected to have a connection to a crime. During an April 2015 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, then-Sen. Sessions was less than sympathetic toward a witness, Russ Caswell, whose hotel was wrongly seized when...

Th[e] 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. The 2016 presidential election is in many ways a battle between the once traditional idea of freedom in the form of the Nation State and that of the New World Order ruled by unelected bureaucrats as in Europe’s E.U.... (posted under "Don't Slouch Slowly Into Slavery" by Flintlocks Wife on...

Holy cartoon cash, Batman! The Charleston County Sheriff's Office is auctioning off more than 400 comic books seized in a drug investigation. "It’s entirely possible there may be some treasures in there, and the hunt could be fun," said Mike Campbell, owner of Captain's Comics & Toys in West Ashley. The online auction, on govdeals.com, runs until Tuesday morning and already has attracted nearly two dozen bids. Campbell is not among the bidders. He said it sounds like most of the titles are from the 1990s and "most likely, fun books worth $1 to $5." He said the 1990s were...

Attorney General Jeff Sessions today announced a new Department of Justice policy regarding the federal adoption of assets seized by state or local law enforcement under state law. The Department’s new policy strengthens the civil asset forfeiture program to better protect victims of crime and innocent property owners, while streamlining the process to more easily dismantle criminal and terrorist organizations. The policy and guidelines were formulated after extensive consultation with the Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety, as well as line Assistant United States Attorneys, career officials in the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section (MLARS),...

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday ordered the expansion of the government’s ability to seize suspects' property – a move that puts him at odds with members of his own party who have slammed the practice for years as ripe for abuse and a violation of civil rights.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the Justice Department will issue new directives to increase the federal govenment's use of civil asset forfeiture, a controversial practice that allows law enforcement to seize property from suspected criminals without charging them with a crime. Speaking at a National District Attorneys Association conference in Minneapolis Monday, Sessions said state and local law enforcement could expect changes from U.S. Attorneys in several areas: increased prosecution of gun crimes, immigration offenses, gang activity, and prescription drug abuse, as well as increased asset seizure by the federal government. "[W]e hope to issue this week a new...