SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the we-won't-hear-the-case,-but-if-we-could... dept.
The Washington Post has some analysis of a noteworthy Supreme Court non-decision.
In today's [March 6] Leonard v. Texas, Justice Clarence Thomas sharply criticizes civil forfeiture laws. The one-justice opinion discusses the Supreme Court's refusing to hear the case (a result Thomas agrees with, for procedural reasons mentioned in the last paragraph); but Thomas is sending a signal, I think, that at least one justice — and maybe more — will be sympathetic to such arguments in future cases.
From Justice Thomas' statement:
In rem proceedings often enable the government to seize the property without any predeprivation judicial process and to obtain forfeiture of the property even when the owner is personally innocent (though some statutes, including the one here, provide for an innocent-owner defense). Civil proceedings often lack certain procedural protections that accompany criminal proceedings, such as the right to a jury trial and a heightened standard of proof.
Partially as a result of this distinct legal regime, civil forfeiture has in recent decades become widespread and highly profitable.
[...] These forfeiture operations frequently target the poor and other groups least able to defend their interests in forfeiture proceedings.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 17 2017, @01:29PM (10 children)
All that is required to make your robbery legal, is a badge, and the blessing of some old bastard wearing black robes.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @01:39PM (5 children)
If you build your society with nearly religious reverence for an organization that is founded on violent imposition, then what you will get is violent imposition. I don't understand why people act surprised when the government does what a government is designed to do: Take your resources through dictate rather than well founded agreement.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @02:12PM (4 children)
It's because people like Runaway worship authoritarianism. I just pick on him because he commented, and it just so happens he's on the side of liberty today. There are many, many like him. Men are not angels. No agreement in the world is going to stop them from using violent force to take what is rightfully yours. Maybe you're homosexual and tomorrow he'll believe that LiGBuTts--or whatever term he's using to dehumanize you--do not, in the judgement of his authoritarian leader, have rightful possession of what you do rightfully possess according to the contracts you and he entered voluntarily.
That is why contract enforcement is a natural monopoly that we call "government." Government is the contract enforcer we nominate to be the most powerful warlord, because we hope we can keep that warlord in check by fording it to use due process. In cases such as this one, due process has broken down. All is not lost. At a fundamental level, this warlord exists only in such a way that we bless it to exist. It's up to us to vote in a better warlord.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @02:46PM (3 children)
You know, the words that you use ("warlord", really?) and the way that you use them, it should be no surprise to you why people just tune you out. "Oh, he's one of THOSE guys." You think you're the most insightful and smartest guy in the room, but everyone else sees you as just a reactionary babbler.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @03:48PM
That must be why I have an informative mod and you don't.
Yes. Warlord. Really. Men are not angels. Men are warlords and soldiers.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday March 17 2017, @03:54PM
AC is right. All governments rule by force and the threat thereof, and usually gain their initial power through war.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Saturday March 18 2017, @07:16AM
What is a warlord? Someone with a local monopoly on the use of force.
(Score: 2, Informative) by ikanreed on Friday March 17 2017, @03:13PM (3 children)
*In some states.
The problem with civil forfeiture is purely a matter of standards of evidence. Any state where the rules for retention are "preponderance of evidence" or laxer(some, like Alabama, only require primae facie evidence of wrong doing), you're right, it's basically completely arbitrary.
I have all sorts of gripes about my state's government, but at least our laws encode asset forfeiture to the state to criminal standards(i.e. the classic "Beyond a reasonable doubt").
So, like a great many things, it's the details that make the injustice.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Friday March 17 2017, @03:16PM (2 children)
No, the problem is that the property is treated as its own legal entity, which the owner has no rights over.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by ikanreed on Friday March 17 2017, @03:22PM (1 child)
That's not the actual problem of asset forfeiture at all. That's a popular internet metaphor, but none of the legal basis takes that framing at all. The laws aren't written that way. The legal rulings aren't written that way. The police reports aren't written that way.
Please don't get a law degree from Google-U, or you'll start believing things like writing your name in ALLCAPS refers to a separate legal entity.
(Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday March 17 2017, @05:19PM
That's not the actual problem of asset forfeiture at all. That's a popular internet metaphor, but none of the legal basis takes that framing at all. The laws aren't written that way. The legal rulings aren't written that way. The police reports aren't written that way.
Hmm... well, I could cite actual statutes, but perhaps the U.S. Department of Justice [justice.gov] will do for an explanation. As it explains at that link, criminal forfeiture is an action brought against a person who committed a crime. Civil forfeiture (which is the subject of the current story) is, I quote:
Civil judicial forfeiture is an in rem (against the property) action brought in court against the property. The property is the defendant and no criminal charge against the owner is necessary.
You'll note the "in rem" phrasing from Justice Thomas as quoted in the summary -- he's talking about cases brought against property. You're apparently talking about criminal proceedings in your state. That's great (and every state, as you note, is different), but it's not what we're talking about here.
Please don't get a law degree from Google-U, or you'll start believing things like writing your name in ALLCAPS refers to a separate legal entity.
GP's phrasing may be a bit imprecise, but there's no reason for your over-the-top berating. He's basically accurate in the sense addressed directly in the summary: because these civil cases are framed legally against the property (rather than a person), the legal standards are often much more loose for a seizure than in criminal forfeiture. Yes, it's a legal fiction of sorts, but it's a legal fiction that works in favor of the prosecution procedurally.