Is Civil Forfeiture Theft?
I’m sure that many of you have heard of Civil Forfeiture. Civil forfeiture is a tool used by police to seize money, cars, or property that is believed to have been used in a crime (without obtaining either a warrant or probable cause). Since it is a civil procedure against property, not a person, there need not be a criminal conviction. In fact many times people are not actually charged or convicted of a crime. Many of you have seen the video of the hot dog vendor that had money taken out of his wallet by a University of California officer that went viral recently.
A report done by the Justice Department’s Inspector General states that since 2007, the DEA has seized more than $4 billion in cash from people suspected of involvement with the drug trade. But 81 percent of those seizures, totaling $3.2 billion, were conducted administratively, meaning no civil or criminal charges were brought against the owners of the cash and no judicial review of the seizures ever occurred. *That total does not include the dollar value of other seized assets, like cars, homes, electronics and clothing.
Some states have signed bills into law which make it so police actually have to arrest and charge a person with a crime before attempting to seize and keep their money and property under the state’s asset forfeiture laws. For many years, one of the primary drivers of these perverse incentives has been a federal practice called equitable sharing. Under this practice, state and local law enforcement can have a seizure adopted by the federal government—that is to say, placed under federal jurisdiction—and be allowed to keep up to 80 percent of the proceeds from the adopted seizures, with the remaining 20
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El Departamento de Justicia ha anunciado recientemente sus planes para restablecer el uso de la confiscación de activos, especialmente para los sospechosos de drogas - lo que facilita a las autoridades locales la captura de efectivo y bienes de los sospechosos de delitos y cosechar los ingresos. Cuando se le preguntó por qué el Departamento de Justicia anularía la voluntad de más de 20 estados que no quieren que sus ciudadanos estén sujetos a esto, el Subprocurador Rod Rosenstein afirmó repetidamente que esta práctica ayudará a resolver el problema de los opiáceos en los Estados Unidos. No mencionó que controlamos el país donde se cultiva el 90% del opio.
En mi opinión es sentido común que si usted debe tener que demostrar culpabilidad antes de tomar gente dinero o propiedad. El solo hecho de ser sospechoso de tener dinero proveniente de drogas no debería ser suficiente para que el Estado lo tome. Es muy claro que la policía se utiliza ahora como un flujo de ingresos en lugar de verdaderos defensores de la gente. Ahora, con la revocación de la prohibición contra los militares de vender equipo militar sobrante a los departamentos de policía locales, apuesto que parte del dinero incautado se destinará a la compra de vehículos militares para uso en la ciudad natal. ¡HURRA!
Since there is no doubt that some of the money taken by police departments belonged to people that never committed a crime, It’s very easy to say there is some theft involved. In my opinion many laws don’t actually stop people from breaking them, but the more laws the more money can be made. If you were pulled over and a cop said he smelled marijuana and found a box of sandwich baggies, should that be enough to take all the money in your wallet?
Do you think that police should be able to prove in court that a person has committed crimes or made the seized money through criminal activity, before the police are able to take money or property from an individual?