What’s Really Wrong With Forfeiture – The Bigger Issue
What’s Really Wrong With Forfeiture – The Bigger Issue
With all these articles and talk about forfeiture reform and blah, blah, blah. The bigger issue has been overlooked.
Ok so they take some of your belongings they assume were purchased with some kind of illegal funds. Like the leaf blower you got from your dads house after he passed. Like the TV that was given to you by your brother because he bought a new one and was going to throw it out anyway. Like the children’s toys that were presents from relatives and friends. Need I say more.
The system does not have to prove how the items were obtained. It’s a cash grab. They sell it back to you or auction it off. I can’t imagine the items that are taken and in you know whose… garages and homes.
Ready for the worst of it…This part should really keep you up at night.
When they take your computer and other electronic storage products like back up hard drives and such. They are taking personal and private information and selling it on ebay, craigslist, taking it home or whatever.
On most peoples computers they have business, banking, family history, irreplaceable photos, medical, taxes, personal thoughts, and other peoples information, etc…the list goes on and on.
Do you really believe they take the time to ensure that that information is deleted. Assume not – just like the system assumed you were guilty.
That is your personal information and other people’s information (who have nothing to do with anything the system assumes) that is now in the hands of a stranger who’s going to do what they may with it.
The legal system doesn’t really have to prove anything. Prosecutors just throw all the charges they can at you till you are too financially drained to defend yourself and you give up and you plead out. Then you have to continue fighting it out in civil court.
Bottom line is…It’s a money making scheme and you are screwed unless you can continue the fight. In the end – you still lose.
One could go on and on about this. But the picture is pretty clear with the short version. Seems today’s politicians and police use forfeiture anyway they can so it benefits them and not society as a whole.
Something has to change………………
Civil Asset Forfeiture: Guilty Until Proven Innocent
Imagine going back home one day to find an empty house and all your belongings gone; or even worse, imagine being in your house and having your door suddenly smashed open by law enforcement officers in masks and being told at gunpoint that your personal possessions are being taken away.
This is what happened to Annette Shattuck, a mother of four and a registered marijuana caregiver in Michigan. As she recently testified to the Michigan House of Representatives, her house was raided in 2014 while her 56-year old mother was taking care of her children.
Everything from food, electronics, and vehicles to birth certificates, cash, and social security, insurance and public assistance cards was taken and has yet to be returned. As if this weren’t enough, she was left penniless due to a $1 million hold on all her bank accounts and has been unable to access the adoption subsidy for her special-needs son.
Civil asset forfeiture laws, which were popularized during the drug war hysteria of the 1980s, allow law enforcement to seize money and any other private property, regardless of whether its owner has been convicted of a crime. Not only does this constitute a violation of civil liberties and property rights, but it also fuels widespread abuse of power.
Law enforcement agencies have incentives to confiscate goods since they get to keep a percentage of the profits.
As of 2012, the Asset Forfeiture Fund was estimated to hold around $6 billion, so it is no surprise that this has become a goldmine for law enforcement.
The Drug Policy Alliance’s recent report, Above the Law: An Investigation of Civil Asset Forfeiture Abuses in California, reveals the troubling extent to which California law enforcement agencies have violated state and federal law.
Earlier this year, New Mexico’s Republican Governor, Susana Martinez, signed a new law that ends the practice of civil asset forfeiture in the state, which now has the strongest protections against wrongful asset seizures in the country.
In California, a bill co-sponsored by the Drug Policy Alliance, ACLU and the Institute for Justice passed the California Senate by a vote of 38-1 earlier this month.
Read the full article here