by Bonnie Kristian. Well, that didn’t last long. In December, the Justice Department (DOJ) announced it would halt a program which made it easy for law enforcement agencies to profit from civil asset forfeiture: The “equitable-sharing” program gives police the option of prosecuting asset forfeiture cases under federal instead of state law. ... MORE
Showing posts with label civil forfeiture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label civil forfeiture. Show all posts
Civil Asset Forfeiture Allows For Abuse Of Police Power
by Allison Chavez. People need to be aware of the practice of civil asset forfeiture and understand their rights when dealing with the police. The police doctrine known as civil asset forfeiture is barbaric and needs to be more strictly regulated. Civil asset forfeiture is essentially an excuse the police employ in order to steal civilians’ property and ... MORE
Shining A Light On Police Seizures, Civil Forfeitures
by Nick Sibilla and Lauren Krisai. How a town of 7,000 can build a $4.1 million dollar police station. Mississippi has some of the strongest protections in the country for private property rights. But those protections are shockingly lax when it comes to a little-known police practice called “civil forfeiture.” Unlike criminal forfeiture, ... MORE
Asset Forfeiture Steals Due Process Rights
A Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial. On a dark desert highway, a sleek, Navy-blue Ford Explorer forces a car to the side of the road. Armed men emerge from the SUV and demand that the occupants of the car open their trunk. Inside, they find $250,000 in cash. The men take the money, leaving the car's passengers on the roadside. They ... MORE
Goodbye To 2015, A Year Of Absurdity And Overreach
by George Will. E.B. White reportedly said "the most beautiful sound in America" is "the tinkle of ice at twilight." In 2015's twilight, fortify yourself with something 90 proof as you remember this year in which: We learned that a dismal threshold has been passed. The value of property that police departments seized through civil asset forfeiture — usually ... MORE
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Force Awakens As Asset-Forfeiture Plunder Is Threatened
by Orange County Register editorial. The Justice Department gave civil liberties advocates an early Christmas present last week when it announced that it would be suspending indefinitely its “equitable sharing” asset forfeiture program, which notoriously allowed state and local police agencies to bypass restrictions on forfeiture by partnering with ... MORE
DOJ Suspends Asset Forfeiture Equitable Sharing
by Mikayla Hellwich. Police currently take more of citizens’ assets than thieves do. The Department of Justice released a memorandum addressed to local, state, and tribal law enforcement agencies Monday to announce that the equitable sharing program for asset forfeiture funds has been temporarily suspended due to financial considerations. ... MORE
DOJ Suspends Abusive Asset Forfeiture Program – For Now
by Ilya Somin. On Monday, the Justice Department suspended its abusive “equitable sharing” asset forfeiture program, which incentivizes state and local governments to seize the property of criminal suspects – including many who have never even been charged with any crime, much less convicted. The program enables state law enforcement ... MORE
Drug Czar Wants More $ To Spend On Taking Your Stuff
by Nick Gillespie. The Washington Post reports that the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) wants more money "to identify assets, prosecute cases and 'manage the massive paper flow associated with forfeiture.'" Asset-forfeiture, in which law enforcement seizes property, cash, and goods that it says is connected to drug ... MORE
Charles P. Pierce: That Whole "License To Steal" Thing
Civil forfeiture is a civil shitshow. There was a very interesting statistic that popped earlier this month as
regards criminals and criminal justice in the United States. According to economist Martin Armstrong, in
2014, the police seized through civil forfeiture more of the property
of their fellow citizens than was stolen by all the burglars in the ... MORE
Civil Forfeiture Laws: It’s Mine, Until The Police Take It
by Paul Samakow. Civil forfeiture laws allow police in just about every state to take citizens’ property, including cash, cars, electronics, even houses, without due process, simply by stating they believe the taken property was somehow involved in a criminal activity. Property can be legally taken without any charges being placed, without an ... MORE
John Kerr: Take Profit And Self-Interest Out Of Policing
All theft should be illegal. Law enforcement officials have plenty of words to categorize property heists, including robbery, theft, burglary, embezzlement and larceny. Perhaps it’s time to add another term to the lexicon: civil forfeiture. Many Americans may not realize that civil forfeiture laws—which proliferated in the 1980s as the drug war ... MORE
Jason Snead: Why Police In Many States Can Seize Your Property Without Proving You’re Guilty Of A Crime
Politicians use cops to legally hold up citizens. Civil asset forfeiture is a growing problem throughout the nation,
driven by a profit incentive that encourages property seizures by law
enforcement authorities even under dubious circumstances. That is the inescapable conclusion of the second iteration of Policing for Profit: ... MORE
The Cops Now Steal More Property Than The Burglars
The incentives of civil asset forfeiture. For decades now, federal government and their cohorts in law enforcement have been carrying out theft of the citizenry on a massive scale. We’re not talking about taxes, but an insidious power known as Civil Asset Forfeiture (CAF). The 1980’s-era laws were designed to drain resources from powerful ... MORE
Supreme Court Considers Boundaries For Legalized Theft
by Doug Mataconis. How much of your stuff can government without conviction of a crime? Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Luis v. United States, a case that deals with the issue of whether, and when, the government can seize assets prior to conviction when those assets are being used to pay for a Defendant’s criminal defense: ... MORE
Paul Albaugh: The Need for Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform
Because theft should not be a legal activity. Among the many reforms needed in government, civil asset forfeiture
might be near the top. While a majority of Americans are not affected by
the practice, it’s a problem that if left unchecked could get more out
of hand than it already is. The French philosopher Frederic Bastiat
warned of “legal ... MORE
Civil Asset Forfeiture Is Oklahoma's New Stop And Frisk; 2/3 Of Cash Seizures By Police Come From Minorities
by David Lowe. People of color are being fleeced by law enforcement and the criminal justice system. The public began to pay more attention to the practice in places such as Ferguson, Missouri, where the courts and police preyed upon Black residents through court fines and fees. The exploitative system became a substantial revenue generator for ... MORE
71% Of Americans Think Civil Asset Forfeiture Is Wrong
by Kevin Drum. Too bad politicians don't care. Julian Sanchez draws my attention to a YouGov poll from last month about civil asset forfeiture, the practice of confiscating money that police merely believe to be connected to a crime. What do Americans think of this? - Which of these options comes closest to your opinion about what SHOULD be ... MORE
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