Civil Forfeiture Is a Cop Racket

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Until last week, police in all 50 states had the power to take your property—cash, cars, houses, or anything else—based purely on their assertion that the property was “guilty” of a crime.

This means that police and prosecutors can confiscate your stuff, sell it and pocket the money without even charging you with a crime, as long as they say that the property was connected in some way to illicit activity. The burden is then on the owner to hire lawyers to prove, not that they are innocent, which would be horrific enough, but that their property is.

This shakedown scheme is called civil forfeiture, and it’s how you get cases with titles like United States v. $124,700 and 1958 Plymouth Sedan v. Pennsylvania. It’s also how police departments line their pockets: In many cities and states, cash and property seized under civil forfeiture go directly back to the departments themselves, incentivizing more and more seizures.

But on Friday, New Mexico became the first state to abolish this reprehensible, unconstitutional practice. The legislature voted unanimously to replace civil forfeiture with criminal forfeiture, requiring the government to first prove beyond a reasonable doubt, to a jury of their peers, that people are actually guilty of a crime before taking their property.

-more-

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/confiscating-criminals%e2%80%99-property-is-a-cop-racket/ar-AAb9rlo

[hifiguy]

1. Of course it is,

The kkkops of today are barely distinguishable from the Mafia. The main difference being that the wiseguys made no bones about what they were doing and why they were doing it. The omerta is certainly the same.

[Old Codger]

2. I wil have to look it up

But I believe Oregon did that several years ago...I seem to remember it being on our ballot and passing

OK I looked it up and this is what I found


Asset Forfeiture Report: Oregon







Grades*




Forfeiture
Law Grade


State Law Evasion Grade
Final
Grade

Oregon



Forfeiture Law
Oregon civil forfeiture laws have been the subject of much controversy and litigation over the past decade. In 2000, the voters passed a strong initiative that eliminated both the profit incentive and placed a high standard of proof on the government in civil forfeiture proceedings. Unfortunately, that initiative was put on hold while its constitutionality was challenged in court by law enforcement, where it was eventually upheld in 2006. By that time, however, law enforcement successfully advocated for both additional changes in the legislature and also for another initiative, which narrowly passed in 2008 and curtailed several of the strong reforms passed in the 2000 initiative.

Thankfully for property owners, the burden has remained on the government for innocent owner claims regardless of which law or amendment was in effect. Before statutory changes were made in 2005, the government needed to show only probable cause to forfeit property in the first instance. Today, to secure forfeiture of personal property, the government has to prove, only by a preponderance of the evidence, that the property is proceeds or an instrumentality of a crime committed by another person. If the property is real property, the standard of proof is clear and convincing evidence. Before 2005, law enforcement was able to keep 92 percent of proceeds for its own use. After 2005, the formula was changed so that law enforcement now keeps 63 percent. That formula remains in place after the 2008 initiative.

[Downwinder]

3. Good for New Mexico and Oregon.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

4. IIRC we can thank Reagan's first 'drug czar,' GHW Bush, for much of the problem.

[Comrade Grumpy]

5. This has been festering for awhile and is finally bubbling up at statehouses and in Congress.

There are civil asset forfeiture reform bills before Congress, and there is bipartisan interest.

There are bills moving in Texas and Virginia.

It passed the legislature in Wyoming only to be vetoed by the Republican governor.

It's policing for profit, and it provides too many perverse incentives to law enforcement to go for the money.