Montana Governor Signs Law To Protect Innocent People From Having Their Property Seized By Police

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Huffington Post

Montana Governor Signs Law To Protect Innocent People From Having Their Property Seized By Police
Posted: 05/06/2015 2:37 pm EDT Updated: 20 minutes ago

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) signed a bill Tuesday that will overhaul the state's civil asset forfeiture laws.

The set of reforms, which will go into effect in July, was approved with overwhelming bipartisan support in the state legislature last month. Bullock's signature came hours before the deadline for him to sign or veto bills from the legislative session.

Civil asset forfeiture is a controversial legal tool that allows police to seize property they suspect of being related to criminal activity, without first obtaining a conviction or even charging its owner with a crime. Property -- including cash, jewelry, cars and houses -- is then turned for a profit, part of which flows back to the department that made the seizure. This process often forces owners to wage costly court battles to prove their property was obtained legally. Critics also claim it has created a system of "policing for profit" that leads officers to prioritize seizures so they can use the resulting funds to pad their budgets.

Montana's HB 463 does away with the most controversial aspects of civil asset forfeiture, requiring police to convict a property owner of a crime before going through permanent forfeiture proceedings. The law also raises the legal threshold for forfeiture in the event of a conviction, requiring police to present "clear and convincing evidence" that the seized property is connected to criminal activity. Beyond these new regulations, the bill establishes a number of protections, such as a pretrial process, that allow owners of seized property to defend themselves against civil forfeiture.



Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/06/montana-civil-asset-forfeiture_n_7222258.html

[msongs]

1. one would think that dems, from obama down, would be against such illegal seizures, but one would be

wrong. just like dems support privatized prisons, which is also wrong

[Joe Chi Minh]

2. How did that law ever come into being in the first place ! It truly beggars belief.

[samsingh]

4. it really does

[Qutzupalotl]

7. Drug war hysteria.

Forfeiture laws were supposed to fight drug kingpins, making narcotics trade less enticing. But you really need a conviction, otherwise it's legalized theft!

[d_legendary1]

10. This explains how police deparments end up having those nifty cars

like the Chargers, Nitros, and Camaros. Seen a few from the Miami-Dade Police Department.

[AllyCat]

9. Reagan and Bush I drug policy.

[surrealAmerican]

11. ... and why was it ever found to be constitutional?

This is exactly the sort of thing the bill of rights was written to address.

[happyslug]

14. Justice Ginsberg supported such forfeiture

In Bennie vs Michigan Chief Justice Rehnquist noted a 1827s case permitting such forfeiture and a 1844 case by Justice Story that a ship's Master and crew action can bind the owner of a ship and by such actions the "thing" can be subject to forfeiture. Those cases involved ships and Admiralty law but in Bennie the court said that rule has long been extended to other items used in criminal acts.

[samsingh]

3. this law is from medieval times - the ones taking the money are the ones

who benefit - and don't have to prove anything.


wtf

[Shaman53]

5. It's called highway robbery.

Sheriff of Nottingham takes your stuff and gets to keep it for no reason. Creeping feudalism me thinks.

[gopiscrap]

6. Good

[Liberal_in_LA]

8. great

[Calista241]

12. Bravo! n/t

[Peace Patriot]

13. It's about time!!!!

This despicable AND CLEARLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL police practice has been going on for decades--destroying innocent lives, harming children, spouses and families, and also destroying the lives of people who might be guilty, say, of drug possession or sale--people who will need their home, their car, their savings, not only to defend themselves but also to recover from our horrible prison system, if they have the misfortune of not being rich and powerful enough to get out of it. It kicks them in the teeth. It not only grossly violates the INNOCENT--people not convicted of a damn thing--it treats the guilty with gross inhumanity.

Our drug laws are so wrong, so wrong, SO WRONG! Billions and billions and billions of our tax dollars gobbled up by people who profit from a police state, and people who profit from the exportation of a police state to other countries--notably to Latin America. Tens of thousands of lives trashed. Our society itself trashed. Our democracy trashed. How could we have put up with this for so long?

Practices like this--where innocent people are robbed of their property with no recourse--are the inevitable result of the corrupt, murderous, failed U.S. "war on drugs." OF COURSE the police would misuse their "war on drugs"-given powers to pad their budgets, and to punish the innocent and to destroy the guilty, alike, because that's really the point, isn't it? We're all perps in this society.

I'm so glad that Montana has seen the light--but, damn, this has taken MUCH TOO LONG. And it's still the dead of night in a lot of places in this country, with no light at all.

[tblue37]

15. About freaking time! Now if only the other 49 states and the federal government would shut down

this form of police banditry.