Replies

It's insane. I don't get it at all. The law is written so that all the Feds need is probable cause to believe that a State gambling law has been violated (New Jersey law against "promoting gambling", in this case), and then the Feds can seize the proceeds of the alleged crime, regardless of whether anybody is ever convicted of actually violating the State law. Once the Feds establish probable cause, the burden of proof then shifts to the owner of the money who is forced to prove that the money was obtained legally. Civil forfeiture is a weird legal fiction whereby inanimate objects can be considered guilty of wrongdoing, and normal Constitutional protections don't apply because inanimate objects don't have the same rights that people have (which is why the government can get away with forcing the presumed guilty inanimate object to prove its innocence). And the Feds using state law to seize money--now that's a whole other bizarre aspect here. WTF? How unconstitutional can you get?