[weikel]

Good. Its not good to give the drug gestapo incentives to frame people.

[MileHi]

Something good out of Jersey. Who'd a thunk it?

[Kerberos]

""Civil and criminal forfeiture is a legitimate law enforcement tool that allows police and prosecutors to take the a profit out of crime."

[from occupied ga]

The judge agreed with Thomas' lawyer, stating in his opinion that the seizures give law enforcement "financial interests which are not remote as to escape the taint of impermissible bias in enforcement of the laws."

OHMYGAWD!! A judge with the capacity for rational thought! I think I'm going to faint.

[fporretto]

Leaving aside the soundness of the War on Drugs, there are at least five excellent reasons why asset forfeiture must go:

1. It's based on the notion that one can accuse an inanimate object of a crime.
2. It short-circuits the judicial process and denies the means of defense to many criminal defendants.
3. In many cases, it violates the "excessive fines" stricture of the Bill Of Rights, which was supposed to preclude the use of trivial offenses to seize the property of others.
4. It often imposes entirely unjustifiable costs on third parties, such as Carol Thomas in the case mentioned above.
5. It practically begs for police and justice authorities to corrupt themselves -- to look for ways to maximize the forfeitures, rather than to enforce the law.

I'm sure I could come up with more, but it's still early and I need more coffee.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason:
http://palaceofreason.com

[IronJack]

Hurrah!

[apackof2]

the attention of the Institute for Justice, a libertarian Washington, D.C., law firm that champions individuals' rights,

Good old Libertarians strike again!

[FreeTally]

But the state filed a complaint against the car

The absurdity of asset forefiture and the total distortion of the basis of law could not be pointed out better than in this portion of the article.

Imagine going to the local prosecuter and filing a compliant against your neighbor's refrigerator.

[DreamWeaver]

Unconstituitional ? This is a laugh !! People never cease to amaze me. There are bigger issues of unconstituitonal liberties and freedoms of OURS being dissed.

If you allow ONE Constitional right to be broken, then just throw the whole Constition out !! This is what I call selective Constitutional rights y'all are willing to give up or to diss....

[coloradan]

"We believe it's a wrong decision," said John Hagerty, a spokesman for the state Division of Criminal Justice. "Civil and criminal forfeiture is a legitimate law enforcement tool that allows police and prosecutors to take the profit out of crime."

Liar! It doesn't take the profit out of crime at all - it merely shifts it from the criminals to law enforcement. If anything, the profit should be redirected to the victims of crime, but then again, there aren't any when it comes to drugs, which is where most of the forfeiture money comes from.

[A2J]

Her case caught the attention of the Institute for Justice, a libertarian Washington, D.C., law firm that champions individuals' rights, which took up her cause.

Figures. Libertarian lawyers don't chase ambulances, they chase the smoke from the bongs.

[PhilipFreneau]

"We believe it's a wrong decision," said John Hagerty, a spokesman for the state Division of Criminal Justice. "Civil and criminal forfeiture is a legitimate law enforcement tool that allows police and prosecutors to take the profit out of crime."

What an outrageous statement! How did we allow such evil people to get into law enforcement? Asset Forfeiture fits the definition of Bills of Attainder which the Constitution specifically prohibits at both the federal and state levels. The reason for the prohibition was this: the Bloody British had the nasty habit of seizing the property of, imprisoning, and even putting to death colonists without the protection of a jury trial. I have been warning about this criminal expansion of RICO since the early 1990's. RICO, like all other unconstitutional legislation adopted for the "Common Good", "Public Safety", or the "General Welfare", begs corruption. Asset Forfeiture is tyranny! By definition it promotes arbitrary "punishment", in many cases where no crime was proven or even existed. It is a grave threat to our freedom and must be abolished and forever branded as too evil for civilized societies.

[Publius6961]

"Civil and criminal forfeiture is a legitimate law enforcement tool that allows police and prosecutors to take the profit out of crime."

In a perfect world, perhaps.
I am not paranoid, and I never have worried about being wrongly accused of anything, but...

I am increasingly aware of the high percentage of cops who never should be allowed to be in positions od authority; they are crooks.

The temptation to "set up" people is just too great a temptation, and too high a price to pay for the potential benefit to society.

Sorry.

[SirFishalot]

I'll never forget one of my old neighbors who almost had her house siezed about 10 years ago because her daughter was caught with some coke in a traffic stop. The cops came to her house and asked if they could serch the daughters room "just to make sure that the younger children in the house would be safe from coming across the dangerous drugs". The mother thought she was doing the right thing to allow the officers to make sure that the house was clean. They found 3 little bags with some powder in them and ended up charging the daughter with possesion with intent for sale because there were multiple packages. In the trial, the total amount seized was reported as 1 gram.

The daughter ended up getting convicted with simple possession and got probation for 2 years. Next thing the mother knows she gets a subpeona and notice that the State of NY was going to seize her house because it was being used for drug dealing. She had to sell just about everything to pay the bond required to fight the seizure and fortunately, her daughter's lawyer offered to help her pro bono. It took her over three years to finally get the whole thing cleared up. The minute she got the "all clear" she sold the house and moved out of NY vowing to never return.

[philman_36]

The judge agreed with Thomas' lawyer, stating in his opinion that the seizures give law enforcement "financial interests which are not remote as to escape the taint of impermissible bias in enforcement of the laws."
At least one judge "gets it"!

[hoosierham]

A New Jersey judge got THIS one correct !!!!!!

Asset forfeiture laws are just another corrupting influence on law enforcement.

[galt-jw]

the drug nazis lose. what a bunch of statist bastards.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

It's about time. Amen.

[nightdriver]

The illustrious senator from Oregon, Ron Wyden, was part of the force behind instituting this law out here in Oregon before he became senator. A stranger can use your phone for a drug call without your knowledge and it can result you losing your home.

'Course, we shouldn't complain. In Loozianna, the cops assume that if you have any cash on you, you are involved with drugs and they steal the money and use it for vacation trips. There have been a couple of TV documentaries about it.