Free Republic

The legitimate purpose of government? It is to protect citizens from force and fraud, to defend individuals against violent and criminal attacks on their persons and property, and, beyond that, to leave them at liberty to pursue their own happiness. Tyranny, conversely, is what we call governments that engage in force and fraud, committing violent and criminal acts against innocent people — even when those crimes are cloaked in the costume of legality. In these United States, at this modern moment in time, which is it? Do we live in a legitimately governed country or an abject tyranny? Or is...

Imagine if something like this happened to you. You are away on a trip when you get word that your son was involved in a serious accident. You rush home and find out that he had taken your late-model SUV, driven it while drunk, and wrecked the vehicle beyond the point of repair. The dumb kid is all right, but facing charges for his criminal drunk driving. But that’s not all. Because your vehicle was involved in the commission of a crime, it is subject to seizure under the state’s civil asset forfeiture law. Therefore, you stand to lose big...

Justice Clarence Thomas questions the constitutionality of taking property from motorists with civil procedures. The idea that the government can take away someone's car or cash without due process offends at least one member of the US Supreme Court. In a statement Monday, Justice Clarence Thomas called on his colleagues to revisit civil asset forfeiture, the process that allows prosecutors to go after assets allegedly linked in some way to a crime. The justice argued the system has been widely abused. "Civil proceedings often lack certain procedural protections that accompany criminal proceedings, such as the right to a jury trial...

Sen. Rand Paul has long taken the lead in calling for the reform of civil asset forfeiture laws, a controversial police practice in which authorities basically steal the property of citizens without due process and little recourse. Billions have been seized from citizens by the police based on nothing more than suspicion, which many see as a direct violation of the Fifth Amendment. It’s state-sanctioned theft. “Under civil forfeiture laws, your property is guilty until you prove it innocent,” says the Institute for Justice’s Scott Bullock. On Thursday, Sen. Paul reintroduced FAIR (Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration) Act, which specifically addresses...

In a meeting between the new president and law enforcement officials, a Texas sheriff complained about legislation that would require a person be convicted of a crime before the state took ownership of his or her property. President Donald Trump, wrongly, disparaged legislators who support this reform to the forfeiture system. Politico notes the exchange: “On asset forfeiture, we’ve got a state senator in Texas that was talking about introducing legislation to require conviction before we could receive that forfeiture money,” [Sheriff Harold] Eavenson said. “Can you believe that?” Trump interjected. “And I told him that the cartel would build...

So, you’re sitting on millions of dollars’ worth of confiscated property. You want to give your workers a raise, but federal rules bar you from using seized assets to fund salaries. What’s an attorney general to do? Well, if you’re Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, you turn to a strange source for the solution: the very U.S. Justice Department officials who are responsible for enforcing the rules you want to skirt. They told Herring he could use the funds to cover routine costs “so long as your overall budget does not decrease.” Herring promptly started using seized funds to cover...

In a White House meeting with county sheriffs from around the nation on February 7, President Trump sided with the law enforcement community in opposing change in the nation’s civil asset forfeiture laws. Here is the transcript of that meeting, and the president’s flippant attitude (he joked about destroying the career of a state senator in Texas who had proposed a bill to reform civil asset forfeiture) and eagerness to stay in the good graces of the sheriffs are very bad news. Shortly after the election, I wrote that Trump should become a proponent of civil asset forfeiture and defang...

By a very large measure, Americans oppose civil asset forfeiture. They think that it is wrong for the government to take property from someone who has not been convicted of any crime. The most recent evidence showing that is found in a recent Cato Institute survey on public attitudes toward the police and in it, 84 percent said they oppose allowing the police to seize a person’s property on mere suspicion that he may have been involved in crime. Unfortunately, it seems that Donald Trump’s choice for Attorney General, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, is among that small minority of...

Nationwide, proceeds from sales of seized property (homes, cars, etc.) go to the seizers. And under a federal program, state and local law enforcement can partner with federal authorities in forfeiture and reap up to 80 percent of the proceeds. This is called — more Orwellian newspeak — “equitable sharing.” No crime had been committed in the Sourovelises’ house, but the title of the case against them was Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. 12011 Ferndale St. Somehow, a crime had been committed by the house. In civil forfeiture, it suffices that property is suspected of having been involved in a crime....

The U.S. Border Patrol says over $3 million has been seized after it was found on Tuesday inside two cars in Escondido, California. ... The cash was being smuggled from the U.S. into Mexico.

It is a basic principle of American law that the government may not deprive citizens of their property without due process. But, according to the Michigan Court of Appeals, at least one Michigan statute lets the state do exactly that. When Shantrese Kinnon and her husband were arrested on drug charges in Kent County, the police searched her home and seized some property, including a GMC Denali, a Chevrolet El Camino, a motorcycle, a tablet, a laptop, and nearly $400 in cash from her purse. Even though the couple had not yet been convicted of a crime, a scheme known...

Republican political consultant Mike Madrid isn't used to getting calls from the ACLU, and yet he has found himself working with the civil liberties group because some practices are so egregious that Republicans and Democrats should have no trouble finding common cause. The issue is civil asset forfeiture -- also known as "policing for profit." The federal government can seize your property, and the only way you can get it back is to prove you are not guilty of a crime. California law prohibits local authorities from permanently seizing most property without a conviction, but there's a loophole in the...

After more than four years, two congressional hearings, and countless pleas to the IRS and Justice Department, Randy Sowers’ fight with the federal government is finally coming to a close.The Internal Revenue Service is returning the $29,500 it took from the Frederick County, Maryland, dairy farmer, ending his long journey through the civil asset forfeiture system.“When you’re in kindergarten, you learn that if you’ve taken something that doesn’t belong to you, you have to give it back,” Rob Johnson, a lawyer with the Institute for Justice who represented Sowers, told The Daily Signal. “In this case, the IRS has taken...

It's the stuff of libertarian dreams. The IRS admits that it wrongfully took money from innocent citizens, and it gives the money back. This is actually happening to victims of a little-known form of civil asset forfeiture carried out by the IRS on the premise of "structuring" violations. In case you didn't know, depositing or withdrawing just under $10,000 from your bank account multiple times is viewed as suspicious and possibly criminal activity. In a victory for lawmakers working to make it harder for the government to take property from innocent Americans, the Internal Revenue Service plans to give people...

On Thursday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, introduced the “Deterring Undue Enforcement by Protecting Rights of Citizens from Excessive Searches and Seizures,” or DUE PROCESS, Act. The reforms contained in Grassley’s bill would significantly alter the federal civil asset forfeiture landscape, dramatically improving the lot of innocent property owners caught up in a skewed and unfair forfeiture system. Civil asset forfeiture laws target property, not people. As a result, no criminal charges or convictions are needed in civil forfeiture cases. Rather, the government need only prove by a preponderance of the evidence that there is a nexus between...

" If some policeman thinks you’re doing something illegal, your life is over. Without money, you cannot hire a lawyer and they can just rob everything you have on a whim."

--snip-- He was never charged with a crime and the state even dropped its effort to seize the money. But a trial judge wouldn't go along. And the Arkansas Court of Appeals last week refused the appeal to return the cash. --snip-- But the appellate court instead ruled that civil forfeiture cases must follow the state’s civil procedure rules, which only allow 10 days after judgment to file motions “to vacate, alter, or amend the judgment.” In short, he was too late in filing. Since Espinoza’s motion was “untimely,” the Court of Appeals dismissed his appeal.

Oklahomans whose assets are unjustly seized through the civil asset forfeiture process can recover their attorney fees under a new state law. Gov. Mary Fallin on Thursday signed legislation passed by the House and Senate that allows for the recovery of attorney fees in forfeiture cases. Republican Sen. David Holt of Oklahoma City authored the bill and says he believes it will encourage

Some great news in asset forfeiture reform is coming out of Florida. S.B. 1044, approved by the legislature earlier in the month, was signed into law today by Gov. Rick Scott. The big deal with this particular reform is that, in most cases, Florida police will actually have to arrest and charge a person with a crime before attempting to seize and keep their money and property under the state's asset forfeiture laws. One of the major ways asset forfeiture gets abused is that it is frequently a "civil", not criminal, process where police and prosecutors are able to take...

The Justice Department today announced that it is resuming a controversial practice that allows local police departments to funnel a large portion of assets seized from citizens into their own coffers under federal law. The "equitable-sharing" program gives police the option of prosecuting asset forfeiture cases under federal instead of state law. The Justice Department had suspended payments under this program back in December, due to budget cuts included in last year's spending bill. "In the months since we made the difficult decision to defer equitable sharing payments because of the $1.2 billion rescinded from the Asset Forfeiture Fund, the...