Free Republic

Red flag alert! Justice Department’s new center strikes at gun rightsThe National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center bypasses Congress to undermine the Second Amendment.The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday unveiled a brand-new entity designed to train state and local officials how to apply red flag laws to confiscate firearms from gun owners who’ve been deemed “a threat to themselves or to others.” These “red flag laws” are called extreme risk protection orders, which are “civil court orders that temporarily restrict firearm access for an individual who is behaving dangerously or presents a high risk of harm to self...

Stephen Lara sued after the Nevada Highway Patrol took his life savings without charging him with any crime.. RENO, Nev.—On Thursday, the Second Judicial District Court for the State of Nevada denied the state’s motion to dismiss a Marine veteran’s lawsuit challenging the state’s civil forfeiture laws, after his life savings were taken through the controversial process nearly three years ago. Thursday’s decision means Stephen Lara, represented by the Institute for Justice (IJ), can continue his legal challenge to the state’s forfeiture scheme, which allows police to take people’s property without showing that they committed a crime. “The court’s ruling...

Ninth Circuit panel unanimously orders FBI to destroy records it created during searches of US Private Vaults boxes.. PASADENA, Calif.—This morning, a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel unanimously ruled against the government in a long-running class action lawsuit from the Institute for Justice (IJ) on behalf of people who rented security deposit boxes at US Private Vaults. The decision slammed the FBI for overstepping its authority when it opened up hundreds of renters’ boxes, conducted criminal searches of them all, and attempted to permanently keep everything in the boxes worth more than $5,000, all without charging any box...

The FBI cannot seem to stop trampling American citizens' constitutional rights. But some victims of government abuse have fought back. And their tenacity has left the bureau scrambling to save face. According to Rob Johnson, senior attorney at the nonprofit Institute for Justice, a landmark Fourth Amendment case pending in California might soon result in severe chastisement for the tyrannical FBI. In 2021, the bureau raided U.S. Private Vaults, a safety storage company based in Beverly Hills, California, on suspicion of money laundering -- a charge to which the company later pleaded guilty. While conducting their raid, however, FBI agents...

Civil rights attorneys argue FBI defied warrant by searching people's safe deposit boxes... FBI agents cataloged Cartier bracelets, Rolex watches and stacks of cash as they combed through safe deposit boxes seized from a Beverly Hills business accused of money laundering. But the owners of many of those boxes were not accused of any crimes. After hearing arguments from both sides Thursday, a panel of judges from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will decide whether the sweeping raid violated customers' Fourth Amendment rights. ... Agents took about $86 million in cash from the boxes, as well as a trove...

The decision provides important protection for property rights, and features a powerful concurring opinion by prominent conservative Judge Amal Thapar. In many states, asset forfeiture laws allow law enforcement agencies to seize valuable property based on mere suspicion that it was used in a crime, and then keep it even if the owner was never convicted of any crime. On top of that, some force owners to wait many months before they even have a chance to challenge the forfeiture in a hearing. Yesterday, in Ingram v. Wayne County, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued a...

California police seized more than $17,000 from Vera and Apollonia Ward and accused them of laundering drug money, all without charging them with a crime. The two sisters were trying to start a dog-breeding business.Vera and Apollonia Ward, two sisters from Virginia, were just getting a dog-breeding business off the ground last year when they encountered an unusual setback: The police accused them of laundering drug money and seized more than $17,000 from them. The Ward sisters were never charged with a crime, though. They had run afoul of civil asset forfeiture, which allows police to seize property suspected of...

took funds from nearly every corner of the Nelsons' world, ... the savings Amy racked up from her decade as a practicing attorney and her later efforts as head of The Riveter, the co-working start-up she founded. But the FBI never even suspected Amy of committing any crime. It was Carl they were investigating—a probe that has not resulted in a single charge against him almost two years ...Whether or not the FBI has come to that conclusion is still a mystery; its years-long investigation into Carl's alleged fraud has not yielded an indictment. Yet no such thing was necessary...

After police in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, took her car, Malinda Harris did not get a chance to contest the seizure for five and a half years. After the Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute threatened to file a lawsuit on her behalf last March, the county agreed within a week to return the car, which she finally got back this summer.The contrast between those two timelines shows how easy it is for the government to seize innocent people's property under civil forfeiture laws, which allow law enforcement agencies to supplement their budgets by confiscating assets they claim are connected to criminal activity. Harris'...

Q: Can the government take your property without a conviction? How is that legal? Civil forfeiture is when the government seizes the money, homes and cars of people engaged in criminal activity. The money is mostly used to boost the budget of law enforcement agencies. Historically, civil forfeiture was used infrequently until it was developed as a tool in the war on drugs in the 1980s. It expanded in use to seizing the cars of intoxicated drivers, or the proceeds from activities ranging from illegal gambling to securities fraud. The reason this is legal is that, while people have constitutional...

Earlier this week, the bitcoin community was shocked when a digital wallet containing roughly $1 billion in bitcoin...was emptied by an unknown individual. The Department of Justice announced on Thursday that it had seized the wallet’s contents as part of a civil forfeiture case targeting the Silk Road. The government said it retrieved the roughly 70,000 bitcoins with the help of an unnamed hacker, whose identity is known to the government but who is simply referred to as “Individual X” in court documents. “Individual X” allegedly hacked the Silk Road’s payments system some time in 2012 or 2013. The government...

Picture this: You’re driving home from the casino and you've absolutely cleaned up – to the tune of $50,000. You see a police car pull up behind you, but you can’t figure out why. Not only have you not broken any laws, you’re not even speeding. But the police officer doesn’t appear to be interested in charging you with a crime. Instead, he takes your gambling winnings, warns you not to say anything to anyone unless you want to be charged as a drug kingpin, then drives off into the sunset. This actually happened to Tan Nguyen, and his story...

It’s all about the revenue. Civil forfeiture brings in money, and lawmakers are more worried about their budgets than residents’ due process and property rights. An Arizona bill requiring police and prosecutors to get a criminal conviction before they could attempt to force defendants to forfeit their assets died Thursday at the hands of a bloc of mostly Democrat lawmakers. Civil asset forfeiture is a mechanism that lets law enforcement seize and keep the assets of people believed to have committed crimes. Many states do not require defendants to actually be convicted — or sometimes even charged — with a...

If you regularly read my columns, you have probably figured out by now that I am a strong advocate of law and order. That brings me to three items I would like to discuss related to law enforcement that I believe should be changed or abolished. The first is civil asset forfeiture or civil judicial forfeiture, and it is a procedure in which police agencies and the government can legally confiscate property from a person they suspect of criminal or illegal activity without charging them with a crime. This can be in the form of cash, or a house, or...

Thanks to chronic abuse and misuse by local police departments, the days may be numbered for South Carolina's forfeiture system that allows cops to seize and keep cash and property of the people they arrest in order to fund their own departments. Circuit Judge Steven H. John has ruled that the South Carolina's civil asset forfeiture regulations violate the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights of the citizens. Civil asset forfeiture has been in the crosshairs across the country for years now because it allows police and prosecutors to declare that any money or property owned by a suspect is...

Remember the oral arguments in this case? Sure you do. They went so badly for the state of Indiana that Court-watchers took to predicting a lopsided defeat afterward, something they normally refrain from doing. It’s the justices’ job to be skeptical during questioning, after all. Can’t read too much into when they’re hard on one side. Usually.But they were right, this was an unholy whupping. 9-0 decisions aren’t unusual for the Court but it’s a bit unusual to have everyone on one side for a landmark constitutional ruling, finding that the “excessive fines” clause of the Eighth Amendment applies...

The Supreme Court has just put the clamps on states’ ability to impose excessive fines and use civil asset forfeiture to seize private property. On Wednesday February 20, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that the Eight Amendment’s ban on excessive fines also applies to states. This landmark ruling bolsters property rights and could curtail controversial law enforcement seizures, especially those carried out via civil forfeiture. In the decision, Timbs v. Indiana, the Supreme Court sided with small time drug offender Tyson Timbs, whose $42,000 Land Rover was seized by law enforcement officials. Civil asset forfeiture is one of...

WASHINGTON — Siding with a small time drug offender in Indiana whose $42,000 Land Rover was seized by law enforcement officials, the Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that the Constitution places limits on civil forfeiture laws that allow states and localities to take and keep private property used to commit crimes. Civil forfeiture is a popular way to raise revenue, and its use has been the subject of widespread criticism across the political spectrum. The Supreme Court has ruled that the Eighth Amendment, which bars “excessive fines,” limits the ability of the federal government to seize property. On Wednesday, the...

...sits on the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals,...Willett is said to be an intellectual disciple of Scalia...In his state role, he defended displays of the Ten Commandments on public grounds; property rights in the face of government's use of eminent domain and civil forfeiture; and upholding state limits on the rights of gay and lesbian couples.

By Brian McVeigh, Calhoun County District Attorney and president of the Alabama District Attorneys Association; and Dave Sutton, Sheriff of Coffee County and president of the Alabama Sheriffs AssociationThe Alabama Legislature is considering legislation that would change the way civil asset forfeitures are handled in Alabama. While well-meaning, some of the proposed changes would essentially gut what is an effective crime-fighting tool while making it easier for drug dealers and other criminals to hang on to their ill-gotten gains. The result would be more crime. Unfortunately, several special interest groups have pushed a narrative that law enforcement - police, sheriffs...