Police Can Seize and Sell Assets Even When the Owner Has Broken No Laws

[eridani]

Not new information, but I think it bears repeating.

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/26896-police-can-seize-and-sell-assets-even-when-the-owner-has-broken-no-laws

ou don't have to be convicted of a crime — or even accused of one — for police to seize your car or other property. It's legal. Several videos online are shedding some light on the controversial practice.

The practice is called civil asset forfeiture, and every year it brings cities millions of dollars in revenue, which often goes directly to the police budget. Police confiscate cars, jewelry, cash and homes they think are connected to crime. But the people these things belong to may have done nothing wrong.

In one video posted by The New York Times, Harry S. Connelly, the city attorney of Las Cruces, N.M., gleefully describes how the city collects these "little goodies," calling it a "gold mine."

He describes to a roomful of local officials from across the state how Las Cruces police officers waited outside a bar for a man they hoped would walk out drunk because they "could hardly wait" to get their hands on his 2008 Mercedes, which they then hoped to put up for auction.

"We could be czars," he tells the room. "We could own the city. We could be in the real estate business."

It is legal for law enforcement agencies to take property from people who haven't been convicted of a crime.

Ezekiel Edwards, director of the criminal law reform project at the ACLU, tells NPR you don't even have to be charged with a crime.

"That's one of the surprising things to people," Edwards says. "It's also what makes it so rife for abuse."

The concept is that police are, in theory, bringing charges against the property. They are saying this property is being used in the furtherance of a crime. That's why, Edwards says, the cases are titled U.S. v. $4,000. Or U.S. v. White Cadillac.

[Warpy]

1. People can appeal and get their property back

but I seem to recall the filing fee alone was $500.

Forefeiture has made hick town cops fat enough to buy serious military hardware.

It has to stop. This is tyranny.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

4. Hick towns, huh? I guess them big city folk are sophisticated and amiable for such shenanigans.

[Warpy]

5. While them city folk git yer property

the proportion of their budget earned from stolen property is far less in cities than small towns.

[F4lconF16]

6. That may be true

But that's no excuse for bigoted language. Please refrain from using it. As has been said before, bigotry against small towns and Southern America is one of the few remaining acceptable prejudices on DU, and that needs to change.

[blkmusclmachine]

2. ,

,

[get the red out]

3. Complete police state

Coming to a town near you.

[Wella]

7. John Oliver did a whole segment on this

[Odin2005]

8. This is a vioation of legal principles going back to the fucking MAGNA CARTA.

One of the things that the Magna Carta established 800 years ago is that a person's property cannot be confiscated merely on suspicion of a crime. A knight, say, could not lave his land and title revoked until he was found guilty by a jury of his peers. This was because previously kings and dukes, if they wanted an excuse take somebody's land, would just accuse them of some terrible crime and seize the person's holdings even before he went to trial.

This is exactly the kind of thing ancient and medieval people considered tyrannical.

[bluesbassman]

9. Welcome to the New World Odin...

Tyrannical is the new normal, and alas I don't see it getting better soon.

[Comrade Grumpy]

10. There is a bill to reform federal asset forfeiture. But I have a question.

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr5212

Why does it have 15 Republicans sponsors and only 5 Democrats?

[Odin2005]

11. Police Unions are a strong force in urban Dem party "machines".