[HN Gopher] Town Seized Building, Offered to Return It If Owners...
___________________________________________________________________
Town Seized Building, Offered to Return It If Owners Bought Two
Cars for Police
Author : leephillips
Score : 374 points
Date : 2022-05-20 12:08 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (reason.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (reason.com)
| ccleve wrote:
| I've long had an idea for solving the civil asset forfeiture
| problem.
|
| It's simply this: any asset seized must go to the general fund,
| not into a law enforcement fund.
|
| If a local police department seizes cash or a car, that asset
| goes to the state. If federal law enforcement does the same, it
| goes to the treasury, not the FBI or ATF or the Justice
| Department.
|
| This small change would remove the incentive to seize assets for
| any reason other than stopping criminals.
|
| We also need due-process reforms, but this would be a good start.
| Government departments should never profit from criminal
| activity.
| bagels wrote:
| It's not a solution. Local police sieze. Hand over to general
| fund, and somehow, their budget grows.
| fractallyte wrote:
| Or, another idea, for when you're out of luck, furious, and
| have nothing to lose: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120768/
| sowbug wrote:
| Or go a step farther: any asset seized (including money) must
| be publicly destroyed. Set fire to the defendant's pile of cash
| in the town square, while everyone watches.
|
| This would remove the financial incentive for seizure and would
| preserve its punitive aspect, both general and specific
| deterrence. As a check against wanton destruction, the seizing
| entity should remain subject to a civil cause of action of
| conversion (in regular language, liable for taking stuff) in
| case the defendant (or now plaintiff) can prove that the
| seizure didn't follow due process, or that the underlying
| justification for seizure in the first place was unfounded.
|
| Obviously, this suggestion isn't fully baked. But it's worth
| considering why anyone should benefit from punitive measures
| such as asset seizure (or punitive damages in a civil lawsuit).
| im3w1l wrote:
| Would be a shame to burn a Rembrandt.
| diydsp wrote:
| In this scenario, the circumstances that would lead to
| burning a Rembrandt would be quite extreme. The convicted
| criminal would have to use the Rembrandt in crime and the
| punishment would have to be a fine in excess of the value
| of the Rembrandt.
|
| But besides that: Just because it would be a "shame,"
| doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. After all, some people
| think it would be _fun_ to burn a Rembrandt.
| lend000 wrote:
| Or auctioned with the proceeds going towards a small UBI
| check.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > This small change would remove the incentive to seize assets
| for any reason other than stopping criminals.
|
| What about spite?
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| I had the same thought. Some police have punished citizens
| for petty reasons and that door is still wide open in this
| solution. It's still better than what we have now, but it's
| not perfect.
|
| Perhaps an additional measure could be that a jury of the
| people should decide if the property is returned to the
| person or if it goes to the state/treasury. Most people seem
| to think civil forfeiture is problematic.
| ffggvv wrote:
| how about a strong punishment for unjust seizures with an
| independent oversight board
| GamerUncle wrote:
| Marvin Heemeyer was right
| kodah wrote:
| The government just passed a computer fraud act where they
| differentiate between good faith use of the term "security
| researcher" and bad faith. I think we can do the same with civil
| asset forfeiture, making the penalties immense.
|
| There's always the route of undoing civil asset forfeiture
| entirely, because it makes zero sense to anyone that encounters
| it or to our justice system.
|
| This is also a good time to point out: when states and the
| federal government disagree, without mandate for state agencies
| to follow state law (weed is legal in Michigan) this is the
| result. The citizens are who pay the price for disagreement, and
| that mechanic especially needs to change.
|
| Edit:
|
| Fair, they passed "guidance". I'd encourage anything at this
| point. Doing nothing is for the birds.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| No they didn't. The justice department announced their
| interpretation of that policy and how they'd use discretion.
|
| You want meaningful reform on anything within 500 miles of this
| topic _from the legislature?_ Good luck.
| kodah wrote:
| They can use discretion on civil asset forfeiture too, if
| they want. Something would be better than the current
| approach, which is feeling more cartel-esque by the year.
|
| Nihilist and fatalist approaches like yours make the outcome
| certain. If I show up, speak like a big boy, and provide
| evidence someone _might_ listen. This is the difference.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| It's not quite as simple as "they can use discretion",
| because there is no single "they". There's a boatload of
| states _and_ the federal government, and states have
| sovereign power on these topics, and states that have
| outlawed the practice have collaborated with the federal
| government through "equitable sharing" practices.
|
| Something at the top _could_ help.
| walls wrote:
| > They can use discretion on civil asset forfeiture too, if
| they want.
|
| That's how it works already. That's also why they can do it
| to whoever they like.
| kodah wrote:
| Right, leaving discretion without oversight is a massive
| gap. I am advocating that something be done. What are you
| advocating?
| pdabbadabba wrote:
| But this is literally the first time in this thread that
| you've mentioned "oversight." Perhaps you're advocating
| that something be done, but I cannot tell what it is.
|
| It seems like you've been suggesting just that "the
| relevant authorities should use their discretion." That
| doesn't strike me (or, apparently, others) as much of a
| reform, since that exactly describes the status quo,
| which does not seem to be working.
|
| What is the role for oversight that you're suggesting?
| Who does the overseeing? How?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| kodah was saying we should try something
|
| >I'd encourage anything at this point.
|
| fennecfoxen was advocating that it isnt worth trying
| something
|
| >You want meaningful reform on anything within 500 miles
| of this topic from the legislature? Good luck.
|
| The goalposts were clearly moved from if even attempting
| reform is a waste of time, to having a workable solution
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| excuse me; i commented on the legislature's allergic
| reaction to actually making changes to the law in this
| area, noting the difficulty of the task which you have
| chosen.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I certainly read that as defeatism. Is there an
| alternative avenue for reform outside the legislature,
| independent of how difficult it is?
|
| Legislatures don't want to make any change unless the
| people want it. People have to demand it.
| [deleted]
| zivkovicp wrote:
| I would imagine it is worth registering a holding company that
| would ultimately own the property, and then another LLC that is
| responsible for renting and maintenance... and then just rent it
| to yourself.
|
| I don't know if this would make it more difficult for a seizure
| to occur but it seems that it would since the physical person is
| no longer the "owner" or even responsible for operating.
|
| If the assets are worth any significant amount, it's worth
| protecting them and yourself from the law... as crazy as it
| sounds.
| prepend wrote:
| In this case it wouldn't matter as the city would just seize it
| from the llc. They never charged anyone with a crime so they
| could just not charge the owners of the llc.
| [deleted]
| colpabar wrote:
| Jesus, the headline made me think this was done by citizens. I
| hate civil asset forfeiture so god damn much.
|
| https://www.aclupa.org/en/issues/criminal-justice-reform/civ...
| leephillips wrote:
| "The Town" sounds like "citizens"?
| colpabar wrote:
| yes, citizens live in towns
| jimt1234 wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17395675#17398314
|
| Sorry if I'm being repetitive ^^^, but seeing the impact of civil
| forfeiture first-hand really shook me. I still get angry, and it
| took place 30 years ago!
| esics6A wrote:
| Civil forfeiture is a direct and obvious violation of the US
| Constitution and shouldn't even exist under the USA legal system
| and is dangerous to the US legal system:
|
| "Article the sixth... The right of the people to be secure in
| their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
| searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants
| shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or
| affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be
| searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
|
| Police under the US Constitution have to go before a judge and
| court and make an Oath under perjury of law describing the items
| to be seized. There has to be a justification and supported by
| affirmation meaning evidence and supporting facts. In the case of
| the building that was seized it was operating a perfectly legal
| business under state law. It had the necessary licenses and
| permits. There needs to be a direct challenge against this type
| of extra-judicial seizure in the US Supreme Court as it's a clear
| challenge to the entire operation of the rule of law and legal
| system.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Here is a lengthy and relatively accessible discussion of how
| the mechanics work. It's essentially a byproduct of the
| language in the Controlled Substances Act and a few procedural
| tricks. Aka another way the war on drugs has harmed us at a
| fundamental, moral, and constitutional level.
|
| https://www.yalelawjournal.org/feature/the-constitutionality...
| vmception wrote:
| Since it has been ruled constitutional, that leaves two
| options:
|
| 1) change all state laws to nuke the practice
|
| 2) leverage the practice much more heavily such that more
| important and influential people want to nuke it
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Seems like the ACLU should go to bat here. Isn't this exactly
| the sort of thing they exist to do?
| martincmartin wrote:
| > There needs to be a direct challenge against this type of
| extra-judicial seizure in the US Supreme Court as it's a clear
| challenge to the entire operation of the rule of law and legal
| system.
|
| There has been, and the Supreme Court upheld it. As I recall,
| they didn't even bother hearing the case.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Didn't hear /= upheld
| arcticbull wrote:
| The workaround under which civil asset forfeiture operates is
| that they're not charging the property owner - or the property
| holder - with anything. They're bringing a civil case against
| the property itself (jurisdiction _in rem_ ). The property
| itself is the defendant. [1, 2]
|
| Which leads to some pretty hilarious case titles:
|
| "United States v. Article Consisting of 50,000 Cardboard Boxes
| More or Less, Each Containing One Pair of Clacker Balls"
|
| [edit] "South Dakota v. Fifteen Impounded Cats"
|
| [edit] "United States v. One Solid Gold Object in Form of a
| Rooster"
|
| In my opinion this tactic should be illegal.
|
| [edit] As far as I know this only really exists in the US, and
| in Canadian admiralty law (so, only in the US).
|
| [1] https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/terrorism-and-
| illici...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_rem_jurisdiction
| 8note wrote:
| Next we'll start charging animals of murder again. Maybe
| Chassenee's rats will show up for the US government to be
| tried
| mometsi wrote:
| The "defendant" arg is passed by value and can't be null.
|
| The hack they came up with is to just disable type checking
| and pass in whatever object they have available.
|
| TFA describes the inevitable runtime errors
| hn_version_0023 wrote:
| This is precisely like the prohibition on "cruel AND
| unusual punishment" being circumvented by making cruelty
| _usual_.
|
| I'd mourn for the US, but it seems it's been dead & gone
| longer than I've been alive.
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| I've thought about that one a lot and I think it is the
| real intention. The admitted purpose of punishment in the
| legal system is _punishment_ , not rehabilitation. That
| is something that can be change, but until it is, only
| punishments both cruel and unusual are prohibited.
| Unusual but not cruel punishments allow for flexibility
| like forcing someone to write a paper or read a book.
| Other punishments, like putting someone in a cage, are
| necessarily cruel.
| pessimizer wrote:
| This country was founded with a workforce of slaves and
| indentured servants, ankle deep in the blood of natives.
| One might rationalize with difficulty some way to argue
| the US isn't racist by design because of that, but to
| argue that it was civil libertarian is a step too far.
|
| The civil libertarian language comes from being heavily
| seeded by small Protestant cults, but not wanting to fall
| into European-style religious wars over it. Also,
| ironically, to protect the rights of a slaveholding
| minority.
| some_random wrote:
| It obviously should be illegal, it's a legal shenanigan on
| tier with "your honor I didn't assault that man, I was simply
| swinging my fists and his face got in the way"
| jjoonathan wrote:
| It's every bit as dumb as "sovereign citizens" trying to
| argue that they aren't subject to traffic laws because of a
| centuries old maritime treaty. Unfortunately, it's the
| people in charge slinging the dumb argument, so it flies.
| zionic wrote:
| I'm no "sovereign citizen", and occasionally enjoy
| compilations on youtube of them getting owned in front of
| a judge (makes for a good laugh).
|
| I do however find some sympathy with _one_ of their
| arguments, where they argue they never consented to be
| governed.
|
| I mean when I think about it, I was born into an
| established system that imposed its rules on me from
| birth. I had no say in accepting/rejecting the rules. I'm
| essentially property of the state, subject to its whims
| with little to no hope of changing them. So I get where
| some people come from with a "naw fuck that" attitude,
| even if I see such resistance as futile.
|
| Not directly sov-citizen related, but that does intersect
| with a broader community of people upset over how
| property works in the US. Namely, you don't own a damn
| thing. All deeds/titles are fee-simple, in that you
| merely buy and sell the right to rent that land from the
| government for as long as you can afford it. "Renters" in
| the colloquial sense are really renting twice, which is
| why "owning" is better. True ownership of property
| however no longer exists in the US.
|
| Maybe we can experiment with better society designs on
| mars, where landowners are truly sovereign and the state
| only owns the commons. Enforcement then only exists in
| the commons (and optionally on property with the consent
| of the owner).
| tarboreus wrote:
| I think if you don't think we'll have the same thing on
| Mars as we do on Earth, then I have some NFTs to sell
| you.
| robonerd wrote:
| (I'm skeptical of the very premise of colonizing Mars,
| but putting that aside..)
|
| I expect what forms on Mars, at least initially, will
| resemble the high seas a lot more than it does any
| country. You'll have facilities owned and commanded by
| corporations operating under flags of convenience, more
| or less free to engage in any nastiness they like (at
| least until a navy or coastguard with guns shows up to
| enforce their will on the facility.)
| tarboreus wrote:
| Perhaps, though that seems like an unstable equilibrium.
| By the time we have communities up there, they're have
| their powerful and their not powerful, just like we
| terrestrials.
| the_only_law wrote:
| At this point, I'm convinced Mars is going to be some
| sort of neo-feudal territory.
| gwright wrote:
| I've wondered at times if it would make sense for there
| to be an explicit legal proceeding at the age of majority
| in which you explicitly opt in to the social contract
| analogous to the naturalization process when a foreigner
| becomes a citizen.
|
| I get hung up on what happens if you choose _not_ to opt-
| in.
| DerpyBaby123 wrote:
| Plato's Crito[1] deals directly with this question, after
| Socrates has been found guilty and sentenced to death for
| 'Corrupting the youth', his friends offer to help him
| leave the city rather than die.
|
| To paraphrase, Socrates says "Though not explicitly, I
| have by my actions agreed to be ruled by the laws of
| Athens by carrying out my life here and not choosing to
| move away to somewhere with a different set of laws"
|
| [1]http://www.columbia.edu/itc/lithum/wong/textclip.html
| @ [52b]
|
| I believe Plato will say they consented to be governed by
| this state, not at birth, but throughout their life by
| choosing to stay in a place that is governed by this
| state and enjoying the benefits.
| somenameforme wrote:
| I think that's somewhat different because in Ancient
| Greece there was _extreme_ decentralization. Cities were
| sovereign entities with an extreme diversity of
| ideological and other values. Compare Athens and Sparta,
| for instance. And so in this system, if one stays in a
| city then there is a strong argument to be made that they
| are implicitly supportive of the laws and rules of said
| area.
|
| In modern times this isn't really the case. There tend to
| be immense legal restrictions on movement, let alone
| living + working in different areas. And the differences
| that do exist between even nations within the same
| "sphere" tend to be relatively negligible compared to,
| again, the sort of monumental differences you'd see just
| between different Greek city-states like Athens/Sparta.
| DerpyBaby123 wrote:
| Do "sovereign citizens" make to overcome those
| restrictions on movement? Is there any effort given?
| t-3 wrote:
| Yes, many purposely don't have driver's license or ID.
| vkou wrote:
| > There tend to be immense legal restrictions on movement
|
| There were extreme legal restrictions on movement in
| Ancient Greece, too. You couldn't just pack up your bags
| and move to Spara or Athens and become part of the
| citizen class.
|
| And as a non-citizen, there were a lot of different ways
| that you could be abused by citizens, with little
| recourse.
|
| Just because despotism and abuse was decentralized,
| doesn't mean that it wasn't despotism and abuse.
| t-3 wrote:
| Socrates was never a citizen, nor were the vast majority
| of the residents of Athens in antiquity.
| adolph wrote:
| "a place that is governed by this state"
|
| In your belief, from what comes Plato's link between
| place and state? Places exist before states and often
| afterward. Can a state exist without place? If a place
| can exist without any particular state, can a person have
| a link to a place independent of a state?
| DerpyBaby123 wrote:
| I do not know enough to answer about that question, nor
| to say if Plato even makes that link honestly. I think
| you're arguing with my summary.
|
| Imagine if I'd edited it to read: 'choosing to stay
| within the bounds of the government, and enjoying the
| benefits'
|
| Sovereign citizens do enjoy the benefits of the US state,
| do not reject them nor make strides at moving away from
| them (from anything I've read).
| c22 wrote:
| That's the thing, they're not really _wrong_ , they just
| lack the army to back up their claims.
|
| I do think people should be allowed to sue their parents
| for wrongful birth, though.
| caffeine wrote:
| I think parents should be allowed to hit their kids for
| being ungrateful little runts.
| t-3 wrote:
| Mine beat me plenty, didn't make me any less ungrateful.
| kbelder wrote:
| >sue their parents for wrongful birth
|
| Nah, not when there's an obvious and simple remedy.
| leephillips wrote:
| I'm not impressed. It just reminds me of children who,
| when they reach a certain age, start whining, "Well I
| didn't _ask_ to be born."
| robonerd wrote:
| We tell these people about "social contracts" then smirk
| when they raise the common sense objection of never
| signing such a contract in the first place.
|
| Of course a social contract is not at all the same as a
| real contract, a social contract is not a document that
| you sign, it applies to you whether or not you ever
| consented to it. But when language that seems to conflate
| the two is used to persuade people who don't really have
| a firm grasp on the way the world works, it seems cruel
| to laugh at their confusion.
| _jal wrote:
| > where they argue they never consented to be governed
|
| They also never consented to birth.
|
| They are free to renounce their citizenship, however.
| Nobody is forcing them to stay US citizens.
|
| > Maybe we can experiment with better society designs on
| mars
|
| Hate to break it to you, but Mars colonies (assuming they
| ever exist) are going to be dictatorships. Lifeboat
| ethics don't leave a lot of room for arguing, let alone
| voting.
| edgyquant wrote:
| The book Decline and Rise of Democracy goes into detail
| about this. Pretty much all nations that had a resource
| jugular (I.e. Egypt with the Nile) become extractive
| societies.
| t-3 wrote:
| Renunciation is not free - they literally charge you for
| it. You also can't renounce without obtaining another
| citizenship, which, surprise, surprise, you generally
| have to buy with both time and money.
| _jal wrote:
| Free as in freedom, not beer, as they say.
|
| But Sovereign Citizens are rugged individualists, eh?
|
| > You also can't renounce without obtaining another
| citizenship
|
| For US citizens, that is false. See:
|
| https://www.usa.gov/renounce-lose-citizenship
| kaybe wrote:
| Is it really that easy for US citizens to leave? Where
| can you go if you have neither money nor education or
| skills and are older?
| fencepost wrote:
| You can leave most countries and renounce citizenship,
| typically with some hoops to jump through but it can be
| done.
|
| The questions of where you'll go and how you'll support
| yourself are something that you'd best figure out
| _before_ starting that process, because after you start
| your country of origin may well say 'not OUR problem
| anymore' about you.
| tempestn wrote:
| That's not really the US's fault though, right? "You're
| free to leave, but if you want to stay here you have to
| abide by our rules," sounds reasonable I think. There are
| countries in the world where you're _not_ free to leave
| even if another country will take you, and this argument
| would hold a lot more water.
| JTbane wrote:
| >I mean when I think about it, I was born into an
| established system that imposed its rules on me from
| birth. I had no say in accepting/rejecting the rules. I'm
| essentially property of the state, subject to its whims
| with little to no hope of changing them.
|
| Would you rather be born into a state of anarchy? I think
| Hobbes addressed this.
| adolph wrote:
| As a counterargument to Hobbes here is an excerpt from
| "The Dawn of Everything" in which Graeber and Wengrow
| argue that Hobbes' assertion isn't based in evidence.
|
| https://lithub.com/the-dawn-of-everything-is-not-a-book-
| abou...
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| And they're right. They never (formally, explicitly)
| consented to the rules. But therefore... what?
|
| They have three options. One, they can choose to live and
| operate under those rules. Two, they can work within the
| system to change the rules. Or three, they can go
| somewhere that has rules more to their liking. This isn't
| a prison; they can leave any time they choose. One could
| even argue that by staying in the country, they are
| (informally, implicitly) consenting to be governed by its
| rules.
|
| But instead, they try a fourth alternative: Stay, but
| pretend that the rules don't apply to them because of
| laughably bogus legal theories. That doesn't work, no
| matter how many new legal theories they try, and no
| matter how much bogus logic and philosophizing they throw
| at it.
|
| We've got a lot of non-sov-cit people who don't consent
| to the rules. We call them "criminals".
| zebraflask wrote:
| A variety of protests, I'm sure, would look askance at
| much of this comment.
|
| The sovereign citizen material, though, really does leave
| the impression that there must be something underlying
| the absurdity.
|
| Mental illness? It generally comes across as the type of
| homegrown rant material you'd find stapled to a telephone
| pole.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| See, a protest - even civil disobedience - is working
| within the system to change the rules. Sovereign citizen
| stuff? Not so much.
| necovek wrote:
| While your three options are the three practical options,
| one should note that it's not trivial to move to whatever
| country you might want, and not just because of costs.
|
| Getting a work permit in another country is usually
| pretty hard, for instance.
|
| Still, even with that, I think we (as a
| society/civilisation) need people like that, challenging
| the system in all sorts of ways. And not everyone not
| obeying the rules is a "criminal" -- none of the civil
| offenses qualify, for instance, even in the legal sense.
|
| Of course, some of those "challenges", especially most of
| those criminal ones, should be dealt with proper
| "retaliation" (prison sentences, large penalties...) from
| the society so it's obvious which "challenges" are _not_
| welcome. But let 's not forget that many of the things we
| take for granted today have been criminal in the not so
| distant past.
| vkou wrote:
| > While your three options are the three practical
| options, one should note that it's not trivial to move to
| whatever country you might want, and not just because of
| costs.
|
| It's also not trivial (Next to impossible, actually) to
| survive alone, completely independent of society.
|
| If you want the benefits of society, you have to abide by
| its rules.
| robonerd wrote:
| Governments doing stupid shit like this only encourages
| "sovereign citizens" to think similar word games and
| semantics will work for them too. They're naive of
| course; they seem to think the system is a machine
| indifferent to class or social standing, which simply
| isn't the case.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Class or social standing aren't the right lens for this,
| I don't think Warren Buffet vs. Three Dollars would fly
| in court.
| robonerd wrote:
| Warren Buffet could do it if he wanted, using his wealth
| to earn the favor of the right government officials. He
| could even buy himself a private police force to do the
| seizing. A real police force, licensed by the state but
| employed and paid by himself. This sort of thing is
| already a reality in America.
|
| Anyway, my point is sovereign citizens seem to see the
| system as a machine, the function of which can be
| manipulated by giving it cleverly formulated inputs. They
| have a hacker mindset. They see lawyers and politicians
| doing this sort of thing all the time, and believe they
| can do the same if only they find the right incantation.
| It's as though somebody witnesses the Fonz hit a jukebox
| to make it work, then figure they can do the same trick
| if they hit that jukebox in the same way. Except it will
| never work for them, the jukebox only behaves that way
| for the Fonz.
| t-3 wrote:
| Certainly _some_ sovereign citizens see the system as a
| rigid machine, but many simply believe it _should be_ and
| act accordingly. They are idealists, not necessarily
| deluded about reality or trying to hack the system
| (although those types definitely _do_ exist, I won 't
| deny that). It's almost like a way of turning your life
| into a demonstrative protest against the "big lie" that
| is the law and refusing to fall in line.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| It could be argued that Buffet already has such power, as
| there are all kinds of weirdness around the police forces
| belonging to the railroad industry in which he is heavily
| invested through BNSF. I've never heard of him abusing
| this power but the potential certainly is there.
| jessaustin wrote:
| That would totally fly in the courts of e.g. Judges
| Kaplan or Preska.
| icambron wrote:
| What's weird is that American higher courts are often
| quite good at eviscerating this kind of nonsense, usually
| by pointing out that such a "workaround" would make the
| constitutional amendment toothless, and it was not meant
| to be toothless, so the workaround is bunk.
|
| That civil asset forfeiture has survived is simply
| because the courts are gutless about it.
| rland wrote:
| Huh?
|
| There is a very long and _plainly wrong_ string of
| Supreme Court decisions which stretches all the way back
| to the nation 's founding. The courts are very good at
| precisely the opposite thing that you're describing.
|
| I think most people kind of assume that the courts are
| this sort of shining beacon of enlightened liberal
| thought: they occasionally seem to have "duds" -- but
| those are intelligent and well reasoned duds. They're
| interpreting the constitution in a way some don't like,
| sure, but still upholding it nonetheless, right?
|
| I mean, this thread here about civil asset forfeiture is
| a great example. If you ask any non-lawyer brained person
| whether it's wrong, they'll say, yeah, _of course_ it 's
| illegal for the government to just steal your shit. Why
| is this even a question?
|
| Oh, but no, you see, the courts have wisely decided,
| using an argument that you _might_ hear from a 5-year-old
| ( "actually, this piece of property is _actually_ a
| mystical ghost that we can treat as a people! "), that
| stealing your shit is, in fact, legal.
|
| I really encourage anyone curious about this powerful and
| unaccountable institution to read some of the shittier
| Supreme Court decisions. They are often, simply put,
| _stupid._ Like, a regular non-lawyer person can read them
| and handily "eviscerate" their arguments.
| [deleted]
| raincom wrote:
| It is called "legal fiction", as judges and lawyers call it
| among themselves.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Once it was broadly accepted that the 14th amendment made
| corporations into people, the die was cast on the creation
| of these types of legalistic shenanigans.
| couchand wrote:
| I'm not sure there's legal or historical basis for that
| assertion?
|
| Edit: see this comment from elsewhere in this thread with
| a link to a scholarly history of civil asset forfeiture:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31449092
| the_only_law wrote:
| > The property itself is the defendant
|
| Hope it has a good lawyer then I guess?
| thfuran wrote:
| Hah. Boxes don't have a right to representation.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| If only the owner was reachable to answer for the boxes
| instead.
| pmyteh wrote:
| It's common in admiralty law everywhere. If you have a ship
| that hasn't paid its docking fees, what can you do? The owner
| is an ocean away and won't come to court even if you find a
| way to inform them. If you let the ship sail the port will
| never be paid. It can be arrested and, if necessary,
| auctioned to pay the debt. But you can't do that without a
| court order. So there is an _in rem_ action against the ship
| itself. It makes perfect sense in that context (and in the
| one that other commentators have mentioned, which is
| unaccompanied packages of contraband). Also prize and salvage
| actions, which are also admiralty proceedings.
|
| The difficulty comes when you stretch the concept like with
| civil forfeiture. It's not even necessary: England and Wales
| has the Proceeds of Crime Act to allow seizure and forfeiture
| of criminal property and all the cases under that are
| ordinary _in personam_ actions between the state and the
| putative criminal.
| gwright wrote:
| Hmm. I've been wondering why all the Russian yachts have
| been "arrested" lately in the news as opposed to "seized",
| for example. It sounded very strange to me as I thought
| that "arrested" only applied to people.
|
| Your use in this comment make me think that usage is tied
| to this legal concept of _in rem_.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| So the defense of violating people's right to be secure from
| seizurs is some mumbo jumbo about charging objects with a
| crime? How does charging anyone or anything relate to the 6th
| amendment?
| [deleted]
| mysterydip wrote:
| People have constitutional rights, objects do not
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Seizing objects violates the owners rights, not the
| objects rights.
|
| Another angle of defense might be to ask if it's even
| possible to violate the 6th amendment. What would
| violating the 6th amendment look like? I suspect the
| answer will closely resemble civil forfeitures.
| alistairSH wrote:
| _The right of the people to be secure in their ...
| effects, against unreasonable ... seizures, shall not be
| violated_
|
| The building was part of the person's effects. I don't
| understand how your argument is legal (not that I don't
| believe you - civil forfeiture has been going on long
| enough that I assume SCOTUS has heard a sampling of
| cases).
|
| It beggars belief that this practice has stood for
| decades.
| mysterydip wrote:
| I agree with you and think it's a crazy practice. I was
| just saying how they justify it (flaws aside)
| l33t2328 wrote:
| So is it even possible to violate the 6th amendment?
| Could the police not just seize anything since that
| object has no rights?
| edrxty wrote:
| And objects can't commit crimes
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| It's about being used in the commission of a crime, not
| that the object committed the crime itself
| mcphage wrote:
| If the object didn't commit the crime, then how can you
| bring a court case against it?
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| That's a great question. Unfortunately I don't have the
| answer but I believe it has something to do with civil v.
| criminal cases. I just know that's the line of thinking
| that these top legal minds are using to justify this bs
| function_seven wrote:
| If that's the case, then what's the point in seizing it?
| The crime has already been committed, the pile of money
| being taken doesn't change that one bit.
|
| If I use a payphone to order a hit, is it reasonable for
| the government to come rip it out of the ground? What if
| I use a freeway to smuggle drugs? Now the road must be
| torn out?
|
| Money is fungible and has all sorts of uses. Any
| particular pile of cash is no more or less likely to be
| intrinsically criminal in nature. Just like phones and
| freeways.
| c22 wrote:
| The point is to make the crime unprofitable so people
| will not want to do it. This is not a crazy policy
| assuming the crime actually happened. The ridiculous part
| about civil asset forfeiture is that no one has to prove
| a crime even occured. The onus is on the pile of money or
| whatever to prove its innocence.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Yeah no guilty mind.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > People have constitutional rights, objects do not
|
| I'm pretty sure that's been modified to US people on US
| soil, at least 100 miles from a border, have
| constitutional rights, but those rights were all intended
| to mean something different than what they actually say.
| JPKab wrote:
| The case titles are utterly hilarious, and do such a great
| job in highlighting the absurdity of this entire process.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Lawyers have that habit of taking an obviously false fact and
| rewrite it so that you can't prove by Boolean logic using
| laws or prior legal decisions as premises that they are
| false. Instead, you have to recourse for synonyms or even to
| the words meaning (some times, the meaning as used, not as
| the dictionary says). Then they pretend the new writing is a
| completely different thing from the meanings it convoys, and
| that what they said is absolutely true, since you can't
| algebraically prove it's false.
|
| That practice should be a crime, by itself.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Which just goes to show how absolutely fucking insane our
| court system is.
|
| Any sane court system would believe that charging an
| inanimate object with a crime is beyond bonkers.
| dimal wrote:
| How on earth is this able to stand? It's absurd. Have
| challenges made it to the Supreme Court and lost?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Customs /international shipments. There is a long history
| of seizing illegal or suspect material at boarder crossings
| where the actual owner/importer is unknown or not
| available. A funny-named lawsuit against a box is
| significantly better than the alternative: zero legal
| process and no case recorded anywhere.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Agreed, it makes sense in some contexts. The issue with
| asset forfeiture is that the state pretends not to know
| who the owner is so they can move forward _in rem_.
|
| [edit] Well, two problems: frequently the entity seizing
| the property gets to keep it and add it to their budget -
| or split the proceeds. This creates an incentive for them
| to move forward this way.
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| It'd be better to do a John Doe case, because an item
| can't represent itself. A hyptothetical defndant can.
|
| There's also the problem of you have no rights at the
| border anyway, even though you should.
| dimal wrote:
| That makes sense in that case, but if that's the reason,
| how can that apply to situations where the ownership of
| the property is well understood?
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| > lawsuit against a box
|
| I just can't make sense of the "vs" in the case titles,
| in what way is the object fighting back? Why is there a
| case at all and not "here is a list of contraband seized
| at the border" ?
| Goronmon wrote:
| _Why is there a case at all and not "here is a list of
| contraband seized at the border" ?_
|
| I would assume the legal procedure is what determines
| what actually happens to the object. Just like the police
| arrest people but don't sentence them or put them in
| prison directly.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Legal Research and Writing day one: it is never written
| as "vs", always "v." It is Roe v. Wade, not Roe vs. Wade.
| theptip wrote:
| I didn't know this, thanks. This is preposterous. I was
| already strongly opposed to civil forfeiture but the shaky
| constitutional foundation makes things even worse (if that
| was possible).
| thelock85 wrote:
| I'm curious to if/how this relates to corporations having
| free speech rights under Citizens United vs. FEC.
|
| Property is an asset, not a corporation (though could a corp.
| be an asset of a holding company?) but philosophically-
| speaking, "property itself as a defendant" and "corporation
| as a legal individual" seems connected.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Of course the same party who says that corporations should
| have "free speech rights" are the same ones that target
| corporations that speak out against their policies. It
| almost happened in GA with Delta Airlines and did happen in
| Florida with Disney.
|
| In the case of Florida, if it isn't struck down, it's going
| to caused the cities in the surrounding area to have to pay
| higher taxes and take on Disney's debts.
| cameldrv wrote:
| The issue is that in rem jurisdiction was originally intended
| and justified for cases where the owner of the property was
| unknown or beyond the reach of the law (say overseas.) The
| early cases were things like an overseas shipper not paying
| proper import taxes. For cases like this, in rem seems
| reasonable to me.
|
| Where things went off the rails is when they started applying
| this to cases where the owner of the property was known, and
| that owner should have their normal fourth amendment rights.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| You give the government an inch and, historically over and
| over again, they take a mile.
|
| The Presidential Surveillance Program was justified using
| Smith v. Maryland. The argument was that, if Smith had no
| reasonable expectation of privacy for metadata in
| isolation, no aggregate of citizens had an expectation of
| privacy. Therefore mass surveillance of metadata is legal.
| You let the government see the phone records of one citizen
| without a warrant and decades later you have something like
| 33% of all email, TCP/IP, and phone metadata being
| collected and analyzed by a government agency without a
| warrant.
|
| The old saying that the 1st Amendment doesn't apply to
| "yelling fire in a crowded theater" was an argument a
| Supreme Court justice used to justify jailing a man for
| handing out anti-draft pamphlets. You let the government
| regulate speech that poses a clear and present danger and
| they use that to make it illegal to oppose a draft.
| arcticbull wrote:
| > The old saying that the 1st Amendment doesn't apply to
| "yelling fire in a crowded theater" was an argument a
| Supreme Court justice used to justify jailing a man for
| handing out anti-draft pamphlets.
|
| This whole 'you can't yell fire in a crowded theater'
| thing is not a real thing.
|
| Per @popehat:
|
| 5/ '"shout fire in a theater" is a rhetorical device used
| in 1919 to justify jailing people for writing anti-draft
| pamphlets in World War I. The First Amendment standard
| (to use the term generously) applied in that case has
| been dead for more than a half-century.'
|
| 6/ 'The same judge went on to smirk "three generations of
| imbeciles are enough" to justify forcible government
| sterilization of persons deemed undesirable by the state,
| so you know, he had a way with words.'
|
| 7/ 'So when you trot out "you can't shout fire in a
| theater" in response to a First Amendment question,
| you're using the catchphrase a eugenicist used to support
| jailing people for criticizing the draft in a case that
| hasn't been good law for a half century.' [1]
|
| [1]
| https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1356670918706089985
| 8note wrote:
| There's no modern attachment to eugenics or the draft
| though. A person full of bad ideas can still have a good
| one, and it's noticeable that his others do not persist
| vkou wrote:
| > 7/ 'So when you trot out "you can't shout fire in a
| theater" in response to a First Amendment question,
| you're using the catchphrase a eugenicist used to support
| jailing people for criticizing the draft in a case that
| hasn't been good law for a half century.' [1]
|
| That's true, but it's also true to criticize anyone
| citing the constitution by pointing out that it was
| written by slaveowners and perpetrators of genocide.
|
| For some reason, though, that argument never goes over
| well. Maybe it's because the character of the person who
| made an argument hundreds of years ago is only relevant
| when you disagree with the argument.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| One of my favorite (although also sad) was the time the U.S.
| Government sued a bunch of shark fins: United States v.
| Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins.
| whiddershins wrote:
| Creative accounting can still be fraud.
|
| Bringing a civil suit doesn't change the fundamental fact of
| this being unreasonable seizure. It's seizure. And it's
| unreasonable.
|
| Naming it something else or inventing a process for doing it
| doesn't change reality.
| Animats wrote:
| That argument might actually hold up with the current
| originalist Supreme Court. It's worth pursuing. There are
| upsides to constitutional originalism. There's no reason the
| Fourth Amendment shouldn't be taken as literally as the Second.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > That argument might actually hold up with the current
| originalist Supreme Court. It's worth pursuing. There are
| upsides to constitutional originalism. There's no reason the
| Fourth Amendment shouldn't be taken as literally as the
| Second.
|
| You are confusing originalism with textualism (there is an
| argument that the current Court's dominant philosophy [or
| mode of rationalization, for the more cynical] is both
| originalist _and_ textualist, but your particular argument is
| more of an appeal to textualism than originalism.)
| [deleted]
| anotheracctfo wrote:
| "Do not quote laws to we who hold swords."
| coryfklein wrote:
| Let's say my vehicle is stolen, and police find a vehicle at my
| neighbor's house with the identical make, model, and year but
| with the VIN sanded off. And this neighbor just so happens to
| operate a shipping company that specializes in shipping
| vehicles out of the country, but has never been convicted of
| anything criminal.
|
| How would you say we should handle this scenario? We have a
| good reason to believe that the property is actually mine, and
| also that if it is not seized soon then it will be lost
| forever. (Since, as we all know, court rulings happen on much
| longer time scales.)
|
| If you have an overly aggressive civil forfeiture law then the
| police can seize things when they shouldn't. But if you have
| none, then don't you hamstring law enforcement unnecessarily,
| and instead provide greater incentive for crime?
| jimrandomh wrote:
| I think you have a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of
| what civil forfeiture is about. Civil forfeiture would mean
| the police take the car, don't return it to the rightful
| owner, and don't charge the thieves with a crime.
|
| Police don't need civil forfeiture to hold evidence in
| advance of pressing charges, or to recover stolen property
| and return it to its rightful owner. They only need civil
| forfeiture if they intend to keep the car for themselves.
| jdkee wrote:
| They can get a warrant based on probable cause signed by a
| judge.
| zerocrates wrote:
| The Fourth Amendment is tricky... it's got that word
| "unreasonable" you can just drive a truck through.
|
| And all the stuff about particularity of warrants is nice, but
| it doesn't actually lay out when warrants are required.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| This is why Legalese was invented. They have to be as
| explicit as possible to avoid any possible interpretation of
| what was written other than what was actually meant. A legal
| document with any phrasing that is "subject to
| interpretation" will eventually be interpreted in a way the
| origin author did not intend.
|
| "Unreasonable" is a highly subjective term and should not
| exist in legal documents.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| I know that courts just interpret the constitution to mean what
| they want, but they really outdid themselves on this one.
|
| > The right of the people to be secure in their persons,
| houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and
| seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue,
| but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and
| particularly describing the place to be searched, and the
| persons or things to be seized.
| oceanghost wrote:
| We "follow the constitution" for abortion rights but when it
| comes to NSA surveillance we look the other way.
| avs733 wrote:
| lets just drop the pretense of even using that phrase
|
| To me it is disqualifying for those analyses being taken
| seriously. If you are claiming that you are doing no
| interpretation and others are, that just not credible
| within the law. Of COURSE they are interpreting - that's
| literally the job. The idea that you aren't interpreting
| and instead are only divining what others meant is so
| incredible that it needs to stop being repeated.
|
| Stop repeating the propaganda because it just normalizes a
| ridiculous phrase.
| oceanghost wrote:
| My point was, the powers that be will make any excuse so
| long as it increases state power.
| vkou wrote:
| And in this country, 'state power' often includes 'the
| power of the states (good state power) to tyrannize their
| residents as they see fit, without any federal (bad state
| power) oversight.'
| kolanos wrote:
| Abortion isn't covered in the U.S. Constitution, aside from
| perhaps a right to life? Are you referring to Roe v. Wade?
| If so, that's a court decision.
| sophacles wrote:
| The 9th amendment certainly covers it. It says:
|
| > The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights,
| shall not be construed to deny or disparage others
| retained by the people.
|
| The upcoming court ruling, denies and disparages a right
| that was retained by the people for the last 50 years. In
| fact, it leads me to believe that the very reasoning used
| by the SC according to the memo is unconstitutional (they
| argue that since the word abortion doesn't appear in the
| constitution that it can't be considered by the court, a
| position that goes against the text and spirit of the 9th
| amendment)
| hn_version_0023 wrote:
| The Supreme Court has been stacked with ideologues and
| possibly criminals (given Mr. Kavanaugh's history). I've
| even read that getting Gorsuch on the court required a
| huge payoff to Mr. Breyer -- open corruption.
|
| I'm not well versed enough in its history to know if this
| is abnormal. I find it unacceptable, but given the state
| of government in the US, I don't have any solutions.
| jessaustin wrote:
| _The 9th amendment..._
|
| This argument proves too much. One might say, for
| example, that the right to crush annoying smartphones
| isn't specifically addressed in the constitution or
| amendments thereof, and thus we must have that right.
| However, the states do have laws against theft,
| vandalism, etc. so we don't actually have the right to
| crush any smartphones that annoy us. The way to preempt
| those state laws would be with a federal law establishing
| such a right.
|
| I am pro-choice, but such a federal law addressing
| abortion could have been passed at any point in the
| decades since (or before?) _Roe_. My understanding of the
| leaked ruling is that it would be overruled by such
| codification.
|
| The weakness of the appeal to 9A explains why _Roe_
| itself did not rely on that.
| robonerd wrote:
| > _The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain
| rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage
| others retained by the people._
|
| That's great and all, but how did they ass-pull the third
| trimester restriction? Courts recognizing rights not
| explicitly found in the Constitution is what the 9th
| amendment permits. But to ass-pull a _restriction to_ a
| right, when that restriction isn 't found in the
| Constitution or any law passed by congress? Is that
| really what the 9th Amendment is about? That's hard to
| swallow if so. What if SCOTUS ass-pulls a restriction to
| the 1st Amendment and says it never applies to computers?
| Is that the sort of thing the 9th Amendment permits?
| anamax wrote:
| > The upcoming court ruling, denies and disparages a
| right that was retained by the people for the last 50
| years.
|
| That ruling returns the relevant power to the states, see
| the 10th amendment.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| Abortion is absolutely not covered in the Constitution
| and Roe v Wade was a one of the most twisted bits of
| logic I've ever seen out of the court. We need real
| legislation rather then trying to stretch amendments to
| cover things that they clearly don't.
| mindslight wrote:
| I was tempted to see it that way, but the general right
| to be left alone by the government is most certainly in
| the founding character of the country. That right to be
| left alone most certainly applies to medical care. The
| only thing novel about Roe v Wade was applying the newer
| standard of gender equality to extend the right to be
| left alone to women.
|
| Since we're talking about abortion, let's restate what
| should be abundantly clear - nobody is using abortion as
| a substitute for birth control. "Pro-choice" is an
| utterly stupid term that plays right into the political
| tempest-in-a-tea-pot, completely on-brand for the
| Democratic party. An appropriate label would be pro-
| medical-care. This whole topic is akin to debating
| whether individual states should be able to prevent their
| residents from receiving blood transfusions.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| pro-medical-care is identically stupid.
|
| This is about the right to bodily autonomy, not medical
| care. Right now we have a right to not be searched, but
| don't have a right to do what we want with our own
| bodies. Give it a few years, watch in amusement as
| redneck states start attempting to ban tattoo parlors for
| "decency" reasons under the auspices of "proper medical
| care."
| anamax wrote:
| > This is about the right to bodily autonomy, not medical
| care.
|
| Does "bodily autonomy" apply to vaccines?
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| What number of people were forced to take a vaccine?
| anamax wrote:
| > What number of people were forced to take a vaccine?
|
| Folks who worked for govt agencies and contractors were
| fired for refusing and there were serious efforts to deny
| govt services on that basis.
|
| Feel free to play games with "forced" but we both know
| how you'd come down wrt comparable measures and abortion.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Oh, I'm not playing games.
|
| They're literally different and you know it to be true,
| but you'd prefer to play semantics because you can't back
| it up with logic. Like the idea that losing your job for
| failing to comply with public safety measures is the same
| as being charged with murder for aborting an ectopic
| pregnancy. Severing an employment relationship is nothing
| like incarcerating someone.
| anamax wrote:
| So, you're okay with women being fired or denied govt
| benefits if they have an abortion.
|
| What? You're not? But you said that they were different.
|
| The difference is that one involves abortion while the
| other involves vaccines.
|
| And yes, I'm going to argue meaning. There aren't any
| tautologies here.
| adolph wrote:
| _redneck states_
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Yes, redneck states (I'm from Louisiana and live in
| Texas... I have no reason to be politically correct). The
| current opposition to bodily autonomy is historically
| intertwined with opposition to dismantling segregation,
| and there are many "super-concerned" adults living south
| of the Mason-Dixon who would be just fine with
| prohibiting their kids from getting tattoos because they
| clash with appearances at Sunday service. The exact same
| disregard for bodily autonomy for the purposes of
| preserving the life of a fetus also applies to body art.
| sophacles wrote:
| How is pro choice a stupid term? You are literally
| arguing that the government shouldn't get involved in
| someone's medical care, that they should be allowed to
| make their own choices rather than having the decision
| forced on them by the court.
|
| The only reason i can see you saying this is that you are
| angry and have found a group to other. Perhaps you should
| do some meditation or smoke a joint or whatever to relax,
| and stop directing your anger at people advocating for a
| position you agree with.
| mindslight wrote:
| "Choice" implies that abortion is some optional activity,
| directly supporting this red team narrative of
| convenience. Putting the focus on individual choice
| carries little weight with collectivists/conservatives,
| especially when there is an imagined second person
| involved. Meanwhile from someone in the position of
| needing a medically necessary or medically prudent
| abortion, the situation is anything but a choice.
|
| The politickers have chosen the strongest statement to
| rally their own group around, but what it has actually
| done is create a potent straw man for opposition to rally
| around.
| jaywalk wrote:
| According to Roe v. Wade, abortion _is_ covered by the
| 14th Amendment. Which is ludicrous regardless of how you
| feel about abortion.
| Akronymus wrote:
| roe v wade also only really concerns itself on whether it
| is a federal or state level issue.
| robonerd wrote:
| Hmm, I don't think that's accurate. Roe v Wade _did_ say
| that Texas 's statutes against abortion violated the
| fundamental right to privacy found in the 14th amendment.
| If Roe v Wade had simply said _" It's a federal issue,
| it's up to Congress to pass an amendment if they want it
| changed"_, then I think you'd be right.
|
| But Roe v Wade went further than that, with all the talk
| about pregnancy trimester nonsense. I buy into the
| premise of a right to privacy being derived from the 14th
| Amendment, but there's certainly nothing about trimesters
| in that amendment; it reeks of the court trying
| legislate. Either this right to privacy exists or it
| doesn't, it shouldn't be conditional on trimesters. I
| think this is where they fucked up.
|
| Anyway, now Congress has to do what they should have done
| 50 years ago and sort this mess out the proper way.
| sophacles wrote:
| You should try reading the constitution some time -
| there's an amendment that disagrees with your reasoning.
| It's called the 9th amendment and it literally says that
| there are rights beyond those specifically enumerated in
| the constitution.
| robonerd wrote:
| I think you should read my comment again. I agree with
| the premise of a right to privacy being found in the 14th
| Amendment. It you understand that I understand that and
| are trying to draw my attention to something else, then
| I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean. What I find
| suspect is the court seemingly to invent a _restriction_
| to such an inferred right, the trimester rule.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| The constitution doesn't grant rights to the people but
| sets down the restrictions on what the federal government
| can and can not do.
|
| Anything and everything not specifically outlined in it
| is either retained by the people or governed by the
| states.
|
| If the Supreme Court says the federal government doesn't
| have jurisdiction they are simply returning the
| responsibility to the states or default legal status.
| They literally can't strip away a right by returning it
| to the people.
| leephillips wrote:
| The Supreme Court upholds a proud tradition of pretending
| that the 9th and 10th amendments don't exist. I believe I
| remember Judge Bork pointing out, to general outrage,
| during his "confirmation" "hearings" that these
| amendments essentially don't mean anything. He was just
| calling attention to the sad truth of the matter.
| thaway2839 wrote:
| It clearly isn't a direct and obvious violation.
|
| Even ignoring any say the rest of the Constitution has on civil
| forfeiture, even the parts that you quote do not prevent civil
| forfeitures on their own.
|
| "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,
| papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and
| seizures, shall not be violated"
|
| The rub here is "unreasonable". The fact that the constitution
| explicitly proscribes "unreasonable" seizures means it also
| allows "reasonable" seizures.
|
| So there is no clear answer here because unreasonable is
| completely subjective.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| From the US constitution:
|
| > The right of the people to be secure in their persons,
| houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable ...
| seizures, shall not be violated, ... but upon probable cause,
| supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing
| the ... things to be seized.
|
| From the article:
|
| > In a response to an interrogatory filed in the Kozbials'
| subsequent lawsuit against Highland Park, a city police
| officer answered "none" when asked to identify any predicate
| felony offenses justifying the seizure.
|
| What was the probable cause supported by oath or affirmation?
| avs733 wrote:
| reasonable here could easily be aligned with, you know,
| having due process.
|
| The constitution describes people's property and makes people
| subject to it. Suing a car or a pile of cash is farcical -
| because the constitution doesn't have authority over objects,
| it has authority over the people who own and possess the
| objects.
|
| Its the same basic factual explanation as to the difference
| between two consenting adults and adults and children/animals
| that seems to befuddle those who don't like gay rights.
| mlyle wrote:
| > because the constitution doesn't have authority over
| objects
|
| First, the overwhelming majority of civil forfeiture
| happens in states, where a mere claim of the constitution
| not explicitly giving the federal government authority
| doesn't hold water (or invoke the incorporation doctrine).
|
| Second, Federal courts have long exercised authority over
| objects and courts having authority over objects is
| something that is broadly considered constitutional.
|
| > Suing a car or a pile of cash is farcical
|
| It may seem farcical, but it has a decent legal basis and a
| reasonable reason for existance: there are times that
| property seems to A) be involved in crime, and B) unclaimed
| by owners. E.g. distant shipowners engaged in smuggling. It
| seems reasonable for the government to seize the property
| in these cases.
|
| It's much more problematic when a clear owner can be
| identified (or, when an owner comes forward after seizure).
| I agree in those circumstances action should be brought
| against the people, and should require a higher standard
| than the preponderance of the evidence, for property to be
| kept.
|
| > Its the same basic factual explanation as to the
| difference between two consenting adults and adults and
| children/animals that seems to befuddle those who don't
| like gay rights.
|
| I don't quite see the connection.
| Retric wrote:
| It's only ambiguous if you ignore the clear intent of what
| was written. Just like how the right to a "speedy" trial
| somehow allows them to be delayed for over a year. Sorry the
| language isn't ambiguous, the language is being ignored.
| sokoloff wrote:
| "Shall not be infringed" is another one that is commonly
| interpreted quite differently than the most plain reading
| would suggest. (I say this as someone who does not own a
| firearm, so this is probably not gun-nuttery.)
| RajT88 wrote:
| The modern pro-gun movement has erased the words "well-
| regulated militia" as well.
|
| The thinking of course is everyone _could potentially_
| join a militia, therefore everyone is defacto covered
| under the second amendment.
| User23 wrote:
| Every able-bodied American male 17 or older and under 45
| is already a member of a well-regulated militia[1]. Now
| you may think Congress should ask more of the militia of
| the United States, but being a statutory organization
| certainly meets the well-regulated criteria.
|
| [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/246
| RajT88 wrote:
| Private gun-owning citizens are not automatically counted
| among active unorganized militia.
|
| Even in the few active state militia they would be
| considered eligible, not members.
|
| SCOTUS has had contradictory decisions in the past on
| whether private gun rights hinge on military applications
| of the specific firearms, but indeed this is the talking
| point - state militias.
|
| Collectively, the people who parrot "Shall Not Be
| Infringed" are really trying to avoid the militia debate
| entirely.
| jmalicki wrote:
| The statute calls them unorganized, which is arguably not
| well regulated...
|
| "(2)the unorganized militia, which consists of the
| members of the militia who are not members of the
| National Guard or the Naval Militia."
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Regulated in the constitution did not mean controlled or
| restricted as in 'regulations'. It meant armed and
| capable.
| dontcare007 wrote:
| Nah, well related militia was not a restriction on the
| right, it was a reason for everyone to have the right.
| You have to remember that the Constitution doesn't give
| the people rights, it delineates the governments rights.
| The 1st 10 amendment's were added because the anti-
| federalists were (rightly) worried that the government
| would misappropriated all powers and eventually the
| people would no longer be free. They were basically a
| list of rights for a minimum viable free society.
| [deleted]
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Which is exactly the same rationale that the 2nd
| amendments authors used.
| tonfreed wrote:
| Considering there's letters from James Madison endorsing
| cannon ownership, I don't think it means what you think
| it means either.
| bombcar wrote:
| Heh we can still get our cannons:
| https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/americans-can-
| still-bu...
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| And the Anti-gun movement conveniently ignores the
| concept of a preposition.
|
| Because one first part explains the rationale, the second
| part describes the right.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| The first part also provides a context for understanding
| the second part. For example the right to "bear" arms
| shouldn't be read as including a general right to
| brandish arms, even though a less constrained reading of
| "bear" might suggest that. Conversely, it does include a
| right to fire those arms, since that is necessary for a
| well regulated militia to bear them effectively.
| NineStarPoint wrote:
| I think it's fair to question why out of the 10
| amendments that make up the bill of rights, only the
| second amendment would have a part that is non-functional
| and "describes the rationale". The preposition is part of
| the amendment, and its existence puts a qualification on
| what the right to bear arms means.
|
| I personally think the current state of affairs does a
| pretty good job balancing the two parts of the amendment.
| States are allowed to put a lot of restrictions on how
| you can buy guns, and where you can carry/use them, but
| ultimately people are allowed to have them. You aren't
| allowed a nuke, you are allowed a shotgun. Exactly what
| level of personal firepower should be allowed for a "well
| regulated militia" could be a constant source for debate,
| but I think the balance is kept pretty well.
| jaywalk wrote:
| The restrictions that some states put on gun
| purchases/ownership have are quite excessive and onerous,
| and may end up being struck down by a SCOTUS decision
| coming down within the next few months.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| They put the qualifier on it because they felt extremely
| strong that the country should not have a standing
| military that could be used as a tool of oppression.
| Instead, they felt that it should have an armed
| citizenry, which could form an army in the event of a
| war.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| And now we have a militarized police force who extort
| citizens for cars...
| mindslight wrote:
| > _it's fair to question why out of the 10 amendments
| that make up the bill of rights, only the second
| amendment would have a part that is non-functional and
| "describes the rationale"._
|
| I know this is apostasy, but because the founders weren't
| omniscient beings that drafted perfect documents. Rather
| they were politicians basically just winging it while
| trying to come to some consensus. Critically, they lacked
| an understanding of the limitation of logical systems
| that would only be discovered in the 20th century - the
| repercussions of which are with us to this day.
|
| > _Exactly what level of personal firepower should be
| allowed for a "well regulated militia" could be a
| constant source for debate, but I think the balance is
| kept pretty well._
|
| From the commoner's perspective, most explosives are
| basically illegal even though they could be responsibly
| kept by anyone with a little land. So no, I don't think
| any balance has been achieved. For starters, anything
| that a domestic-facing police department is allowed to
| have should be fair game for the rest of the People as
| well.
| mlyle wrote:
| > Just like how the right to a "speedy" trial somehow
| allows them to be delayed for over a year.
|
| Generally, when trials take a very long time to happen,
| it's because the defendant has decided it is in their
| interest to waive the right to a speedy trial.
| Retric wrote:
| The problem here is not generally but rather those cases
| where people haven't waved their rights.
| mlyle wrote:
| I'm saying most of the cases where people are held up as
| "detained for ____ days without trial", they have waived
| right to speedy trial.
|
| The overwhelming majority of defendants _not_ waiving
| speedy trials get a trial within a year.
|
| Of the remaining, there's a big share that are various
| kinds of edge cases where it makes sense that a trial has
| taken a little longer than normal.
|
| And then there's the remaining abuses and problems, which
| are relatively small in number but should be addressed.
| [deleted]
| Retric wrote:
| Look even waiting 3 months is already a failure of the
| speedy requirement. Saying well 1 year is too long but
| edge cases isn't a minor issue... No anyone ever hitting
| 1 year is clear evidence of total failure of the system
| to even pretend to care about this issue.
| leephillips wrote:
| And if they don't waive, it's still on the order of
| months in most jurisdictions, isn't it? That's not
| speedy.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > And if they don't waive, it's still on the order of
| months in most jurisdictions, isn't it? That's not
| speedy.
|
| Shorter would compromise the defense, who has less
| warning of the need to prepare for trial (that's why in
| the federal system, the defense, in addition to having a
| waivable statutory right for trial to start within 70
| days of charging, also has a waivable statutory right for
| it to _not_ start less than 30 days from charging.)
|
| And it is speedy compared to the problems which motivated
| the guarantee.
| mlyle wrote:
| IMO-- A few months to arraign, exchange evidence, make
| procedural rulings before trial, etc, isn't unreasonable.
| leephillips wrote:
| I realize this is the predominant view, but it never made
| sense to me. I think we've just grown accustomed to it.
| The Constitution doesn't say "prompt", it says "speedy".
| I'm sure those without the ability to pay pail, or who
| are denied bail, don't regard their few months in the
| US's notoriously dangerous jails as reasonable.
| mlyle wrote:
| I think the bigger problem here is bail and pretrial
| detention, and that's what should get fixed instead of
| trying to ram trials through quickly.
|
| (Yes, the timeframe is longer than it was in the 18th
| century, but trials have also gotten more complex: mostly
| in ways that benefit defendants).
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| I agree, except that it's a long time to be in jail,
| especially in some of the larger counties in and around
| cities in the U.S.. Fatally long, in some cases.
|
| EDIT: Nevermind, I see that you addressed this down
| thread.
| LanceH wrote:
| In the context of civil asset forfeiture, it is not
| uncommon for the state to drag it out and make it not
| worth reclaiming the money.
| mlyle wrote:
| Here in this subthread, we're talking about the right to
| a speedy criminal trial.
|
| Speedy civil trials are not a constitutional right.
| (Though, when it comes to forfeiture, the long timelines
| are one of many problematic aspects).
| Retric wrote:
| These forfeiture trials _are_ criminal trials. If the
| government is suing over a breech of contract or
| something that's a civil matter, but when the government
| is acting with powers outside of those of a normal
| citizen it's a criminal trial in everything but name.
|
| So it's doubly troubling as they are also ignoring the
| presumption of innocence and other such protections.
| kristjansson wrote:
| They _should_ be like criminal proceedings, but actually
| operate as civil actions. Civil Asset Forfeiture - it's
| right there in the name.
| Retric wrote:
| I agree that's what's happening.
| [deleted]
| mlyle wrote:
| > These forfeiture trials are criminal trials.
|
| These forfeiture trials are _not_ criminal trials. There
| are plenty of ways you can be civilly liable without
| breach of contract.
|
| I do think the standard should be higher than a typical
| civil case (beyond preponderance of the evidence).
|
| But this artifact of law has a reason to exist: if
| there's stuff that's most likely involved in a crime with
| no identifiable owner, it makes sense for it to be
| seized. Especially the original case of distant and
| difficult to identify ship owners. (Once an owner can be
| identified, I do think there should be greater
| protections-- deriving from the fourth, not the sixth,
| amendment.
| Retric wrote:
| We both agree with what's going on and that it's wrong.
|
| I am saying the court system is misclassifying criminal
| cases as civil ones. You want to increase the standard of
| evidence which IMO means roughly the same thing. But, I
| can see why you might disagree.
| [deleted]
| LanceH wrote:
| Your post that I responded to put it upon the defendant
| who stretches things out. Regardless of whether it is the
| civil or criminal, it is frequently the state which
| delays and adds procedure to these forfeitures for the
| purpose of grinding out the defendant.
| dontcare007 wrote:
| I'm sure all the Jan 6 protestor have waved their right
| to a speedy trial...
| yonaguska wrote:
| Ummm, Gitmo? J6 detainees? And countless other stories of
| young black men being held without trials to their own
| detriment.
| mlyle wrote:
| > Ummm, Gitmo?
|
| Umm, Gitmo was messed up. But, to be clear, the United
| States does not guarantee constitutional rights to non-
| citizens who have not touched US soil, so this is a bit
| of a canard.
|
| > J6 detainees?
|
| Despite rumors of hundreds of January 6th detainees
| languishing in jails-- the actual number is approximately
| 35. Most of these have waived speedy trial. Most of these
| have not been detained for a very long time.
|
| A few are still undergoing legal discovery. It's a
| problematic set of circumstances: further, closely
| related arrests happen; without providing additional
| information on the new arrests to existing arrestees'
| counsel, convictions could later be set aside. In turn,
| this restarts some clocks. On the other hand, judges are
| getting frustrated and warning the prosecution that these
| delays are becoming excessive.
| jessaustin wrote:
| _the United States does not guarantee constitutional
| rights to non-citizens who have not touched US soil_
|
| I can't find this detail in my copy of the constitution.
| 6A in particular specifies "the accused". It's true that
| most Gitmo prisoners were never actually accused of
| anything (because they had never _done_ anything, in
| particular anything related to actions undertaken by
| Saudi nationals under the direction of Saudi intelligence
| personnel), and were eventually released without apology.
| However, any prisoner who ever actually went to trial
| would certainly be classified as "accused".
| adolph wrote:
| > the actual number is approximately 35
|
| Ok, all cool then
| [deleted]
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| There is a very long history of jurisprudence over the past
| 2+ centuries that has done a pretty good job of defining what
| "unreasonable" means, and there are tons and tons of SCOTUS
| cases that have dealt with that. The basics, though, nearly
| always involve a judge reviewing the evidence to determine if
| a crime is probable, and issuing a warrant in that case.
|
| The fact that civil forfeiture is so contrary to all the
| other definitions of "reasonable" that courts have emphasized
| over the years should make it a clear violation of the
| Constitution.
| tialaramex wrote:
| One test the law likes for reasonableness is to ask a jury.
|
| We presume the jury are reasonable people (unfortunately the
| US also screws up how juries work) and so if they have a
| consensus that must be reasonable.
|
| The UK uses "double reasonableness" in it's anti-tax
| avoidance law. It says the jury should ask themselves if
| _any_ reasonable person might have done this anyway. If your
| jurors can 't conceive of how even one other reasonable
| person could think what you did made sense, except that it
| reduced tax liability, then in fact it did not reduce
| liability, your avoidance scheme doesn't work.
| peyton wrote:
| The broader question isn't whether a specific action is
| reasonable in context, but whether civil asset forfeiture
| is constitutional. So it's a question of law for the courts
| to decide, not a question of fact for a jury to decide.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| We'd love to see a constitutional ruling against civil
| asset forfeiture. It's the right thing.
|
| In the absence of that, though, jury rulings against the
| specific seizure is the next best defense.
| twh270 wrote:
| There is no clear answer to the question of
| reasonableness/unreasonableness, but civil asset forfeiture
| as used today is *far* into unreasonable territory.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| > The fact that the constitution explicitly proscribes
| "unreasonable" seizures means it also allows "reasonable"
| seizures.
|
| Yes, a reasonable seizure is either through eminent domain
| (with just compensation) or the result of a criminal
| proceeding as punishment.
|
| Unreasonable would be seizures with no criminal proceedings
| or just compensation.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| I'd bet a lot of money that someone related to, friends with, or
| owed a big favor by, one of the officials that would have had to
| sign off on this is deeply involved in the local weed industry.
|
| Between the insane capital required and level of asinine
| compliance stuff and box checking you need to do to get into the
| legal weed industry more or less precludes those people from
| being "easy targets". Your local dirt mover is going far less
| likely to be able show up in court with a "and that's exactly
| where each dollar bill came from" accounting than your local weed
| grower.
| SeanLuke wrote:
| ch4s3 wrote:
| > being promoted by Reason, which has a poor reputation for
| bias in reporting
|
| They're a LIBERTARIAN magazine, it says "free minds and free
| markets" right on the mast head. They're 100% up front about
| their view of the world. What do you really expect?
|
| This is like complaining that Jacobin is written by a bunch of
| socialists.
| the_only_law wrote:
| > This is like complaining that Jacobin is written by a bunch
| of socialists
|
| Which you can expect to see in the comments whenever it's
| posted on HN as well.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| See my other response here[1], but just pointing to the
| ideology of the publication as a form of criticism is
| substance-less and lazy.
|
| [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31449663
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > This is like complaining that Jacobin is written by a bunch
| of socialists.
|
| No, it's like suspecting that an article might be distorted
| to serve socialist ideological interests when Jacobin is the
| only source. Which is, of course, what any sane person would
| do, even if they share the outlet's ideological orientation.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| It just isn't a very interesting critique in and of itself.
| If the OP was pointing out how their ideological outlook
| influenced the facts presented in the story, or how they
| left some complicating factor out, then it would be useful.
| However C.J. Ciaramella, the author of the piece has a long
| history and good track record of reporting on police
| misconduct, and civil rights abuses. Moreover the article
| is covering reporting originally done by WXYZ Detroit, so
| it not even originally from Reason, they just picked it up
| for their audience.
|
| My overarching point is that unless you can point to the
| ideology of the publication negatively influencing the
| reporting it's just lazy and useless criticism.
| dekhn wrote:
| I would love to hear any alternatives from the city on this
| one, but we won't. It's hard to conclude for certain that they
| were wrong (IE they didn't actually believe a large scale
| illegal operation was being operated), although I do agree most
| of the presented evidence (which includes an email, in my mind
| the absolute most damning part of the evidence) suggests that
| the city (not the police) were conducting a shakedown.
| lbriner wrote:
| Possibly except that they returned the building the day after
| the article was published.
| bovermyer wrote:
| You don't really have to go much further than the source they
| reference multiple times - WXYZ Detroit.
| darioush wrote:
| tlb wrote:
| Not excusing the extortion here, but if you run a high-profit
| gray-area business, it can be a good idea to butter up the local
| cops.
|
| There are many ways to do so legally, from equipment donations to
| contributing to the sheriff's reelection campaign. For 0.1% of
| profits you can get them on your side in some situations that
| might come up:
|
| - you get burgled
|
| - federal law enforcement takes an interest in your industry and
| asks "who should we look at in your jurisdiction?"
|
| - you need a flexible interpretation of local zoning or fire
| codes to run your operation, especially if cranky neighbors might
| complain about noise or smell.
|
| Start with small contributions proactively before they make
| trouble.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Also, holding a Concealed Carry license automatically gets the
| cops to like you. Show it when you're stopped (and tell them
| that you're not carrying unless you are)...
| tbyehl wrote:
| Philando Castile would like a word.
| bityard wrote:
| Yes, you have to work your way UP to two police cars.
| klyrs wrote:
| You're normalizing corruption here. Specifically, recommending
| bribery. That can land you in more hot water than whatever
| "gray-area" business you're running.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Not if you make sure all of the bribes are legal, or else
| lobbying wouldn't be an entire industry.
|
| edit: In Illinois, at least, for it to be bribery there needs
| to be proof of an explicit quid quo pro e.g. a recording of
| you saying "If you give me X, I will do Y."
|
| Note that "I'm going to give you X," "What a coincidence, I'm
| going to do Y" does _not_ count.
| klyrs wrote:
| You're describing flaws in the legal system that lead to
| corruption.
| theptip wrote:
| I suppose "write your representatives"? This is an area with
| reforms actively being proposed, and it feels like banning this
| stuff is inside the Overton Window.
|
| Eg https://reason.com/2020/12/17/justin-amash-introduces-
| bill-t..., https://ivn.us/2017/09/13/amash-gabbard-lead-
| surprising-vict....
| tehwebguy wrote:
| The police willing to commit this crime under color of law are
| so incurably corrupt that changing the law wouldn't stop them.
| They will still take your stuff, they just won't give you a
| receipt.
| bagels wrote:
| Police in California siezed an armored car after laws being
| passed that explicitly made this illegal. It being legal
| makes it easier for them, but they don't stop at what is
| legal.
|
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/institutef.
| ..
| ezconnect wrote:
| Too bad China can't sanction you for such an abusive practice.
| llanowarelves wrote:
| Get most non-US corporations to ban American customers with
| little or no heads up, across all their SaaS, domains, bank
| accounts and when they complain here on HN, tell them "you
| don't have it that bad, it's war" etc.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| What's the connection? This comment went right over my head.
| Vladimof wrote:
| The US sanction other countries for bad stuff they are
| doing... he wants China to join the sanctioning party so that
| they can help Americans?
| pessimizer wrote:
| We're getting very close to the flip, when the US will start
| complaining that China's sanctions on it are inhumane and
| unfair.
| yalogin wrote:
| The first time I learned about such a thing I was floored. I
| couldn't fathom how that could be legal and how this didn't get
| struck down as illegal by the courts. I am real curious to know
| if this went to courts and corraborted there.
| FredPret wrote:
| What an absolute joke. And I see this is in Detroit - are they
| _trying_ to chase investment away?
| vnchr wrote:
| There's been a lot of outside money invested into legal
| marijuana businesses in Detroit, particularly along 8 mile road
| (brand recognition). It's an otherwise poor area, so I could
| see local police trying to get a taste from these new
| profitable businesses. They're not going after typical local
| businesses with tight margins and a neighborhood customer base.
| FredPret wrote:
| They're attacking the best thing that's happened to their
| town in decades. All the best to them
| sethd wrote:
| This forfeiture notice is crazy:
| https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4614019-Chappell-Not...
| or 3) Prove you are an innocent owner.
|
| So much for innocent until proven guilty.
| rascul wrote:
| > So much for innocent until proven guilty.
|
| That's only for people and organizations with expensive legal
| teams.
| javajosh wrote:
| _> So much for innocent until proven guilty._
|
| I'm not sure how long it has been this way, but "innocent until
| proven guilty" isn't true in most of the country. If you are
| arrested, you will spend at least a day in jail if you can make
| bail. If not, you will spend weeks or months in jail prior to
| your first hearing. Often, that hearing will just be to setup
| another hearing, months down the line. So, you could be in jail
| a very long time without ever having a hearing at all, and
| without the state proving your guilt.
|
| Even if you are rich and innocent and lucky, then you will
| spend a day in jail, and spend thousands on bail and lawyers,
| and if found innocent you will still have all of it on your
| record, lost all of that money, a day of your life, the abuse
| of the police officer and jailors, and there are many
| situations where answering "yes" to "have you ever been
| arrested" will disqualify you.
|
| So, yeah, innocent until proven guilty is not a thing in the
| US. I fear that people might read this and think it's
| hyberbole, or that I'm part of some right-wing conspiracy
| theorist thing. It's not, I'm not. If you know a LEO, ask them.
| A LEO in the US is judge, jury and executioner, and they are
| quite happy for this to be the case. It means they get to do
| whatever they want. It is remarkable that Chauvin got convicted
| for murdering George Floyd on camera! That's why I think the
| BLM protests aren't quite right - should be CLM, civilians
| lives matter, because it's not about race, it's about giving
| low-to-average intelligence people absolute power over everyone
| around them.
| vmception wrote:
| > Even if you are rich and innocent and lucky, then you will
| spend a day in jail, and spend thousands on bail and lawyers,
| and if found innocent you will still have all of it on your
| record, lost all of that money
|
| Not quite.
|
| If rich you get all your bail money back. If poor you do a
| bail bond and dont get the deposit for the bond back. Or cant
| even afford that and stay in jail. (The effects compound
| because its often not the first time)
|
| If rich, an arrest record means nothing. If rich enough, an
| indictment or being found guilty means nothing because you
| don't need employment.
|
| And thats before we talk about fighting the case. Or making
| the investigation harder.
|
| Its a completely parallel society because the consequences
| are so different.
| astura wrote:
| Emanuel Fair spent 9 years in jail. He was acquitted.
|
| https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-
| justice/jailed...
| ddoolin wrote:
| I've been to jail for awhile, it really is like this. On top
| of that, you are told almost nothing about how to make bail,
| what's going on, etc, and also congratulations, now everyone
| looks down on you even if you are proven innocent,
| _especially_ the people inside the system (judges, lawyers,
| etc.)
| nopeYouAreWrong wrote:
| The question is never "have you been arrested." It is,
| always, "have you ever been convicted"
| avhon1 wrote:
| I've definitely seen "Have you ever been arrested and held
| for >24 hours?".
| mdrzn wrote:
| Man, civil forfeiture in the United States is really something
| else.
|
| This seems like a nightmare.
|
| Related video by John Oliver on Last Week Tonight regarding Civil
| Forfeiture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks
| efitz wrote:
| "Nice building ya got here; it'd be a shame if something happened
| to it."
| hitovst wrote:
| Reminds me of the ATF issuing Leathermans with "ATF Always Think
| Forfeiture" engraved on them.
|
| Any forfeiture, or any supposed necessary violation of individual
| rights, should require investigation, and should cost the
| organization behind it, regardless of outcome. This may seem
| difficult to work, but incentivizing the opposite is completely
| absurd, and makes corruption inevitable.
| alephnan wrote:
| I spent a summer in Vietnam 12 years ago.
|
| Police showed to my uncle's cellphone store. Said their
| daughter's IPhone was broken and left a note to an address of a
| different cellphone shop.
|
| You're expected to go to that shop, buy the phone in the name of
| his daughter. They probably won't actually collect the phone.
| They will return it for cash.
|
| If you don't comply, the police will invite your customers to go
| for a ride around the block.
| tehwebguy wrote:
| No police that have been a part of any instances of civil
| forfeiture can possibly be reformed to a point where they should
| be allowed to hold any position of power whatsoever. This email
| is a nice smoking gun but _every instance_ of this is the same
| exact mafia style violence against civilians even if they don't
| admit to it in writing each time.
| Group_B wrote:
| Legalizing marijuana federally cannot come soon enough.
| justin66 wrote:
| Nothing about federal marijuana legalization would have
| prevented the local police from performing civil asset
| forfeiture.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| You're right, but I think the mentality around marijuana
| legality is colored by the fact that marijuana remains
| illegal federally, marijuana legality is so new in many
| places, and marijuana isn't fully unrestricted even when
| "legalized". This page has a bunch of tables regarding the
| legality of recreational marijuana in Michigan: https://www.c
| lickondetroit.com/news/michigan/2022/05/19/a-gu...
|
| So while I don't think they should have done what they did,
| I'm not shocked that cops walked into a building full of
| marijuana plants and thought "we have to bust these guys". I
| think if marijuana became completely legal and unrestricted
| nationwide, cops would probably get it - "welp, I guess this
| is legal now".
| Group_B wrote:
| Yeah I guarantee there will be way less of this bullshit
| once it's 100% legal.
| uoaei wrote:
| This is called "extortion"
| FYYFFF wrote:
| Very little about the War on Drugs was/is legal let alone moral.
| But just like "Torture" was gifted a pass during the Bush years,
| we ignored the reality of the "War on Drugs" in order to pacify
| the most frightened and ignorant among us... Oh and enrich the
| makers of fear, weapons and armory.
| jmuguy wrote:
| Maybe a dumb question, but how do the police seize a building?
| Assuming this just means they barred, under threat of arrest, the
| owners from using the property?
| butlerm wrote:
| When the police do anything it is ultimately an exercise of raw
| force. They come, evict you, and change the locks. The only
| question is do they have legal justification for their actions
| that will stand up in court? Warrants, judicial sanction, etc.
| in advance is highly advisable. This is why we are taking your
| property, go hire an attorney if you disagree.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| It would mean they had ownership of the building transferred to
| them.
| ta988 wrote:
| Is there a map of civil forfeiture intense areas so we can all
| avoid living and starting businesses in those areas?
| bityard wrote:
| It's legal in all 50 states, good luck. :)
| mikebonnell wrote:
| Civil asset forfeiture laws are just begging to be abused. While
| I understand the original intent, there needs to be greater
| consequences to those abusing it.
|
| _edit_ I 'm not sure of the best way to improve or change this,
| so would love to hear from others on the best way to make that
| change possible.
| jackcviers3 wrote:
| How do you understand the original intent?
|
| > Civil forfeiture allows police to seize -- and then keep or
| sell -- any property they allege is involved in a crime. Owners
| need not ever be arrested or convicted of a crime for their
| cash, cars, or even real estate to be taken away permanently by
| the government.
|
| --[1]
|
| They don't need to prove or even charge you to take property
| from you. It's robbery.
|
| The law needs to require a warrant issued by a judge to sieze
| the property. The property siezed needs to be stored as
| evidence, kept separate from other budget items in law
| enforcement organizations so that it cannot be used to cover
| expenditures (through auction or otherwise), be under the same
| sort of provisions as indefinitely holding individuals without
| charges, be returned in total when charges are not brought to
| trial or when a trial results in an acquittal, and the material
| should be subject to destruction after a guilty verdict and
| appeals are exhausted. Basically, the siezing organization
| shouldn't be able to use the material proceeds as part of the
| organizations' operating budgets at any time unless the
| material is voluntarily submitted by the convicted parties in
| lieu of levied fines after a conviction. It is evidence, not a
| funding source.
|
| I'm not saying that the government should not be able to take
| illegitimately gained property from convicted criminals; but
| that the incentive to do so for material gains by the
| government without conviction is rife with the potential for
| abuse as things currently stand.
|
| [1] https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-reform/reforming-
| po....
| tux1968 wrote:
| It just shouldn't exist. A judge can impose such penalties upon
| conviction, but there shouldn't be a way for police to seize
| assets like this themselves.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Civil asset forfeiture makes a little bit of sense where it
| was first used: dealing with the cargo of smuggler's ships.
| It was almost impossible to prosecute a ship owner who lived
| across the ocean in Europe, so simply seizing a ship and its
| smuggled goods was a viable alternative.
|
| Unfortunately it's expanded to all sorts of ridiculous and
| blatantly unconstitutional seizures in the last few decades.
| gwd wrote:
| > It was almost impossible to prosecute a ship owner who
| lived across the ocean in Europe, so simply seizing a ship
| and its smuggled goods was a viable alternative.
|
| Such seizures should have the same procedural limitations
| as arrest of an individual does. Individual procedural
| limitations:
|
| - Police can arrest you and throw you in jail if they have
| reason to suspect you committed a crime.
|
| - Within a certain number of days of being thrown in jail,
| they have to either produce concrete charges against you,
| or let you go
|
| - While the trial is going on, you can apply for bail to
| get your freedom.
|
| - You can't finally be thrown in prison until you've been
| convicted by a jury of peers.
|
| You could apply parallel standards in this situation:
|
| - Police / coast guard could seize a ship if they have
| reason to believe it's smuggled goods
|
| - Within a certain number of days, they have to either
| produce concrete charges against the owner, or let them
| have your stuff back.
|
| - While the trial is going on, the owner should be able to
| apply for "bail" to get their stuff back. A judge can
| determine if it's worth the risk or not, just as they do
| for prison cases
|
| - The stuff can't be finally taken away until the owner has
| been convicted by a jury of peers.
|
| Adding in something like, "All seized goods are distributed
| to the poor" or something rather than "All seized goods go
| to the department which seized them" would go a long way
| towards ending this sort of abuse.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| This doesn't seem to be responsive to the point made by
| the GP: if the owner is in another country, perhaps one
| that doesn't have extradition to the U.S., then there's
| not going to be a trial. The U.S. doesn't have _in
| absentia_ trials except in extraordinary circumstances
| like a defendant fleeing the country mid-trial.
| gwd wrote:
| Looking briefly through the "habeas corpus" stuff, it
| looks like the way it technically works is this:
|
| - Police arrest you
|
| - You can _request_ a Writ of Habeas Corpus
|
| - The judge then issues the Writ
|
| - The police either have to accuse you of a crime or let
| you go.
|
| You could do the same thing wrt the stolen goods:
|
| - Police sieze contraband
|
| - Owner _requests_ Writ of Habeas Stuffus
|
| - etc
|
| In the case of an owner in another country and is pretty
| sure they'll get arrested if they show up to claim their
| stuff, then they'll choose to leave the stuff where it is
| rather than apply for a writ. After a year, the police
| could consider it forfeit by default.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| In rem jurisdiction over property is the exact basis of
| civil forfeiture - this isn't a solution, it's the
| problem.
| gwd wrote:
| Unfortunately I can't understand what you're saying
| (perhaps beacuse I'm missing the appropriate background).
| Can you please explain what you mean?
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Where courts make a "thing" rather than a "person" the
| subject of a case, this is called "in rem" (which is
| Latin for "against a thing").
|
| The legal theory which underlies civil forfeiture is "in
| rem jurisdiction" where it's not the owner, but rather
| the property, which is the defendant in the case. If the
| case is at a Federal level, then it will be something
| like "United States of America vs. $50,000 in United
| States currency".
|
| The standard of proof is not at the criminal standard
| ("beyond a reasonable doubt") but instead the civil
| standard ("preponderance of evidence").
| gwd wrote:
| Right, so the sibling reply was correct. The person I was
| replying to said that the "problem" they were trying to
| solve when they invented the practice in the 1800's was
| things like seizing smuggled goods off a ship, where the
| owner is overseas and you don't have an extradition
| treaty with them.
|
| So, seize the goods in anticipation of convicting the
| owner. Make a law that says the owner can apply for a
| writ, and a case must be made. If the owner doesn't show
| up, then the goods are abandoned property. That allows
| the case described to be prosecuted, while not opening up
| the insane abuses we've all heard so much about.
| diggernet wrote:
| I think gwd's point is, the "thing" wouldn't be the
| subject of a case. It would be siezed as evidence of a
| crime, with the subject of the case being the John Doe
| owner. If the owner is identified/comes forward, _they_
| must be charged with the crime. If not convicted, their
| property is returned. If no owner is found after some
| period (say, a year or more), the "thing" is considered
| abandoned property. Basically, eliminating "in rem".
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| The thing about civil forfeiture is it's not about
| contraband; the property is usually perfectly legal in
| itself, however, there is an alleged criminal nexus.
|
| The situations it's intended to address are things like
| this:
|
| _Bob meets regularly with known members of Mexican drug
| cartels, but doesn 't actually seem to be involved with
| the illegal sale of drugs. Bob files his taxes every year
| and makes a modest income. However, every day, Bob drives
| over the border at El Paso in his car with a million
| dollars of cash in a briefcase._
|
| If the DEA stops Bob, he asserts that the cash is his.
| Since it's not obvious that Bob has actually committed a
| crime, shouldn't there be some mechanism to allow the
| obvious profits of crime to be confiscated without having
| to convict Bob?
|
| A lot of reasonable people think the answer to that is
| "yes"; but it is apparently hard to create a mechanism
| that doesn't also result in the police confiscating your
| car because your friend that's riding with you has $500
| of cash, a bunch of empty baggies in his pocket, and
| prior drug dealing conviction.
| diggernet wrote:
| No, there shouldn't be, because if you haven't convicted
| Bob of a crime it's _not_ "obvious profits of crime". It
| could be perfectly legitimate _and you haven 't proved
| otherwise_. You can certainly seize the cash as possible
| _evidence_ of a crime, but if you don 't charge Bob then
| you've got no justification to penalize him by keeping
| the cash, and it should go back to him.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| You're missing the point here.
|
| I was attempting to describe a situation where, if the
| law permitted it, you could bring in a jury and let a
| prosecutor make the case that Bob's briefcase constitutes
| the proceeds of crime, and have a solid chance of success
| at the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard of proof
| which is required for a conviction.
|
| But you can't prosecute a briefcase full of cash; and
| Bob's actions are not in themselves criminal. Without
| some kind of asset forfeiture system, nothing can be
| done.
|
| There's a pretty reasonable public policy argument that
| this is not an acceptable situation.
| Floegipoky wrote:
| I think you are conflating "forfeiture" and "seizure".
| diggernet wrote:
| I don't think I'm missing anything. You want to be able
| to claim the briefcase as proceeds of a crime, without
| actually prosecuting a crime. That is unreasonable. If,
| as you say, "Bob's actions are not in themselves
| criminal", you've got no justification to take his stuff.
| You may _think_ it 's proceeds of a crime, and you can
| treat it as evidence of a _possible_ crime. But if you
| haven 't got enough evidence to convict Bob, then you
| also don't have enough evidence to keep his stuff.
| Pretending otherwise is a mockery of justice.
| gwd wrote:
| > you could bring in a jury and let a prosecutor make the
| case that Bob's briefcase constitutes the proceeds of
| crime ... But ... Bob's actions are not in themselves
| criminal.
|
| So you're saying:
|
| * You have evidence enough to prove beyond a reasonable
| doubt that Alice, the owner of the cash, has committed a
| crime, and that this cash is the result of that crime
|
| * Bob himself hasn't done any crimes at all.
|
| We can't prosecute Alice because she's in Mexico; and we
| can't prosecute Bob, because he hasn't done anything
| wrong.
|
| Well then, seize the cash, and let Alice come for it. If
| Bob claims it's his and applies for a writ, show the
| evidence to the judge that Bob isn't actually the owner.
| If Alice applies for the writ, present your case against
| her. If she doesn't come for it after a year, treat it as
| abandoned property. Everybody gets due process.
|
| If you don't have enough evidence to prove that Bob isn't
| the owner, you don't have enough evidence to convict
| Alice of a crime, and therefore it's a _violation of
| human rights_ to take her money.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| What you're describing is functionally _exactly the same_
| as civil forfeiture that everyone is complaining about!
|
| Civil forfeiture works _fine_ for this case, which is the
| whole point, because indeed neither will Bob be able to
| demonstrate it 's really his, nor will Alice be arriving
| to collect.
|
| Where it all goes wrong in other cases is "Bob claim it's
| his and applies for a writ". i.e. it becomes Bob's
| responsibility to prove his ownership in court, rather
| than the government's job to prove anything at all.
|
| i.e. the government performs an administrative seizure
| without any proof obligation, and then reverses the
| burden of proof onto the person from whom the assets were
| seized
|
| In the real world, for small-time asset forfeiture, the
| amount involved is too small to be worth the effort; or
| Bob often doesn't have the money for a lawyer to bring
| that action; or this all happens while he's traveling
| away from home, so the court appearances are going to
| involve air fare, time off work etc. Or Bob is presented
| with the problem of proving something that is difficult
| to evidence, like "I have been saving this shoebox full
| of cash in the closet for a long time for my daughter's
| quinceanera"[1].
|
| Ultimately, yes, due process is available but it's not
| free, it's not low-friction, and it's many a time not
| worth it.
|
| [1] https://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-
| justice/578798-the-high...
| gwd wrote:
| > Where it all goes wrong in other cases is "Bob claim
| it's his and applies for a writ". i.e. it becomes Bob's
| responsibility to prove his ownership in court, rather
| than the government's job to prove anything at all.
|
| I said at least twice that it's the government's job to
| prove that it's Alice's and not Bob's.
|
| You proposed a hypothetical scenario where there is
| plenty of evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt
| that _this cash_ was the result of a crime by Alice. So,
| when Bob comes and claims the cash is his, present that
| evidence. It 's not a matter of Bob proving that it's
| his; it's a matter of Bob proving that this "beyond
| reasonable doubt" evidence you have of Alice's crime is
| bogus.
|
| We're getting really into the weeds here; I'd expect a
| lot of the precedents to be established by a series of
| cases. But I would think that a reasonable starting point
| would be that possession implies ownership by default;
| and that if the government wants to prove that the money
| that was in Bob's possession is _not_ Bob 's, then the
| burden of proof is on the government to prove that. In
| your hypothetical scenario, there is plenty of evidence
| that the money is not in fact Bob's, so it's not an
| issue.
|
| If it turns out the evidence that the money is really
| Alice's drug money is actually pretty thin, that's a
| reason Bob should get the money back.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > Since it's not obvious that Bob has actually committed
| a crime, shouldn't there be some mechanism to allow the
| obvious profits of crime to be confiscated without having
| to convict Bob?
|
| Absolutely-fucking-not.
|
| Law enforcement should never be able to seize property
| without the charging of a crime when they know who owns
| the property.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > If the DEA stops Bob, he asserts that the cash is his.
| Since it's not obvious that Bob has actually committed a
| crime, shouldn't there be some mechanism to allow the
| obvious profits of crime to be confiscated without having
| to convict Bob?
|
| Obvious to who?
|
| If it's so obvious then charge Bob. If it's not then no
| confiscation.
|
| Why do we want some weird half conviction? And if do you
| want that then do a plea deal.
| gwd wrote:
| > Since it's not obvious that Bob has actually committed
| a crime, shouldn't there be some mechanism to allow the
| obvious profits of crime to be confiscated without having
| to convict Bob? A lot of reasonable people think the
| answer to that is "yes";
|
| No, those people are absolutely not reasonable! Those
| people want a magic world where we have crystal balls
| that tell us exactly who's innocent and guilty. That
| would certainly be nice, but that's not the world we live
| in.
|
| It's frustrating when the guilty go free because of the
| rules we have in place to protect the innocent; but those
| rules didn't come out of nowhere. They are the result of
| the hard-won experience of thousands of innocent people
| being punished. If you remove them then innocent people
| _will_ be punished again.
| tehwebguy wrote:
| You are describing a criminal situation.
| jrs235 wrote:
| The goods should be stored until the owner comes to claim
| it in person. If the person has committed a crime that the
| police feel there is enough evidence to arrest them for
| they can arrest them at that time. If the goods are left
| and unclaimed for a period of time (30 days? 60 days? 6
| months) then the goods can be considered abandoned the
| dealt with accordingly. However, if someone is present with
| the goods and claims to be the owner (and the police don't
| have evidence contrary to that) then the goods should
| continue on with the current claimed owner.
| Hello71 wrote:
| > It was almost impossible to prosecute a ship owner who
| lived across the ocean in Europe, so simply seizing a ship
| and its smuggled goods was a viable alternative.
|
| why not? prosecute them normally, if they show up then the
| trial proceeds as usual, if not then convict them in
| absentia and then forfeit the goods. why does this require
| a whole new system that bypasses all the constitutional
| rights for domestic citizens?
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| _In absentia_ criminal trials are almost unheard of in
| the U.S. as a result of the due process requirements in
| the Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Because the US does not do "in absentia" trials. It's why
| Snowden has never been convicted; he fled before he could
| be charged. And now that he's gone, the US can't do
| anything if Russia won't extradite him.
| QuadmasterXLII wrote:
| Local governments simply cannot be trusted to dole out any
| punishment that they benefit from financially. We need to fund
| our courts from taxes, and require punitive fines to be payed
| by destroying the money instead of by the prosecutor pocketing
| it.
| Raed667 wrote:
| A great video on the subject: Civil Forfeiture: Last Week
| Tonight with John Oliver
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks
| leephillips wrote:
| The only legal way to stop abuse of authority is if those with
| a higher level of authority put the abusers in handcuffs. So in
| this case the state prosecutors need to go after the town
| officials. If the abuse is at the state level then the FBI
| needs to come in and start arresting people. Otherwise, why
| would they stop?
| code_duck wrote:
| Local authorities work with Feds to do this, however. Civil
| asset forfeiture has been banned in various localities, but
| is still legal federally - so non-federal police arrange to
| have a Federal officer (DEA etc) on hand to take care of that
| part, and then a certain percentage is kept by the federal
| government and the rest given to the local authorities. So
| first it would need to be banned federally.
| [deleted]
| _uy6i wrote:
| Seems a simple way would be that people who have assets seized
| should get the greater of a) $20k OR b) 3x the value of items
| seized AND c) attorneys fees
|
| At least this allows 1) people to litigate smaller seizures 2)
| creates disincentives for the more abusive cases
| engineer_22 wrote:
| I appreciate that you're offering a solution. I think the
| proposal would put the burden on tax-payers.
| [deleted]
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| As it should be if the public wants the assets sized.
|
| Someone should have to pay for the collateral policy
| damage. It seems that the burden should to those who voted
| for the policy opposed the innocent victims.
| belltaco wrote:
| The immediate first thing that should be done is that police
| departments should have no way of benefiting from the seized
| cash or assets because it creates a perverse incentive across
| the board for everyone in the police department to overlook
| transgressions. It should be held by the county/state and the
| interest accrued till a judge decides. If it's forfeited, it
| should go into the county or state public benefits program that
| only benefits the poorest of the poor, seniors and homeless
| people.
| namelessoracle wrote:
| There is actually proof that this works. Using Felony
| Probation and Parole in a particular state as an example, at
| one point it went to the department that ran
| Probation/Parole. So the Probation/Parole Officers were
| encouraged to aggressively pursue getting the fees for
| probation/parole. Then it was changed to go to the states
| general fund (so the department stopped getting it
| effectively). MAGICALLY the officers only got encouraged to
| care about restitution payments and started being very blaise
| about failure to pay fines and fees.
| lrem wrote:
| The obvious thing to happen next cycle from instituting such
| rules: the benefits program's dedicated budget gets adjusted
| down by the expected value of forfeitures.
| MarkSweep wrote:
| Maybe instead any money collected civil asset forfeiture
| should be required to be sent to the Federal Reserve where
| it is destroyed. That should prevent any of these sorts of
| perverse incentives.
| willcipriano wrote:
| It's a good thought exercise for the "trust the experts" crowd.
| Reading the text of the constitution, a document designed to be
| understood by the people it would apply to, makes this a clear
| and obvious violation yet our appointed legal experts
| apparently don't see anything wrong.
| thaway2839 wrote:
| The constitution is contradictory. It isn't a perfect
| document written on a stone tablet by god.
|
| And legal systems of any nation are more than just the
| constitution.
|
| So the idea that you can just read one clause in the
| constitution and therefore clearly know what is allowed and
| isn't (also, even the interpretation of that clause is not as
| easy as you are portraying here) is absolutely false.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| >The constitution is contradictory.
|
| Could you give an example of this?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The same document talks about the "Blessings of Liberty"
| while establishing slaves as 3/5 of a person for
| Congressional representation?
|
| It's a little hard to reconcile slavery with, say, the
| Fifth Amendment's prohibition on being "deprived of life,
| liberty, or property, without due process of law".
| butlerm wrote:
| The original was contradictory, it was the result of a
| political compromise. The current version is not - not
| legally anyway. Three new amendments to the constitution
| made the earlier contradictions about slavery a dead
| letter of no legal effect.
|
| That is what amendments do - they change things, and
| those ones came at no small price. So what is the point
| about complaining about a problem that six hundred
| thousand people already lost their lives in a successful
| attempt to resolve? Slavery has been illegal in this
| country for a century and a half.
| quesera wrote:
| > while establishing slaves as 3/5 of a person for
| Congressional representation
|
| No argument against your point, but a similar[0]
| Constitutional issue persists today:
|
| Residents of Wyoming are established as 3.23 people for
| Congressional representation.
|
| Residents of California are about 4/5ths of a person.
|
| [0] Nothing is similar to slavery, and specifically here
| the fact that the _voting power_ of these 3 /5ths
| allocations was given to people who did not represent the
| interests of the humans that comprised the allocations in
| the first place!
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > > while establishing slaves as 3/5 of a person for
| Congressional representation
|
| > No argument against your point, but a similar
| Constitutional issue persists today:
|
| Yes, a very similar issue does exist, but the one you are
| pointing to is not similar.
|
| > Residents of Wyoming are established as 3.23 people for
| Congressional representation.
|
| The unequal weighting of population for representation in
| (in descending order of distortion) the Senate, Electoral
| College, and House as a whole is not really similar to
| the awarding of extra weight to those who are permitted
| by the State to vote _specifically_ for people denied
| liberty as was done in the 3 /5 compromise.
|
| The fact that those disenfranchised by felony
| disqualification are counted--and as whole persons, not
| 3/5--especially given the way targeted criminalization
| and penal servitude _directly_ replaced chattel slavery,
| is, OTOH, a very similar issue.
| quesera wrote:
| I believe you're expanding on my footnote, and I agree.
|
| In addition to felons (permanently disenfranchised in
| most states), you have temporarily-disenfranchised
| prisoners, and prison-based population distortions that
| favor some districts over others.
|
| You could probably make an even greater comparison
| between the voting powers of: - a
| Californian living in a district with high noncitizen
| population - a Wyomingian living in a district with
| a large penitentiary
|
| WY and CA already start at a 4:1 disparity.
| willcipriano wrote:
| I don't see how you can count a illegal immigrant who
| can't legally hold a job or have a bank account as a free
| person either.
| willcipriano wrote:
| > slaves as 3/5 of a person for Congressional
| representation
|
| You would've granted slave owners more votes? You feel
| they were under represented? If I lived in a state alone
| with a enough slaves I should have been able to dictate
| policy for the entire nation?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > You would've granted slave owners more votes?
|
| I would have _not had slaves_.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| That's really rich coming from a proponent of federal
| authority/power.
|
| The alternative here was the articles of confederation or
| nothing and the states go their own ways as countries,
| not some fantasy in which the southern states torpedoed
| their own economies out of some love of the nation.
|
| The constitution and the included 3/5ths compromise most
| certainly brought about the end of slavery much faster
| than taking a hard line circa 1790, or anything else that
| tipped the scales away from the united states forming a
| national identity would have.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| You can say "this was the compromise they had to do" if
| you like. It's not even a bad argument.
|
| You can't pretend it's not _contradictory_ , though, in a
| document talking about rights and liberty, and that was
| the question posed.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Very strange that you went that direction instead of the
| more obvious "if slaves are property then they don't
| count at all".
| willcipriano wrote:
| I'd count them negatively personally but the grade school
| arugment made there has to die, the people who wrote that
| did so with the hopes of abolishing slavery in the
| future. It's exactly the opposite of how it is framed.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| I think their concern was more the official endorsement
| of the practice of treating humans as private property,
| in contrast with a number of amendments providing
| individual rights (aforementioned property excluded).
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| They should have made that clear since the complaint
| reads as being largely about the 3/5 part.
| cto_of_antifa wrote:
| pc86 wrote:
| In what context can a law disagree with the Constitution
| and still be legitimate?
| rtkwe wrote:
| When interpretations of the meaning of the Constitution
| differ the one last held by the Supreme Court has the
| (current) final say. The constitution is by necessity an
| interpretive document because we don't have a
| Constitutional Oracle to perfectly map concepts and words
| for centuries back onto the technological landscape of
| today.
|
| "Shall not be infringed" is a super common refrain among
| the 2A crowd but taken hyper literally you couldn't take
| guns away from criminals actively in prison.
|
| I think civil forfeiture is far outside the bounds of
| what could be condoned under the Bill of Rights but my
| interpretation only matters at a distance of influencing
| representatives to pass laws or the SC to rule
| differently.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Libel law disagrees with the Constitution by a literal
| reading. So does banning human sacrifice in religious
| services. We still treat them as legitimate.
| kolanos wrote:
| Libel is a civil matter. The government can't charge you
| with libel.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The government provides a judge and courtroom, decides
| the result, and enforces the judgement.
|
| If you prefer a criminal matter, swap it out for fraud.
| willcipriano wrote:
| > And legal systems of any nation are more than just the
| constitution.
|
| In any case when a legal system clashes with the wording of
| the constitution it is that legal system that is wrong.
| That's what "highest law in the land" means. That is the
| entire purpose of having a constitution.
|
| Experts love to hide behind "it's complicated!" but in this
| case they have nowhere to hide.
| eightysixfour wrote:
| What part of the constitution do you think it clashes
| with?
| willcipriano wrote:
| > The right of the people to be secure in their persons,
| houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
| searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no
| warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported
| by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the
| place to be searched, and the persons or things to be
| seized.
|
| Pull over a guy, take the paper cash out of his wallet
| without charging him with a crime. No amount of wordplay
| can make that constitutional in a reasonable persons
| mind.
| eightysixfour wrote:
| Please define reasonable in legal terms.
| pc86 wrote:
| I do think CAF as it's currently implemented is
| unconstitutional, but this clause doesn't make CAF _as an
| idea_ unconstitutional. The entire point (originally) was
| to secure assets that you have probable cause to believe
| are funding or proceeds from crime. So you find someone
| with a trash bag full of pills and $300k in cash in their
| trunk after a legal search, you need a process to handle
| that money.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Take it as evidence until the owner goes to trial. If
| there is no speedy trial, return it to the owner.
| willcipriano wrote:
| That process has existed since before America has, find
| probable cause someone is committing a crime, detain the
| suspect (you can get a warrant first but this is more
| common), get a warrant (can be done over the phone in a
| couple of minutes), put the cash away somewhere safe
| until the trial is over. If they are guilty of that crime
| and that cash was involved, great! If not you have to
| return it.
|
| What we are talking about here is just taking the cash,
| sending you on your way and spending it, sidestepping
| your legal rights like access to a court provided
| attorney or a jury trial. It probably doesn't do much to
| prevent crime even, the fentanyl runners would much
| prefer you just take the cash they have on them and let
| them go.
| sudden_dystopia wrote:
| As someone that has had to deal with the Wayne county legal
| system on a consistent basis at work, this doesn't at all
| surprise me.
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