Trump's DOJ in favor of Federal Civil Forfeiture Laws: how does that MAGA?
Aug 31, 2017 17:43:43 #
If anything, I would bet anything that Republicans would be against laws that punish innocent people without trial. Innocent until proven guilty is fundamental to our Justice System, but not so of Federal Civil Forfeiture Laws. Unfortunately, it seems that Donald Trump’s choice for Attorney General, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, is among that small minority of Americans (14%) who reflexively support civil asset forfeiture because it supposedly helps fight crime. At least, those were his thoughts during a Judiciary Committee hearing on civil asset forfeiture in May 2015.
The committee had listened to testimony from Russ Caswell of Tewksbury, MA. He explained how his family-owned motel was seized by federal and local officials because some of his customers had violated drug laws while in the rooms they had rented. That was sufficient grounds for the seizure, which would have netted the cooperating agencies (the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Tewksbury Police) roughly $2 million after selling the property. Caswell would have lost nearly his entire wealth merely because of criminal activity he did not know about occurred on his property. Sessions then lied and said "95% of the cases are of people who've done nothing in their lives but sell dope.”
Institute for Justice attorney Robert Johnson, who offers this devastating rejoinder: “Before government labels someone a ‘criminal,’ it has to secure a criminal conviction. The fact of the matter is, we have no way to know what portion of civil forfeitures involve genuine ‘criminals,’ as the whole point of civil forfeiture is that government can take property without convicting or even charging anyone with a crime.”
Civil asset forfeiture doesn’t just harm innocent people. It also creates incentives that distort the efforts of police departments away from preventing and solving the worst crimes and toward finding the most lucrative pieces of property to seize. During the same hearing, Senator Sessions said there’s “nothing wrong with having the money be given to the officers who helped develop the case.”
How can any America support such an attack on our Constitution and Justice System?
The committee had listened to testimony from Russ Caswell of Tewksbury, MA. He explained how his family-owned motel was seized by federal and local officials because some of his customers had violated drug laws while in the rooms they had rented. That was sufficient grounds for the seizure, which would have netted the cooperating agencies (the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Tewksbury Police) roughly $2 million after selling the property. Caswell would have lost nearly his entire wealth merely because of criminal activity he did not know about occurred on his property. Sessions then lied and said "95% of the cases are of people who've done nothing in their lives but sell dope.”
Institute for Justice attorney Robert Johnson, who offers this devastating rejoinder: “Before government labels someone a ‘criminal,’ it has to secure a criminal conviction. The fact of the matter is, we have no way to know what portion of civil forfeitures involve genuine ‘criminals,’ as the whole point of civil forfeiture is that government can take property without convicting or even charging anyone with a crime.”
Civil asset forfeiture doesn’t just harm innocent people. It also creates incentives that distort the efforts of police departments away from preventing and solving the worst crimes and toward finding the most lucrative pieces of property to seize. During the same hearing, Senator Sessions said there’s “nothing wrong with having the money be given to the officers who helped develop the case.”
How can any America support such an attack on our Constitution and Justice System?
Aug 31, 2017 17:50:46 #
MsCentralia wrote:
If anything, I would bet anything that Republicans... (show quote)
I have to familiarize myself more with this law. I do think that drug dealers and terrorists should have their properties seized so that they don't have the means to continue to prey on the public. I didn't know this type of law would stretch to someone who rented space to said criminals.
Aug 31, 2017 17:55:03 #
Aug 31, 2017 18:22:01 #
Super Dave wrote:
I've got a big problem with this.
Sessions has let me down.
Sessions has let me down.
I was hoping someone would see clearly how this is Un-American. It does not merely go against the laws of our nation but the principles of the Republican Party.
Aug 31, 2017 18:45:18 #
MsCentralia wrote:
I was hoping someone would see clearly how this is Un-American. It does not merely go against the laws of our nation but the principles of the Republican Party.
Agreed. Trump is not a conservative, so I'm not surprised that he supports this. Trump supports decisions to have local governments condemn property for confiscation to have it handed over to another private citizen or corporation.
That's why I'm not surprised at all about Trump supporting this.. Sessions is who I'm upset with.
Aug 31, 2017 18:52:16 #
This isn't new. Been going on all through the last administration. Don't know when it started or escalated to this level, but it is old news. We need to contact out Congressmen and demand that they change that law and right now. Even Yesterday. It is so obviously wrong. But don't go blaming it on Sessions or Trump.
Aug 31, 2017 19:11:18 #
E wrote:
This isn't new. Been going on all through the last administration. Don't know when it started or escalated to this level, but it is old news. We need to contact out Congressmen and demand that they change that law and right now. Even Yesterday. It is so obviously wrong. But don't go blaming it on Sessions or Trump.
I do blame Sessions and Trump.
They're not responsible for what Obama did, but they are responsible for what they do.
Aug 31, 2017 19:15:06 #
Civil forfeiture in the United States
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Civil forfeiture in the United States, also called civil asset forfeiture or civil judicial forfeiture[1] or occasionally civil seizure, is a controversial legal process in which law enforcement officers take assets from persons suspected of involvement with crime or illegal activity without necessarily charging the owners with wrongdoing. While civil procedure, as opposed to criminal procedure, generally involves a dispute between two private citizens, civil forfeiture involves a dispute between law enforcement and property such as a pile of cash or a house or a boat, such that the thing is suspected of being involved in a crime. To get back the seized property, owners must prove it was not involved in criminal activity. Sometimes it can mean a threat to seize property as well as the act of seizure itself.[2] In 2015, Eric Holder ended 'adoptive forfeiture' which occurred "when a state or local law enforcement agency seizes property pursuant to state law and requests that a federal agency take the seized asset and forfeit it under federal law" due to abuse.[3] States proceeded to curtail the powers of police to seize assets, actions by the justice department in July 2017 have sought to reinstate police seizure powers to raise funding for federal agencies and local law enforcement.[4]
Proponents see civil forfeiture as a powerful tool to thwart criminal organizations involved in the illegal drug trade, with $12 billion annual profits,[5] since it allows authorities to seize cash and other assets , from narcotics trafficking. They also argue that it is an efficient method since it allows law enforcement agencies to use these seized proceeds to further battle illegal activity, that is, directly converting value obtained from illegal items for law enforcement purposes by harming criminals economically while helping law enforcement financially. Critics argue that innocent owners can become entangled in the process to the extent that their right to property is violated, with few legal protections and due process rules to protect them in situations where they are presumed guilty instead of being presumed innocent. Further, critics argue that the incentives lead to corruption and law enforcement misbehavior. There is consensus that abuses have happened but disagreement about their extent as well as whether the overall benefits to society are worth the cost of the instances of abuse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Civil forfeiture in the United States, also called civil asset forfeiture or civil judicial forfeiture[1] or occasionally civil seizure, is a controversial legal process in which law enforcement officers take assets from persons suspected of involvement with crime or illegal activity without necessarily charging the owners with wrongdoing. While civil procedure, as opposed to criminal procedure, generally involves a dispute between two private citizens, civil forfeiture involves a dispute between law enforcement and property such as a pile of cash or a house or a boat, such that the thing is suspected of being involved in a crime. To get back the seized property, owners must prove it was not involved in criminal activity. Sometimes it can mean a threat to seize property as well as the act of seizure itself.[2] In 2015, Eric Holder ended 'adoptive forfeiture' which occurred "when a state or local law enforcement agency seizes property pursuant to state law and requests that a federal agency take the seized asset and forfeit it under federal law" due to abuse.[3] States proceeded to curtail the powers of police to seize assets, actions by the justice department in July 2017 have sought to reinstate police seizure powers to raise funding for federal agencies and local law enforcement.[4]
Proponents see civil forfeiture as a powerful tool to thwart criminal organizations involved in the illegal drug trade, with $12 billion annual profits,[5] since it allows authorities to seize cash and other assets , from narcotics trafficking. They also argue that it is an efficient method since it allows law enforcement agencies to use these seized proceeds to further battle illegal activity, that is, directly converting value obtained from illegal items for law enforcement purposes by harming criminals economically while helping law enforcement financially. Critics argue that innocent owners can become entangled in the process to the extent that their right to property is violated, with few legal protections and due process rules to protect them in situations where they are presumed guilty instead of being presumed innocent. Further, critics argue that the incentives lead to corruption and law enforcement misbehavior. There is consensus that abuses have happened but disagreement about their extent as well as whether the overall benefits to society are worth the cost of the instances of abuse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States
Aug 31, 2017 19:16:26 #
Aug 31, 2017 19:17:53 #
Aug 31, 2017 19:59:09 #
E wrote:
This isn't new. Been going on all through the last administration. Don't know when it started or escalated to this level, but it is old news. We need to contact out Congressmen and demand that they change that law and right now. Even Yesterday. It is so obviously wrong. But don't go blaming it on Sessions or Trump.
Why not? Sessions advised the states to disregard their own laws forbidding this practice and abide by the Federal law allowing it. Again, why not blame Sessions?
Aug 31, 2017 20:01:02 #
moldyoldy wrote:
Civil forfeiture in the United States br From Wiki... (show quote)
That it was I already said, thank you.
Aug 31, 2017 20:03:55 #
Super Dave wrote:
That was weird...
A Trump-h**er lib using facts and... Just facts....
A Trump-h**er lib using facts and... Just facts....
So maybe said person is not a Trump-h**er but a patriot, concerned about America? I always use facts, just so many Trump-supporters seem to dislike them.
Aug 31, 2017 20:18:06 #
MsCentralia wrote:
So maybe said person is not a Trump-h**er but a patriot, concerned about America? I always use facts, just so many Trump-supporters seem to dislike them.
You must be new. He's a h**er, not a patriot.
He defended every Anti-American action Obama took.
Well. At least I never saw him acknowledge an Obama act as bad.
Look at his avatar.
Aug 31, 2017 20:24:30 #
Super Dave wrote:
You must be new. He's a h**er, not a patriot.
He defended every Anti-American action Obama took.
Well. At least I never saw him acknowledge an Obama act as bad.
Look at his avatar.
He defended every Anti-American action Obama took.
Well. At least I never saw him acknowledge an Obama act as bad.
Look at his avatar.
Trump is a worldwide embarrassment
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