President Obama's speech was motivating and inspiring.
President Barack Obama delivered his fifth State of the Union
message tonight. The speech focused on a number of themes,
including jobs, budget balancing, energy, education, immigration, gun reform, ending the war in Afghanistan and many other issues.…
Article comments
76 - Doug Hunter
Sorry Zing, I reread your comment and realized were weren't disputing that it is the law, just the frequency with which it is used. Also, you seem to think it effects some trial when in actuality there often is not a trial or any charges filed at all. Statistics are difficult to come by, but they are out there.
The Feds in 2010 seized $1.3 Billion, but they deal with larger crimes so we'll ignore them. For Virginia, in 2007 there were 1689 cash seizures (not including vehicles and other property) totaling a little over $7 million. You could multiply that by about 40 to scale up for the whole US making some large assumptions just as a SWAG.
According to the DOJ report on Asset Forfeiture "as many as 90 percent of civil forfeitures are not accompanied by criminal charges"
Now I can't tell you what percentage of Virginia's statistics were civil forfeitures (I suspect only a portion), but the fact remains. If the law is being used 90% of the time to seize assets from people that are not charged with crimes.... WHY HAVE THE FUCKING LAW! Get rid of that dumb shit... now. I don't know anyone who died of testicular cancer either, don't mean it's not bad shit. I don't care if it happens to 1 or 1000 or 1000000, it's wrong. The types of people whose car's they're taking and whose money they're taking don't have alot in this life and don't have means to defend themselves... it's wrong.
You should never ever ever take someone's property (livelihood in this capitalist system) away without them being convicted of a crime. You should really never ever ever ever take someone's property away without them being at least immediately caught and charged in the commission of a crime. Nobody should defend this shit, it's dumb.
77 - Zingzing
Why are they taking it? For no reason at all?
78 - Zingzing
From your PDF: "There are four forfeiture theories. Property is subject to forfeiture if it is (1) contraband; (2) the proceeds of criminal activity; (3) used to facilitate criminal activity; and (4) connected to a criminal enterprise."
79 - Zingzing
"Nobody should defend this shit, it's dumb."
I'm not defending anything. I'm just pointing out that it's not just seizure for seizure's sake. I'm sure the seizure is sometimes justified with some rather large amounts of bullshit, like when grandson decides to sell dope out of grandma's basement and the like, but there is at least supposed to be some criminal activity going on in these cases. That said, if they can't get a conviction or a plea deal out of the person they're seizing from, I'm thinking they better be giving that stuff back, and I wonder why that's not always the case.
80 - Doug Hunter
#79
"I wonder why that's not always the case."
Good wondering, me too. I think it should be very simple. Don't take stuff unless there are criminal charges. Don't keep stuff unless the courts ultimately find the person guilty.
Unfortunately, there is real concern as that does not always happen. Witness this expose from Philadelphia
High Points.
$6 Million in annual seizures. $550 Average and $178 Median Seizure on a select sample.
For people successful in reclaiming their stuff it took an average of 5 court visits and 284 days.
Of 300 cases studied, only 180 had associated criminal cases with 80% of those found guilty.
Stupidly, your criminal case and your seizure case are separate issues and winning/losing one has no bearing on the other... as indicated by the letter the authorities are required to serve (but often don't) to the owner.
When they win a much higher percent of their asset seizure cases than their criminal cases something is wrong. Certainly, many of them are legitimate criminals but quite a few are not guilty, and others get caught up with rent money, money to buy a car, etc, etc. Many people can't afford to take off work 5 times to go to court to defend themselves over a period of 8 months to get back a median $178. This is a racket. They could very easily implement the simple protections most people would agree on. (i.e. money returned if no crime is proven or defendant found not guilty) but that would cut deep into their $6 million revenue.