Clarence Thomas seems ready to stop civil asset forfeiture | Hacker News Reader

Clarence Thomas seems ready to stop civil asset forfeiture

vox.com

107 pointselberto3423 comments

The headline of the article (not the title of this post) is a clear representation of how bad ad-driven news has gotten.

Civil asset forfeiture is an issue so transparently incompatible with our society that everyone, no matter what side of the isle they are on, should be able to support any other person who is against it. You don't have to support their other ideas, policy objectives, rulings or whatever. Just listen to them say "civil asset forfeiture is awful" and respond "yup".

Yet the article goes out of it's way to portend (in sometimes subtle ways) that it's a partisan issue. If politicians, with media backing, twist this issue into a divisive one I won't even be mad. I'll be impressed. If Democrats or Republicans start standing up en-mass and proclaiming "police should be able to just take your shit", because that's the party line, we will all have truly lost.

> Yet the article goes out of it's way to portend (in sometimes subtle ways) that it's a partisan issue.

One thing perhaps they forgot to mention, is that attorney general Jeff Sessions really likes civil asset forfeiture. And since his support / opposition was down party lines, maybe it is somewhat partisan.

While not as partisan as something like abortion, it isn't totally unpartisan.

Usage of civil asset forfeiture has substantially increased since the 1980s and the explicit justification for this has always been the war on drugs.

Democrats, on the whole, are increasing disillusioned with the war on drugs. Republicans, Sessions being a great example, much less so. Further there is an increasing "law and order" divide between democrats and republicans. Democrats, on the whole, are much more willing than Republicans to label police behavior as abuse.

So, should it be a partisan issue? No. Is it? I'll put it this way: if congress ever starts working on a civil asset forfeiture reform legislation, my money is on a largely Republican opposition.

I can imagine that as well. However, my hope is that I only feel this way because I personally sway slightly left and therefore assign my own preferences to the left. I'm hopeful that's just my bias showing and that instead we're all on the same side with this one.

I get that Sessions is for forfeiture, I'm just hoping he's only capable of holding that opinion so long as no one asks too many questions about it. I could obviously be wrong and that'd be crappy.

im reading what your saying, nodding, then i think to myself... climate change is a partisan issue, gun control is a partisan issue, voter registration / suppression is a partisan issue... so i guess its very easy to believe that civil asset forfeiture will become one too, if some police forces decide its worth lobbying for.

It's absolutely stunning to me that this practice ("civil asset forfeiture" without an associated conviction) has survived Constitutional review for this long.

Without even a charge being filed.

Cops and state patrollers take classes on how to target people in cars passing through their states. It's big for cops, and big for consultants. https://www.mttuiv.org/files/AssForfDFoulkBIO.pdf

> Without even a charge being filed.

that's exactly why it has survived without review for this long. the courts can't just order an investigation the way, for example, Congress can. the judicial system requires either a criminal complaint (filed by the states' attorney) or a civil suit (filed by the injured party) in order to take up a case and examine the relevant law.

this won't go anywhere until a victim of civil asset forfeiture sues the police department. that is EXTREMELY hard to get away with. Police have the "thin blue line" mentality and will go to extraordinary measures to protect their own tribe.

Some municipalities are incredibly dependent on it. Sunrise, Florida comes to mind: http://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2013/10/30/f...

Sunrise FL has revenues north of $300M and a $40M police budget, forfeiture isn't exactly keeping the city afloat. And they were seizing cash / property from people who actually attempted to buy drugs not random people.

I'm still waiting for the case where somebody shoots a police officer in a civil asset forfeiture and uses the argument that it was an armed robbery.

Unlikely to be successful. Once the officer does it under the color of the law (however insane the law is) or at least believes so, he is pretty much immune both from prosecution and from self-defense provisions. All people have equal rights, but some are more equal than other.

Eh well just like eugenics programs survived constitutional review, all the states, territories and the federal government will have to just stop practicing it. Whether it is a new law in some states or merely political unfavorability preventing it from being an acceptable practice.

The tone of this article is so strange. Seems like the author is almost surprised that a conservative would be opposed to civil asset forfeiture.

This position would be almost foundational to anyone who leans libertarian or conservative. You don't take people's stuff without justification.

You would think that's the case, but the Republican Party in the US is allegedly the conservative one and has been the one pushing for more CAF:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/bc.marfeel.com/amp/www.national...

It is sort of funny that 'conservative' and 'liberal' are commonly meant as opposites when talking about US politics. But isn't conservatism pointing back to liberalism if that's the founding principle of the country?

Definitions change over time.

You point to an stornlgy anty civil-forfeiture article by a stalwart conservative publication, which denounces one particular republican sentator. And this is your evidence that the party as a whole is for it?

Well when the President threatens to destroy a state senator's career for asking about ending the practice and his Attorney General fully supports forfeiture, what conclusion should we draw? Republicans have majorities in the House and the Senate and control the White House, let's see how much progress they make on asset forfeiture.

It is surprising. The justices have historically given law enforcement a lot of latitude. See this article for some discussion:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/01/22/...

I suspect conservatives are more strongly on both sides of the civil forfeiture issue than the left is (a bit like how civil rights once divided the Democrat party, leaving Republicans as spectators).

Yes, the right is more hostile to arbitrary use of power by government, than the left. But the right is also more strongly in favour of cops and other law-and-order matters.

I'm also interested in the slight similarity between this and debates about the "rights" of companies. In both cases, officials find it easier to do what they want because they make their case against a persons property, which doesn't have the rights that the person has.

Typically conservative values stop at the law and order stuff.

It's completely absurd. What kind of "justice" system allows blatant stealing and abuse with no repercussions whatsoever? What kind of "justice" system criminalizes de facto not de jur the carrying of cash? What kind of "justice" system incentivizes lying, framing, and not solving crimes that aren't tied to large sums of money, like murder, rape, and assault, by police?

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