Federal Judge: Albuquerque's Asset Forfeiture is Unconstitutional | Hacker News Reader

Federal Judge: Albuquerque's Asset Forfeiture is Unconstitutional

reason.com

118 pointsmmirate22 comments

The whole point of a taxpayer funded police force is so that police operations are not biased because of where the money comes from. Having the police profit from police operations completely subverts that.

agreed, I'm inclined to think that "electing" your police force also subverts it.

Douglas Adams was bang on the nail when he said something to the tune of "that the only beings that can and should be trusted with power is those that dont want it, or aren't aware they have it"

> I'm inclined to think that "electing" your police force also subverts it.

Then you'll end up with a bunch of charismatic police folks who want it, and can swoon voters to give it, but are generally ineffective at doing it. Source: politics in the US above the municipal level.

that already happens, county judges and sheriffs.

Right.. I would consider crap at the county level to be above the municipal level...

Not in every context. There are quite a few city-county conglomerates.

I think recal votes should be a thing for such officials. There needs to be a way for the voting public to weigh in on excesses.

Do you mean this quote?

"The major problem — one of the major problems, for there are several — one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

To summarise: it is a well known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.

To summarise the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem."

Douglas Adams, The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe

It's like paying bugfix bounties to the developers who wrote the code in the first place. They have incentives to produce more bugs and these cops are motivated to invent crimes.

"New Mexico essentially banned civil asset forfeiture in 2015, but Albuquerque argued the state law didn't apply to its own city codes and continued to seize cars."

How the fuck is a city able to just decide to ignore state laws? I don't understand...

The officials in charge at the city level and in the police department need to see some jail time for breaking the very laws they are sworn to uphold.

Typically the concept of Home Rule is used.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_rule_in_the_United_Stat...

Cities try this with gun laws all the time. Even if a state has premption specifically for gun laws.

At any time a city or town somewhere is trying to get sued by enacting “their own” anti gun laws. I see it come up at least twice a year.

This is huge for justice. Protection for personal property is one of the most fundamental tenets of our society. Don't know why it takes so long for the wheel of justice to get going.

These injustices will never cease until those who order and execute them face personal consequences for their illegal conduct.

It's about time a federal judge applies common sense to a forfeiture case. It really is amazing how little logic and common sense our judicial system has. How are we the people supposed to trust an illogical system that steals from people, murders innocent people, and that a third grader can see is unconstitutional? How can one even explain such madness to children who wonder if the cops killed the black guy just to take his car and house? Of course they did.

To quote Tom Swift (from Gulliver's Travels):

Judges are picked out from the most dextrous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy, and having been biased all their lives against truth or equity, are under such a fatal necessity of favoring fraud, perjury and oppression, that I have known several of them to refuse a large bribe from the side where justice lay, rather than injure the faculty by doing any thing unbecoming their nature in office.

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