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Comment by twic | Hacker News Reader

This particular case is not nearly as bad as it sounds. Someone used a car to commit a crime, so the state seized the car. The car was owned by another person, who had lent it to the person who committed the crime. This sounds like a powerful deterrent to allowing your car to be used to commit crimes.

> "You're asking one drunk person to determine whether another person is fit to drive. That's absurd," said attorney Chuck Ramsay.

No, it's not. Just assume they aren't. What's the alternative? Merrily lend your car to someone who might be drunk, and not bear any consequences?

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“It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished.

But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, 'whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection,' and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.”

- John Adams

This mindset is prevalent in the senior management ranks and I'd say this mindset is a prerequisite to climb the social ladder. Poor people believe in rules and think that good behavior will get them a better life. Rich people know that there are no rules, only competition, and every move, including breaking a "law", has a risk-reward ratio. Our current US administration is a caricature on this mindset.

A wonderful quote.

I can't help but see the similarity between this quote and the words of a 90 year old BLM protester that I met in Seattle recently: "No, I don't really care about the looters. Let them take what they want. Because it doesn't matter. Nothing matters anymore. Because guilty or innocent, if they're black, they're gonna end up in prison at some point before they die. Just like I did. For 24 years."

So he was innocent and spent 24 years in prison? Or was he just trying to downplay his own responsibility?

He claimed he was innocent, and I think I believe him.

My therapist does some work in the state prison system, and he told me once that most prisoners go through the full 5 stages of grief usually within a couple of months. And by the end of those stages of grief, it is no longer painful for them to accept and openly admit that they committed a crime. He can only recall two long term prisoners that he worked with that refused to admit guilt after a year in prison...one of them has already been fully exonerated (not commuted, but actually cleared of all guilt), and the other was recently granted a retrial. Anecdotal, sure, but I find it believable.

The alternative is prosecuting the crime, getting a conviction and applying the applicable punishment.

Instead they just inflict the punishment up front on whoever they want. Then when that person tries to get it back, they have no standing because the suit is against the property itself. It takes some special people to believe in this legal fiction that the owner of the vehicle has no real standing or loss.

The road was also being used. Can they seize that and the police department would now have a new toll road to raise revenue. Oh, you say the state didn't know what the drivers intentions were on the road? Too bad -- they should have foreseen everything done with their property.

> Someone used a car to commit a crime, so the state seized the car.

Even if you want to argue that the punishment of having your car seized fits the crime of DWI, there's no due process here. Taking the car and then asking a judge to get it back is "guilty until proven innocent".

How does protortionality fit here?

If a drunk driver gets a $2,000 fine, but the owner has their $40,000 car forfeited, is that fair punishment?

We're talking about highway robbery here. When thugs with guns politely ask for your keys, you see it as a decent deal. The fact that they took only 2,000 from your friend is irrelevant.

If your logic is sound, why did the police department agree to let the guilty party simply “buy back” the car for $4k? I thought taking the car so it couldn’t be used in another crime was the consequence? Or is it the money? And who came up with $4k? It certainly wasn’t a judge.

So if I rent a car and commit a crime the rental company should be punished? How about buying a gun, should the shop owner who sold it be responsible?

Yes, exactly. It would give them very strong incentives not to provide cars or guns, respectively, to people who will misuse them.

The rental company would sue you for the car you never returned.

There are fines for drunk driving or DWI and they do not include seizure of the car or a monetary fine even close to the value of the car stolen by police here. We have a Supreme Court ruling on this in the Timbs case. The Constitution has a clause protecting against Excessive Fines, and that clause applies to states and municipalities as well. The police and state can't just take whatever they want just because it's related to a crime.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-poli...

What's next, seizing your house because a party goer smoked a joint and a police drone recorded it?

I haven’t reviewed this case, but essentially it sounds like she needs to be charged as an accomplice in the driver’s crime. (Driving 118 mph drunk is def a big crime.)

But if the act was not pre-meditated, or somehow the result of a probable conspiracy the owner was a part of, the vehicle shouldn’t be seized.

The wrongness of this has nothing to do with this case, though. It is that there is any direct financial reward whatsoever to LE for civil seizures.

Incentive to seize property must be untethered from those whose job is to support order and reduce conflict.

The driver wasn't drunk. He refused a breathalyzer (and presumably a field sobriety test) which is what every defense lawyer worth a crap will tell you to do (and there is a very good chance he was advised to do in the future by his lawyer when he received his first DUI). Because there was a solid 10yr when the public lost its minds about DUI the public treats anyone who is accused of DUI as though they don't have any rights so the police felt they could regularly abuse civil asset forfeiture against DUI defendants. They basically see it as a no-risk way to extract money the same as picking on drug dealers.

In another case, they took family's car because teenage daughter was driving under influence. How is parents to control their children when they borrow family car.

IMHO the main issue here is seizing the car without a conviction rather than seizing a borrowed car.

It'd be pretty unjust if someone who's saved long and hard to buy their own car got it taken away, but trust fund kids driving daddy's BMW received a lesser punishment.

On a similar note, I would like to think a rental car company would suffer consequences if a drunk person waddled up to the rental desk and they were handed a set of keys.

What if they rented car and then got drunk? Would rental car company still be liable?

IANAL but I expect not. I would imagine the rental company would then just bill or sue the driver for the loss and inconvenience (or otherwise claim it on insurance).

Due process.

No.

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