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Comment by tomohawk | Hacker News Reader

This seems to be a clear violation of the doctrine of separation of powers.

Even if the seizing of assets is legit, the assets should be looked at as revenue, and should be allocated by the legislature, not the police department.

It is incredibly unseemly for police to be operating their own private economy based on forfeited assets that were acquired due to their position/power.

There should be a downside for police if the seizure turns out to not be legit. I don't think paying back double would be that out of line.

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Seized assets should sit in escrow until their owner is convicted of a crime and the assets are shown to the be the fruits of that crime. If that can't be done within, say, a year -- two, at the most -- the assets should be returned, with interest.

That, I think, is the most important change to make here. Right now people who have assets seized are effectively guilty until proven innocent, and I don't see how that's even remotely Constitutional.

Once that is changed, I agree with you: the money should go to the state's general fund or the US treasury, not the police department.

How do I pay my legal fees if my seized cash is being held in escrow?

Pro Bono, Hope for the best!

> How do I pay my legal fees if my seized cash is being held in escrow?

The sensible thing to do is to treat it similar to a bankruptcy. Prevent the defendant from transferring the assets out of the country or spending them on hookers and blow but allow them to be used for legitimate expenses like continuing the operation of the defendant's business or household or legal expenses.

That's a fair question, to which I think AnthonyMouse suggests a good answer, but my primary point was that the cash shouldn't be spent outright before due process has concluded or the time limit hit.

I've wondered about this. If somebody had tens of millions of dollars, it seems like it might be worth it to pay a lawyer a retainer or insurance or something–"Hey, you have to take care of me if a government ever seized all my assets." Otherwise, how do you hire legal representation to retrieve your wealth?

You can't, and that is on purpose. You know, if you could pay your legal fees, so could a drug lord.

Even drug lords are innocent until proven guilty. Or are supposed to be, anyway. Except for treason, the Constitution doesn't distinguish between offenses charged.

If a drug lord has massive amounts of money, that's just a sign the government has failed in its job to catch him earlier. They don't build up those reserves overnight. Why should the government be rewarded for failing in their job for so long?

But aside from that...so what? If the system allows pricey attorneys to subvert the system, the problem isn't the pricey attorneys...

> There should be a downside for police if the seizure turns out to not be legit. I don't think paying back double would be that out of line.

In principle, I agree. But since the police are taxpayer funded, this just ends up costing the people money, and the only damage to the police force is political/reputational. Not to say those would not be good pressures to have, just that trying to hit them in the pocketbook is not likely to have much of an effect.

How about drawing from the salary of individual officers?

How about malpractice insurance funded by their pension fund?

That's the right direction. Alternatively, individual cops can be bonded. This can also extend to prosecutors and judges. That way high-risk individuals bear the cost of their risks.

Garnish their wages until they're just above the poverty line. And you could also repo/liquidate their house/cars/other assets.

pstuart's pension fund idea is also a good idea. If really you want to grab the cops by their balls, just threaten to take their retirement savings.

The downside is that you'd probably lose a lot of cops by instituting policies like this, so then you'd have to raise salaries or something to make the profession more lucrative. Otherwise, you'll just keep getting bottom-of-the-barrel candidates, just like now, but they'd end up quitting or getting fired under the stricter rules.

Honestly I think we need that anyways. The average police officer salary is massively lower than the average systems administrator salary (or at least that's what some cursory google research tells me).

I'm no fan of police, but there is no way that's an acceptable situation.

> The average police officer salary is massively lower than the average systems administrator salary

Probably not in SF. Here the starting salary for a cop is about $85K, plus overtime. And then there's the lifetime healthcare and pension. It all adds up.

Yeah, that's just asking for corruption. "The boss pretends to pay us and we pretend to work" is a situation you don't really want in the police.

If you do that, they'll find somewhere else to get their cash..

Paying the legal fees of claimants who win would not be out of order.

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