Police Can Seize and Sell Assets Even When the Owner Broke No Law | Hacker News Reader

Police Can Seize and Sell Assets Even When the Owner Broke No Law

npr.org

195 pointsdpieri89 comments

Similar NYTimes article posted yesterday with a bit more substance: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/us/police-use-department-w...

I'm not really sure why civil forfeiture places the burden on owners. Kind of defies the logic of innocent until proven guilty.

This should serve us all as a reminder to keep the law enforcement accountable at all times and reject any loophole, regardless of whether it makes their life of catching criminals easier or not.

Any right given to authorities will inevitably be misused, sooner or later.

The burden is actually still on the government, but it's a lower burden than criminal cases.

What burden? The burden is on the owner, because he has all his assets being seized, making it much harder to defend himself now. That should never happen - certainly not in a "innocent until proven guilty" system (if that's still the case).

Also you usually aren't given a court-appointed lawyer unless you are also facing other criminal charges.

Burden of proof. What the hell else could someone mean when talking about a legal dispute?

I think rhino369's point is that, whatever procedural arrangement might characterize the discourse, the actual burden of proof is on the owner - if they take action and prove their case, they get their possessions back. Until that time, the possessions are in the custody of the state.

Furthermore, I don't think it's true (at least not per the article) that a civil forfeiture proceeding puts a burden of proof on the state - it seems to be that the owner has an opportunity to petition for appeal, which if not taken, amounts to a forfeit by default.

The practice originally seemed to be in place to give discretion to officer to deal with druglords and people like that since proving everything is court is very hard, but since the incentives are all wrong(departments keep the proceeds), it seems to be quite abused.

A quick fix would be to use the proceeds for charity or to pay down the national debt. That way the incentives are atleast reduced somewhat.

I read in a comment on a related article yesterday that this was tried in Utah, in fact here's the link[1], tldr it was not successful at all.

The operative question would seem to be, how does one write a blank check to law enforcement to seize property with no judicial oversight or lawful reason required, but then make them promise by law to give it away rather than simply use it for their own personal/departmental reasons?

If you want to empower someone to be a thug and take peoples stuff, you have to recognize that Robin Hood was actually a work of fiction and consider that maybe nobody is going to actually do that. Apparently in Utah, everyone ignored the new law -- police, prosecutors, judges, the press, and even the voting public who passed the original ballot initiative, failed to hold anyone to account when the next election time came around.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8582659

The Washington Post provided excellent coverage in September:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/06/st...

IIRC, it was this article that described police being trained on how to obtain valuable assets, and police collaborating on message boards:

One example was an officer posting on a message board a car's description and license plate, and telling officers in a neighboring jurisdiction that the car was coming their way, and that he was unable to justify seizure when he stopped the driver but that they might have better luck.

EDIT: And here is the ACLU's page on the issue: https://www.aclu.org/criminal-law-reform/civil-asset-forfeit...

The New Yorker's piece on civil forfeiture published last year, "Taken", is also excellent and also prompted a lot of comments on Hacker News.

The article: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/08/12/taken?currentPa... Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6161465

The incentives for police in this country are all wrong. It should be illegal for police to profit in any way off of the people they're tasked with protecting. They should be paid using tax money based on how well they're doing their actual job.

> They should be paid using tax money based on how well they're doing their actual job

So.... if the police do a bad job; and crime is rife; we get rid of the police department? Or conversely, if there is no crime, we give more and more money to the police?

Surely there are more granular metrics than that.

Those are both extremely fallacious measures of whether the police are doing a good job.

Fallacious = based on a mistaken belief.

synonyms: erroneous, false, untrue, wrong, incorrect, faulty, flawed, inaccurate, inexact, imprecise, mistaken, misinformed, misguided, misleading, deceptive, delusive, delusory, illusory, sophistic, specious, fictitious, spurious, fabricated, distorted, made up, trumped up

Looks like you were buried. I'm not sure why.

I read your basic point as, "Sure, we all like to use incentives to encourage good behavior, but there are some special cases where incentives completely backfire. In general, feedback systems arise in public services, especially where funding is correlated with or necessary for performance.

e.g., If a middle of the road school starts to falter, you don't strip away all its funding and expect it to start churning out well rounded prodigies. No, you have to roll up your sleeves and do the hard work of figuring out, "ok, what broke down? Is this a morale issue, something with leadership/management, is the cohort of students a bad outlier, did materials quality decline?" Recovery might take more funds, not less.

Other public services would see similar results. A struggling fire department shouldn't lose its trucks. A police department that can't effectively deter or arrest criminals needs a little more work than just being driven into bankruptcy.

To panic's point, maybe there are other ways to incentivize good behavior. The fruit of the poisonous tree and miranda both operate on the premise that when the cops misbehave, criminals go free.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_warning

For civil asset forfeiture it's trickier, because there's not any criminal when police are doing their job poorly. You almost have to fine them, unless maybe you're willing to release some random offender from prison every time the police cross the line? :)

I'm with you, insofar as your point was just, "There aren't simple solutions here, it's a difficult issue."

Police aren't actually required to protect anyone (see Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748 (2005)), but just to generally maintain social order.

what happened to the "to protect and to serve" motto then?

It's still there, just like North Korea is still, The Democratic People's Republic of North Korea.

It's just a motto, not a legal doctrine.

Presumably it does have some effect. "Don't be evil" seemed to work for a while.

Yeah I know what you mean, but mottos are usually helpful to set the tone.

Think of it this way: To protect and serve the government and government officials. (The government is suppose to serve the people/public...)

I've never heard of this case, can you explain what it implies?

"In every state of the United States, and in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Canada, when you call the police, dial 911, and rely on the police to protect you, you are taking a big risk. Under the laws of most of these jurisdictions, the police do not have to respond. They do not have to protect you"

Also: "Carrying out the duties of a police or fire department are frequently classified as 'governmental' or 'discretionary'. Under the statutes and case decisions in most states, citizens cannot sue the government for negligently performing (or failing to perform) a 'governmental' or 'discretionary' function."

Plus: "The general rule is that governmental entities owe a duty to provide police protection to the public, but not to protect any particular individual"

source: Dial 911 and Die, by Richard W. Stevens

P.S. I apologize I provide a single source, but I personally haven't read too much on this topic, other than the book cited.

> based on how well they're doing their actual job

Might that also lead to questionable practices to make sure they're perceived to be "doing a good job"? It already happens in the form of ticket quotas.

A big part of the problem is that they have rationally come to the conclusion that there will be no consequences for their actions. If they had any kind of fear that they could realistically get in trouble, almost all of the problem would go away.

The problem is operant conditioning[1]. We have created a situation where an action that probably should have gotten most people fired (or worse) is generally ignored (or earns you a paid vacation), and that there is some sort of personal benefit (e.g. margarita machines[2]). We have effectively created a Skinner Box that teaches people that they are above the law. I would expect that most people would eventually be conditioned into socially harmful behaviors if they were placed in a similar situation.

None of this behavior will change until we reintroduce some level of fear-of-consequences. Start actually prosecuting misconduct - even the little things - and a lot[3] of the bad behavior will self-correct.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning

[2] http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/john-oliver-civil-forfeit...

[3] not all, of course, but it would certainly be a good start

> most people would eventually be conditioned into socially harmful behaviors if they were placed in a similar situation.

I think all people is a fair assessment.

Also, there seems to be an incredible amount of mental illness among law enforcement, prison staff, and prosecutorial staff. I listened to all eight audio clips this morning[1], and the gentlemen speaking both seemed to be incredible paranoid, with an "us vs them" mentality about property seizures. They were giggling throughout as if they were happy, but they seemed very paranoid; even delusional.

I also watched the clip that made the rounds on reddit today of the police officer pulling over the ambulance. He's obviously, clearly not well. Something is very wrong in this man's life and he needs help.

Finally, the guards at Dade Correctional obviously have incredible demons - truly psychotic behavior[3]. From the article:

---

Joiner thought he pretty much had seen it all, from guards nearly starving prisoners to death, to taunting and beating them unconscious while handcuffed for sport. He recalls one inmate was paid a pack of cigarettes to attack one sick inmate whose only offense was to ask if their mail could be delivered before bedtime.

But Joiner, a 46-year-old convicted killer, saw something that morning that shook even him to his core.

On the floor of a small shower stall he was ordered to clean, he saw a single blue canvas shoe and what he later realized was large chunks of human skin.

The skin belonged to Darren Rainey, a 50-year-old mentally-ill prisoner whom the guards had handcuffed and locked in the cell the night before. Witnesses and DOC reports indicate Rainey was left in the scalding hot water for hours, allegedly as punishment for defecating in his cell.

Joiner, in an interview with the Miami Herald on Tuesday at Columbia Correctional Institution in Lake City, said he could hear Rainey screaming as hot steam filled the unit that night. He also heard the guards taunting Rainey, saying “How do you like your shower?’’

---

It's incredible that we as a society don't manage to provide for the mental health even of our own state officials. These people seem like some of the most poorly adjusted people I've ever heard about.

[1] http://www.buzzfeed.com/nicks29/aif-in-doubtatake-ita-behind...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SMpAHJkhm0&feature=youtu.be

[3] http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/a...

The atrocities have been going on for decades, yet suddenly everyone is interested. Any ideas what changed, so that press is paying attention now?

From what I've read, the rate of seizure has increased something like 10-fold in the last decade. That's at least part of it.

With the wrong incentives given, it is clear, that those things multiply ... and it is sad, because it also means, that mischief has multiplied in those people that should uphold justice.

Those particular geese only lay golden eggs until you kill them.

My guess is they got greedy and then got attention. It was fine and good when they took PimpDaddy's caddy because drugs, but not so fine when they took his grandma's house too because he parked there for an hour last tuesday.

man you're not even trying with the racial dogwhistles here but it speaks to a deeper truth

The racial aspect of this is a great big elephant-in-the-room stomping-on-your-toes issue in this situation. I figure if you're gonna whistle about it, whistle loud.

Curious, where was race mentioned?

if you're incapable of reading subtext i can't help you, apologies

> when they took PimpDaddy's caddy because drugs

...which noonespecial acknowledged was a racial "dog whistle", although I think it's just an insinuation, not a "dog whistle."

they started applying it to affluent white people

As @roymurdock posted, the NY Times article has a video of the guy being quite explicit in the "benefits": http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/us/police-use-department-w...

He describes how excited the cops were to steal a guy's car. He even says "and gulp we had to give it back" because they didn't follow procedure. Put aside the inanity involved in stealing people's property in cases like this, it's a pure greed motive where cops are looking at the population to go raiding.

They sound little better than privateers.

Harry Connelly, the one discussing "little goodies" to be seized can be contacted at harryc@las-cruces.org

I've sent him an email expressing my displeasure at his use of Civil Asset Forfeiture.

The media attention has been going on for decades too. It's just that nothing changes.

This month, the two largest newspapers in the USA and NPR covered the story. To my knowledge, that's substantially greater coverage than it has ever received before.

In the world of interconnectivity news travels fast. Take for example, ebola. Everyone was informed about it and hospitals took great measures because of an unprecedented disease awareness. Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, and Google make incredibly powerful distribution channels.

In the past, TV stations were incentivized to work with local police for a large percentage of their news stories, so they couldn't publish defamatory content. In today's world brains are connected more efficiently. One of the benefits is increase in transparency. For example, the ratio of security cameras to civilian cameras has flipped. Civilians have much better oversight over people they pay to protect them, increasing accountability. Similarly, the ratio of news publishers has flipped to civilians. Now the press has to follow reddit and twitter posts or risk loosing readership.

I think that it happened (can't find the link) because up to some point, the departments didn't get any money from forfeitures - when this changed, forfeitures exploded.

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

Article 17.

(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 12.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 10.

Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him. ^ Top

Article 11.

(1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence. (2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

It would be interesting to see how other countries do asset seizure to compare how they maintain compliance with the UNHDR.

There was also a good bit on last week tonight about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks

I'm curious why libertarians around here and Tea Party followers elsewhere do not make more noise over this issue. It's an honest question; my hypothesis: It's because the intrusion is from the right and not from the left.

Primarily because it's hacker news, not libertarian news.

Magazines like Reason have covered this for decades, here's an article from the 90s.

http://reason.com/assets/db/13062612839676.pdf

Although I don't typically use the word "libertarian" to describe myself, I do run in libertarian circles and I think this is arguably the single biggest issue of concern (other candidates include foreign policy and the prison system).

Go to Liberty Forum or Porcupine Festival and you'll see not just one but multiple studied experts discussing both the particulars of these policies and also strategies for achieving change.

Rand Paul (whom isn't nearly radical enough for my palate but carries the "Tea Party" label arguably more than anyone else) is by far the loudest member of either house of congress on this issue.

As far as I know, Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party candidate in 2012 and former New Mexico Governor) was the only viable candidate for President (defined here as being on the ballot in enough states to have a mathematical possibility of victory) who talked about this issue in his stump speech.

I'm not sure what more you want?

As an aside: Gary Johnson is a truly wonderful human being and an incredible elite athlete. I've been fortunate to get to hang out with him on about half a dozen occasions and, dare I say, become a personal friend, albeit not a close one (yet :-)). He's a really warm person who radiates amazingly positive energy (something you don't necessarily expect from a Libertarian) and is full of really intense entrepreneurial drive. He's planning a run again for 2016; be sure to at least give his material a chance.

Interesting. I read a lot of news and I didn't know Rand Paul talked about it.

Really? It's one of his trademark issues.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/07/25/r...

We do. When we make noise over this and other issues, people either accuse us of tinfoil hattery, or they tell us we should move to Somalia if we don't want to surrender ever-increasing amounts of sovereignty over our lives to the state. The conversation usually goes downhill from there.

That is because people tend to make noise only when "one of our own" has been unjustly treated. I am left of centre politically, and this is not limited to the right or left but everyone. I am pretty sure Aaron Swartz was not the first reasonably well-known person forced to take his own life, but no one cares unless they feel threatened. For example, there is so much "outrage" here based on discussions about Silk Road, but no one discussed the countless families destroyed everyday due to the war on drugs.

> the countless families destroyed everyday due to the war on drugs.

This is possibly the single most frequent topic of discussion on HN (along with performance optimization :-)).

Perhaps there was a post or two about Silk Road in which it wasn't discussed, but it doesn't take much to get it going around here.

What surprises me is that this hasn't been declared unconstitutional. I thought you couldn't be deprived of property without due process? I know it has survived numerous court cases so I'm baffled.

it's almost as if the original american political ideals are corrupt enough to afford chattel property rights over human beings and aren't actually built on ethical grounds

I think "it's almost as if" is an unduly passive-aggressive way to begin a comment, but I agree that the thought you are expressing warrants discussion in this thread.

My guess w/r/t constitutionality would be that many seizures are executed in connection with drug prosecutions in which such rights are abridged. It's arguable this is also constitutionally suspect.

You do get due process. If the police take your property, you file a notice with them that it is your property. They either give it back or file a civil suit against the property. That civil suit will have a trial, which is the due process.

I think the issue mark-r was talking about is that the property is seized before any sort of due process has concluded. Also, if the government doesn't bring a case against you you have to actively fight to get your property back. So if your car is seized and neither party takes any further action the default behavior is the government now owns your car. [someone correct me if I'm wrong about this]

You are arrested and placed in a cage before any sort of due process has concluded.

The due process doesn't have to be first, it just has to happen, and it has to be binding. (i.e. they can't just keep you or your property if they lose the trial)

> You are arrested and placed in a cage before any sort of due process has concluded.

Well, that's not really supposed to happen either.

Of course it is. The Bill of Rights contemplates bail, so obviously it wasn't considered a violation of due process to hold someone before trial.

I'm sorry, I was unclear. I meant to suggest that the right to be free from excessive bail has been eroded as well.

Matt Taibbi has an interesting book out "The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap."

There are issues in the US beyond just the seizing of assets, the question is how do we fix it so that everyone can prosper? The idea of the United States is still awesome, but have we as a country ever come close to the ideal? Is it possible to reach the ideal?

It might not be possible, to reach the ideal. But what I currently see is, that justice, freedom and democracy are loosing very fast in all the world around us and fastest in those countries that once where the first democratic nations.

It is totally frightening and a bad sign for all humanity.

The concept is that police are, in theory, bringing charges against the property. They are saying this property is being used in the furtherance of a crime.

So where's the crime? Who's been arrested/convicted/sentenced?

I heard of an older Asian lady (first generation immigrant) who lost her 3-bed house somewhat this way.

She divorced from her husband and she ended up with the house. To make extra income, she rented her room to someone. That person happened to be a drug dealer or something like it and when that person was convicted, the house was also dragged into the case and she ended up losing the house to police.

I couldn't believe it and thought she may have been exaggerating but hearing this news, maybe she was telling the truth...

What should I do if I am in the United States and a police officer asks me how much money I have?

Make sure you only have $20

Whatever you want. You don't have to answer him, and he can't search you unless he arrests you.

If he's going to arrest you it's probably best not to lie though. You can always say I'm not sure.

If you do have more than $1,000 in cash don't allow him to search your car.

Sorry, but that is bad advice.

Do not talk to the police, ever! If they arrest you, you only ask for the reason of the arrest and for legal counsil (a lawyer) and nothing more!

If they give you a ticket, keep your mouth shut, receive it and present it to a lawyer.

Do not consent to a search, ever! Even if you think you have nothing on you!

The police is not your friend!

1) Do not follow legal advice from IT message boards! But if you want some tips on JavaScript, this might be the place.

2) Do seek advice from experts, such as the ACLU: https://www.aclu.org/drug-law-reform-immigrants-rights-racia...

3) Do not lie to police officers; it's a crime. A defense lawyer in this video advised not to talk to police at all if you are being investigated; you could misspeak (esp. under stress), be misunderstood, be taken out of context, the officer could misremember, etc. I have no idea if he's a crank or if it's good advice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc

What you should do is be sure you're carrying less than $100 when the police officer asks you that question.

Ask if you're under arrest. If not, you must be free you go.

You should never answer such a question from a police officer. You should respectfully decline to answer.

You should also not listen to me, though I think you'll find the ACLU provides the same advice.

What makes you even consider answering that question? I can't imagine a reason to answer, whether I was completely broke or carrying a few grand.

Of course, as others have said, it's probably best to seek advice from a group that focuses on this topic - perhaps Flex Your Rights.

But when in doubt, definitely don't answer. "Officer, I prefer not to discuss money right now" is a completely reasonable answer that most cops will respond to with an understanding nod. If they don't, just calmly tell them you aren't sure what questions to answer until you have a lawyer present. Again, totally reasonable answer.

In Phoenix, Arizona if you are arrested they will automatically impound any and all $100 bills. You have to go to the police impound station to get them back. You can have several hundred in $20's though and they will hold it at the county jail (where Detention Officers have been caught stealing from the cash safe) and give it back when you're released. I never really understood why.

My only question here is that how this does not violate constitutional rights of citizens for possessing property and having a due process of law? Why Supreme Court has upheld these laws all these years? Wikipedia has good article on civil forfeiture[1] but fails to answer this question. All I can discern from there is that these laws were created 200 years ago to seize ships of owners who can't be prosecuted easily. Apparently supreme court has distinction between criminal forfeiture and civil forfeiture. For the former, due process by a judge is required while for former it's not because a property gets charged for participating in crime instead of a person. This sounds more dumber than "corporation is a person" thing that they rules before. Who is supposed to protect the intent of constitution now?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...

"Possession is nine-tenths of the law"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possession_is_nine-tenths_of_th...

Discussion on the New York Times article yesterday - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8581889

Shouldn't the aclu be all over this?

In theory we live in a democracy that should make fixing this easy.

When a Senator's home is seized, THEN something will be done about this.

It makes fixing it possible. It's unreasonable to expect that getting millions of people to agree to take specific actions to effect a very precise change in laws will be "easy".

Do you imagine it would be difficult to convince a citizen the government shouldn't be allowed to steal their property?

In theory, we live in a republic where this is beyond the specific enumerated powers of the government, no matter what the electorate says.

What kind of training get the police men? Is it police training or training how to be a crook?

There is one saying in the bible -- I don't want to preach, but some wisdom can be even found in old books -- "A man reaps what he sows".

It seems, this state sows crooks.

It worries me, that these things are known now for several years at it seems, but all attempts of change have been blocked.

To differentiate between right and wrong belongs to the building blocks of society -- of all societies. But you can also see in history and in other nations, what the result is, when such building blocks are missing or when they are repeatedly violated. That is something that makes me fear for the US. When they train those people, that shall uphold the differentiation between right and wrong to be wrongdoers, when legislation fails, because there are to many interest groups, when even judges are judging for money .... the way downhill will be steep!

Already today, as others also posted, the trust into officials is rapidly going downhill in society. Broader and broader parts of society disband legal living, because legality is also often only an excuse for wrong doing. The officials give the example and the complete nation goes downhill step for step.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com