> Police do not need evidence of a crime to use it, because it is a civil action against an object, such as currency or a car, rather than a person.
This is just so wrong. It essentially denies there's any such thing as property rights.
This is just so wrong. It essentially denies there's any such thing as property rights.
A "property right" is an intangible thing where you can run to a court and say: "X took my Y." You can only assert this if you show ownership of Y. How civil asset forfeiture works is that if an officer has probable cause to believe that property is not lawfully yours, because it's the proceeds of illegal activity, he can seize it. If you contest the seizure, in court, the government has the burden of proof, by preponderance of the evidence, to show that the asset is subject to forfeiture. Preponderance of the evidence is the same burden of proof used in any civil case where the ownership of property is disputed.
The styling of the case, "Florida v. Wool Socks" has nothing to do with the "property being guilty." It's just how in rem proceedings are designated. Such a proceeding is simply one in which the lawful owner of some property is not a party. In the case of civil asset forfeiture the styling is used because the theory is that you're not the rightful owner of the property to begin with. Other contexts where it might be used is if you're enforcing a money judgment against someone who refuses to show up in court by attaching property he owns in your state. It's not that the "property is guilty" just that the case is about the property and the actual owner is absent.
It's more than that, based on my past reading of instances of abuse of this. If the officer believes that the property could in any way be related to a crime, it can be seized. That has nothing to do with whether or not it's lawfully yours. Pretty insane, and could cover basically anything.
The most egregious part: No conviction for the crime is needed. Just a police report that says that illegal activity occured: http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/03/us/philadelphia-drug-bust-hous...
In Philadelphia they seized houses because of $40 of heroin (son of the owners). And then have courtrooms where this stuff can be contested, but without a judge - only the prosecutor who was involved in the first place.
There's a huge difference between ownership not changing when property itself is stolen, and the preposterous idea that ownership ceases to exist because an item was peacefully obtained using "proceeds of an illegal activity". (I'm not saying that you aren't parroting "logic" espoused by some court somewhere, I'm just pointing out that said court itself is essentially corrupt)
As for the original topic, call me when the perps are in jail. Until then, the "justice system" amounts to nothing more than another gang to be avoided.
"Corruption" refers to when a public entity doesn't follow its own rules. Following a self-consistent set of rules, the premises of which you reject, is not corruption.
Which is exactly what is happening here. In a just society, one is comforted by the belief that if they're stolen from, then the institutions of society will act against (or at least condemn) the perpetrator. In the modern US, the uniformed gangs act with little concern, and then legions of legal "scholars" compose reams of justification for how what occurred was "legitimate".
Either the justice system needs to be reformed and the uniformed thugs sent to jail, or the social contract continues to degrade and we end up with revolution and collapse.
No, the point of law is to provide notice of the way the ruler intends to apply power. (Which is, of course, also undermined by lack of clarity in meaning of the law, but in a different way.)
Distributed consensus is the point of democratic government, which is a newer thing than law.
When god's law changes, it classically means war, killing all the males above a certain age, marrying the women and girls off while changing their language and religion - i.e. cultural, and hence deity, decimation. So yeah, watch out for that one.
You can do morally corrupt things without breaking the law. Even laws can be morally corrupt.
fuck, I don't care how its worded, its theft and theft by a government to big to give a fuck what you think. they have the police, they have the courts, and you have the right to shut up and eat it.
Why not simply file judgement against ideas and imagination next?
Until the early 1980s, it couldn't. Then we went nuts to protect little Timmy from Satan's Weed and nose powder.
Holocaust denial is already illegal in many places.
What is there not to fear about sharia law? Personally I'd be terrified of living under a legal system in which many of the basic rights I take for granted simply cease to exist, and in which my wife and any daughters I have are considered second-class citizens.
Because he's Muslim, see?
They already do. Free speech is curbed in much of Europe and several are in jail for holding unpopular opinions.
Which is precisely the point.