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Comment by hinkley | Hacker News Reader

I understand the claim that people with money could just use it all to buy a one way ticket to nowhere and never be seen again. But it seems to me that there's a very very wide line between "Use your money to keep doing bad things" and "We don't know if you're guilty but we're going to take all your money anyway and good luck with those legal costs"

Certainly putting all of their assets into escrow and only allowing access for approved uses (like say legal fees) would achieve the same results without pissing all over the sixth amendment.

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Can I just lock up all of some politician's fund right before an election and only allow access to fight the case which will likely take months? Can I do the same with a business? A multinational corporation? Freeze up all the assets of a bank and deny access to funds for any reason including payroll while we investigate?

Where do we draw the line?

Can I do the same with a business?

Steve Jackson Games? Delorean?

"Can I do the same with a business? A multinational corporation? Freeze up all the assets of a bank and deny access to funds for any reason including payroll while we investigate?"

Yes, actually. It's a standard tactic that was used in, eg, the prosecution of Michael Milken.

It's also nice if you can get some kind of tax angle going so you can threaten the target's wife as well.

A bank robber should be able to use the money they steal to defend themselves?

Someone accused of robbing a bank should not be able to use their own money to defend themselves against such an accusation?

You have a major problem with your presumption of guilt.

I suspect there's some sad commentary on the state of humanity that you have bother yourself to say something like this.

Whatever happened to "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer"? I know that has origins in English Law but the Founding Fathers considered it to be so important it figures heavily in the Bill of Rights.

Assets aren't forfeited without evidence of guilt.

Yes, they are, quite frequently. That's the entire point of the article. It's also quite pretty much the definition of civil asset forfeiture. Assets are taken on simple suspicion of criminal activity, and the assets' retention by the state is not predicated on criminal guilt of the owner. In fact it is the assets themselves which are sued by the state (which makes no sense, but is nonetheless true).

> Once property has been seized, the burden of proof falls on the defendant to get it back -- even if the cops ultimately never charge them with a crime. "We don’t have to prove that the person is guilty," an Albuquerque DEA agent told the Journal. "It’s that the money is presumed to be guilty."

Yes, the DEA has to show evidence that the money is the result of a drug sale or some other illegal activity. They don't have to show that any given person was involved in that sale. I don't really have a problem with that.

Their assertions are taken for evidence. It's a system built for abuse.

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