How The Police Can Steal Your Car
Civil asset forfeiture -- how police can take your property away, even if you aren't convicted of a crime:
via Overlawyered
How The Police Can Steal Your Car
Civil asset forfeiture -- how police can take your property away, even if you aren't convicted of a crime:
via Overlawyered
I had never heard this before. It's pretty damned scary. With barely an accusation, much less a conviction, our property can be confiscated, sold the profits pocketed by the police.
And if, God forbid, I was found to be innocent and want my property back...oh, freaking well, it's gone now.
Patrick at April 4, 2010 11:36 PM
You can thank the drug war for helping to promote this.
Sio at April 4, 2010 11:58 PM
Here in Florida, the Sheriff of Volusia County was famous for it.
Dwatney at April 5, 2010 7:57 AM
Yep. A tactic that they used back in the '80s -- I don't know if any court still permits this charade or not -- was to file suit against the property to be seized. Not the property owner; the property itself. Of course, the property has no means of defending itself, so the police win a default judgment. Shazam!
Cousin Dave at April 5, 2010 8:39 AM
Why am I reminded of the Lincoln Park Pirates?
http://www.themadmusicarchive.com/song_details.aspx?SongID=6220
Vinnie Bartilucci at April 5, 2010 8:48 AM
Scroll down for a history of civil forfeiture...
http://www.okbar.org/obj/articles_02/sa061502.htm
Fianza at April 5, 2010 8:48 AM
A tactic that they used back in the '80s -- I don't know if any court still permits this charade or not
They do permit it - that, unfortunately, is the point. This was (is?) used a lot to take property from drug dealers and the like. You know they're guilty, cannot prove it, but you know they won't show up in court to defend the cash you took.
Unfortunately, like any well-intentioned but poorly thought-through law, it is ripe for abuse. And, really, this is punishment without due process. The pretense that the court case is against the property ignores the plain fact that the property belongs to someone.
bradley13 at April 5, 2010 9:31 AM
>>And if, God forbid, I was found to be innocent and want my property back...oh, freaking well, it's gone now.
>>You know they're guilty, cannot prove it, but you know they won't show up in court to defend the cash you took.
None of you seem to understand what is happening. Cops simply make up something to stop people and then threaten to get you to permit them to search your car. If they find a legal amount of money, that is, less than the Federal rule of $10,000 presumed to be drug money, they grab it, shout, "Aha! Drug money!" No charges filed. They just fill out a standard form, with perjured probable cause to stop, and take it.
If you complain, they smirk, and say, "So sue us!"
They know the judges will make you go through the whole court battle, which costs currently around $30,000 legal fees. No one can afford to sue.
This has nothing to do with any crime (except by the cops who are doing it) at all. No drugs need be involved.
In my case, the first time I encountered this was in Aug. 2007. We were going to VA to meet my son, who at the same time was driving there from another state. South of Hattiesburg, MS about 9:30 pm, I passed cops who had a rental truck pulled over. I was exactly at the speed limit on cruise control, and being from Texas, I moved to the left lane.
A couple miles down the road, here came a cop, like an egg-sucking vulture.
I pulled over, and he walked up AND TRIED TO WRENCH OPEN THE REAR HATCH ON MY MINI-VAN.
When that failed, he walked around to my wife's door and gave some crap about he wasn't sure, but they thought I hadn't pulled over when I passed them, they wanted me to know it was the law now.
At the time it scared me, to think cops could be that dizzy to make a mistake like that.
In Hattiesburg, I called my son. Two hours earlier, he had also been pulled over on false pretenses.
Then, I realized if that vicious criminal in cop suit had got my back door open, he had something in his pocket and was going to discover it in my car, and our car would have been gone.
This last October, in broad daylight, I was going north across KY headed to Bowling Green, OH to visit another son. I was in a clearly marked 55 mph construction zone, on cruise control. Anyone who speeds with bandit cops out there is insane.
I saw a KY HP just before the end of the 55 zone. I paid no attention because I was doing nothing wrong.
At the end of the 55 zone, I dialed up to the correct speed.
A Couple miles down the road, there he was behind me.
When he came up, he told me he had clocked me at 70 in a 55 zone. I told him I had not been doing 70, I was on cruise control at 55. He repeated I had been doing 70, and I repeated I had been doing 55.
After seeing we were old people, and checking my d/l, he told me to do better, I had been doing 70, and I repeated I had been doing 55.
When I got home, I sent a rather nasty letter to the HP commissioner, telling him what had happened, and that the patrolman was a g.d. liar.
I also added that people know what they are doing and it WILL be stopped. On their home page the KY HP has a big boast about all the drug money they have taken.
THIS HIS HAPPENING ALL OVER THE COUNTRY AND HAS BEEN FOR A LONG TIME. FOR ANYONE NOT TO KNOW IT THEY HAVE TO BE WEARING BLINDERS!!!
I let out a sigh of relief when I cross the border into Mexico.
If you want to read more, Google for Tenaha, Texas. They would stop people headed for the LA casinos, with several thousand dollars cash, tell them they would be charged with drug trafficking if they did not voluntarily sign over the money and the car, and if they had kids, said the kids would be confiscated by the state.
Tenaha made the news mostly because there is a racial element to the tale. It is happening all over the country.
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/mar/11/nation/na-texas-profiling11
If you think I am just a sore-head, also Google for Oath Keepers. They are an organization which attempts to fight this mess, and many of them are active duty cops and military people.
I envy you people who are so cocooned you have missed this mess, which actually started in the early 90's, though it is getting worse every year.
irlandes at April 5, 2010 10:45 AM
Tragically, irlandes' experience is a very common one. A recent case in my area involved a farmer on his way to a pig auction - they seized all of his cash for no reason except that it was cash. And Cousin Dave, suits against the property itself are positively legion - check any federal docket and you'll see dozens. Thanks, Amy, for bringing attention to this; we can't even call it abuse, because it's exactly the way the system is designed to work.
CB at April 5, 2010 2:51 PM
There are several watchdog groups that oversee police forces. Most cities have some. If you live out in the country, go through your DA or nearest FBI branch.
Not saying it will work, most complaints will never get resolved, but there you go.
NicoleK at April 5, 2010 3:57 PM
"Through your DA" is generally not going to be a great solution. The district attorney's office and the police force are co-workers, not opposing branches of power. Law enforcement officers are their star witnesses, their partners (they'll even sit with the prosecutors during trials), and why shouldn't they be? They both have the same goal, namely putting people in jail or otherwise under their supervision (i.e. probation or drug court or mandated classes or whatever). It's a friendly and cozy relationship most of the time, and it's not logical to expect oversight to come from someone with those particular incentives.
Occasionally the state level investigation bureau will look into something REALLY egregious, but that's kind of a once-in-a-blue-moon sort of thing.
The sad truth is that, right now, we do not have any kind of effective oversight with regards to law enforcement: they suffer virtually no penalties for illegal conduct, and they are are often rewarded for that very conduct with guilty pleas; after all, illegal searches very often turn up "evidence," since so many of us are drug users (don't gasp at that, over 50% of people ADMIT to having tried marijuana at least once). And the whole point of that is to wring a plea out of them - they'll offer straight probation since a jury trial is such a crapshoot even for someone who is totally innocent, so the person takes it. Now that I'm totally off topic, I might as well continue - when you're on probation, you give up your 4th and 6th amendment rights, so you can be searched at any time and you have no right to a jury trial if they find something. They'll just revoke your probation (the standard of evidence is preposterously low) and off to jail you go.
But yeah, watchdog groups that oversee police forces sound like a fantastic idea. Too bad that the DA will be the keynote speaker at our Tea Party rally, so I don't think we can really expect any vigorous attacks on the current system and power structure.
CB at April 5, 2010 4:30 PM
A lot of jurisdactions include these seizures in their budgets as income. It's common knowledge. It seems to be more of a problem in Southern states, maybe because the morality aspect of it makes it more accpetable, or maybe because police/social control has always been more acceptable ("Keepin' the ni**as down") there or whatever, but there is no reason why it would have to stay restricted to the South. How this has ever gotten past SCOTUS baffles me.
Jim at April 6, 2010 12:53 PM
Leave a comment