These Dirtbags Need To Give The Lady Her Couch!
Another tale from the halls of asset forfeiture -- the theft, under cover of law, by police departments of citizens' stuff.
This is an asset forfeiture case out of Mississippi where the cops took a lady's couch -- among other things. She got her TV and almost all of the rest back.
C.J. Ciaramella writes at Reason:
It was the first time in Mississippi defense attorney Richard Rehfeldt's long career that he can remember where police seized a client's furniture.In 2012, Rehfeldt says the Hind County Sheriff's Office raided his client's apartment on suspicion her boyfriend was a drug dealer. Anything purchased with drug proceeds is fair game to be seized by police under civil asset forfeiture laws, and they determined the boyfriend had furnished the apartment, so off went her TV, her table and chairs, her couch, her lamps, and even the pictures on the wall.
"Her case is the first in my 38 years of practicing law where they took the furniture," Rehfeldt says.
Under a settlement agreement, all of it was eventually returned. Well, all of it except the couch.
"It is, therefore, ordered and adjudged that one Visio television, one dining room table and chairs, pictures and lamps are to be returned to the plaintiff upon execution of this Order by this Court," the Feb. 10, 2015 order in the Hinds County Court reads. "Additionally, one white couch is hereby forfeited to the Hinds County Sheriff's Office."
Assholes.
Is the couch guilty of something?
If this were my couch, I'd track every person in the Hinds County Sheriff's Office on social media and see whether it shows up anywhere, and then shame the fuck out of the person who has it.
Im guessing there was probably legal evidence, like a receipt or something, that the drug dealing boyfriend actually bought or owned the couch.
Isab at January 6, 2017 8:37 AM
I'm guessing there was probably someone in the Hinds County Sheriff's Office who wanted a new white couch.
Beth C. at January 6, 2017 8:44 AM
Im guessing there was probably legal evidence, like a receipt or something, that the drug dealing boyfriend actually bought or owned the couch.
And the evidence that shows he used his illicit profits to make that purchase?
I'm surprised they also didn't seize the apartment complex since it is also quite possible that he used the premises as a store front to conduct his illicit business.
Think bigly, Hinds County. Of course, who are you going to pick on? the woman who can barely scrape up enough money to hire a lawyer, or a company that has lawyers on staff, and retainer, and contributes to the sheriff's re-election campaign?
I R A Darth Aggie at January 6, 2017 10:04 AM
"And the evidence that shows he used his illicit profits to make that purchase?"
From the story, that seems to be the case.
And Yes, That money fungibility thingie is a big problem.
While I dont agree with asset seisure as a premptive measure to circumvent the legal process or put pressure on third parties to rat out a criminal, I think it is fine when when you have a judgment.
Had the boyfriend been convicted?
Isab at January 6, 2017 11:01 AM
I'm surprised they also didn't seize the apartment complex
Ha, I'd say don't give anyone the idea but its already been tried before and thankfully didn't work:
https://www.overlawyered.com/2013/01/judge-dismisses-motel-caswell-forfeiture-action/
Shtetl G at January 6, 2017 11:38 AM
The problem is that asset forfeiture does not draw a distinction between assets used to commit the crime that were directly owned by the perpetrator and assets that were inadvertently used, i.e., a parent's car.
When you give the government unlimited authority to seize private property, you invite abuse. This is what the founding fathers warned about and why ratifying the Bill of Rights was important to many of them. The third and fourth amendments are designed to force the government to respect private property.
As we're learning through experience and countless dictatorships have proven, a government with no constraints respects nothing.
Conan the Grammarian at January 6, 2017 11:41 AM
When the coast guard seizes a boat with 500 lbs of cocaine and $50,000, the link between crime and property is pretty clear. But that is an exception.
It was common in the 1600s-1800s for kings in Europe, when needing money, to simply walk into the banks and take it. Or borrow it and never pay it back. Asset seizure like in the drug war extends this right to every officer in a cop car. If you don't have to prove anything, it becomes easy to take stuff from people you don't like. The money laundering stuff is just as bad. Small cash businesses cannot keep lots of cash on hand--it isn't safe. They have to go to the bank regularly. But this looks identical to "structuring" and they get busted. It is crazy.
cc at January 6, 2017 1:02 PM
Shtetl G, that's precisely the case I had in mind. Good to see the Feds strike out. Hopefully the judge breaks a couple of cluesticks over the local USADA.
But probably not...
I R A Darth Aggie at January 6, 2017 1:42 PM
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