Daily Dose of Sultnpapper 07/16/18> Civil asset forfeiture…or as I call it, ”highway robbery”.

Headed south...

This week I will be heading down to the Texas / Mexico border area, also known as the Rio Grande Valley. I have some good friends and customers down there and I just don’t get down there often enough to see them. Thinking about that drive got me to thinking about civil asset forfeiture or as I like to call it, "highway robbery."

The last time I made that trip I did a little count on just how many people I saw being held up on the side of the road and possibly forced to give up their belongings. On the last trip down there it was five and on the way back it was three so the round trip total was eight.

Back in the day when horses were the form of transportation there were gangs of outlaws working the wagon trails looking for people to rob, things are no different today than they were back then. There are plenty of outlaw gangs that pull off numerous crimes, but one rather large gang specializes in highway robberies.

When I speak about highway robbery I’m not talking about the gang bangers that carjack peoples Mercedes and Porches from them in gas stations when they stop to fill up for gas. They are amateurs when compared to the group I am talking about. Don’t get me wrong, the people who lose their cars to those gang bangers have gone through a terrifying experience, but those highway robberies aren’t happening multiple times a day, at least not in my area.

Most people don’t even realize that they are driving right by a crime in progress and never give it a second thought as to what is really going on. I know I use to be that way until I actually heard about civil asset forfeiture and then the old light bulb went on in my head.

I know that I have a pretty good group of educated people who read the daily dose, so just how many of you know what civil asset forfeiture is? For those of you who don’t know, don’t worry, I am going to explain it in very easy to understand language, because that is all I know.

Civil asset forfeiture is…

Civil asset forfeiture is a fancy name for a despicable crime in my opinion, if talk to people in law enforcement they will tell you it is a necessary crime fighting tool. So how can it be that I have an opinion that is 180 degrees off from where law enforcement believes? That is a easy question to answer, I’m not out robbing people on the side of the highway and they are.

Here is how it works…

Law enforcement pulls you over for a minor traffic violation and while you are getting your driver license out of your wallet or purse the officer happens to see a big wad of cash that you have. Officers like cash, they also know that people have been known to do illegal things with cash or have gotten cash from doing illegal things. So now the officer isn’t interested in the traffic violation, the truth is he never was, his goal now is to relief you of your cash and he starts questioning you about the money. “Why you got so much cash, did you rob a bank or something?”

Most people are nervous when they get pulled over by law enforcement, and rightfully so, but that traffic ticket is the least of your worries. The cop is going to keep questioning you about the money, where you are going, who are going to meet, all sorts of questions that have nothing to do with the traffic stop. His one and only goal is to someway, in his mind, come up with a scenario that he could piece together that would make it look like your cash was somehow connect to a crime or criminal activity.

Any answer is the wrong answer…

If you tell the cop in no uncertain terms that it is none of his business on how much money you have and why, in his mind you are being belligerent. If he says he needs to search your car and you refuse his offer, now he believes you are hiding something and he has all the probable cause he needs to place you under arrest and confiscate your money and your vehicle. If you do let him search your vehicle don’t be surprised when he finds that little baggy of pot under the back seat, even though you know nothing about, he seemed to have no problem finding it since he put it there. Either way, once they know that there is cash to be confiscated they will make sure they get it.

Why would they…

They would because they are incentivized to confiscate things, what doesn’t end up getting returned to the people they have confiscated it from ends up benefitting the department they work for, usually to the tune of eighty percent, so for every $1,000 the confiscate they will normally end up with $800, see how little that traffic ticket means now?

In order to get your property back you have to file a claim with the local court and then prove that your money had nothing to do with any scenario the cop had dreamed up in his mind. You even have to prove it even if you weren’t charged with a crime. I used the $1,000 as an example because most cases of civil asset forfeiture are less than $1,000.

Very seldom do people even file a claim to get their property back, they don’t have the knowledge of the legal system to maneuver their way through the process and the amount of money you would stand to get back would be eaten up by hiring an attorney to go to court for you and they know this is the case.

How wide spread is it…

Pretty damn wide spread here in the USA , in 2014 it was estimated that over $4.5 billion was confiscated from folks in the USA. It is hard to say exactly how much of that was actually confiscated from people who were charged and convicted of a crime since the Department of Justice, which takes care of confiscated assets, doesn’t track the statistics of convictions as it relates to civil asset forfeiture.

Through the process known as “equitable sharing” the D.O.J. distributes back 80% of the funds confiscated to the agency or agencies that were involved in the confiscation, there is the incentive. The more you can steal from people the more you will get in return if you are in law enforcement.

What we can do…

First thing is to make people aware of just what the hell is going on, most people I have talked to have no idea this is happening. Unless you know someone that has had this happen to them you probably weren’t aware of it either. The next thing is to tell the folks in Washington that they need to get this under control and put a stop to it.

The last time I checked a person is innocent until proven guilty by a jury of their peers, since when did we start having to prove our innocence when we haven’t been charged with a crime? Being made to file a claim for your property and then having to prove that there was nothing illegal involved in getting that property or the intended use of that property is totally unconstitutional and flat out wrong.

Yet it happens every day here in America, and the chances are you have driven right by one of these highway robberies and never even knew what was happening, if it looks like a traffic stop, and there is wrecker waiting to tow the vehicle, you can pretty much figure that you just witnessed a highway robbery.

We need to start rattling the bars on these cages that they have us living in and make some noise. Tell your congressmen and senators that this is an important issue in your eyes and ask them what their position is on this subject. If they tell you that civil asset forfeiture is a necessary crime fighting tool then you know what you need to do so plan on voting them out of office and let your friends and neighbors know as well.

Wake Up America…

The voting booth is there for a reason; Washington should be like a revolving door not a retirement community for the privileged. Use your vote when it is election time and use your voice to speak up now. I think there is a #wakeupamerica on Twitter, but I couldn’t seem to find that hash tag on here. I am going to start posting stories like this with that hash tag and I would encourage you to do the same, we need to wake up here. The more we share, the more we can learn and then we can take some action with our elected officials.

For the foreign readers of the daily dose I would encourage you to do the same with a “Wake Up” hash tag for your country and start sharing information that relates to the things going on in your government that just isn’t right.

Until next time,
@sultnpapper