Alabama Lawmakers Move To Rein In Out Of Control Civil Asset Forfeiture Practice
It's time for law enforcement agencies around the United States to reign in the controversial and out-of-control civil asset forfeiture program.
The practice has frequently brought the police into a negative light and put their reputation into disrepute, because quite often the purchases that they make with the funds seem rather unjustified and outlandish.
Not only that, but many civil liberties advocates, Constitutional scholars, and legal professionals etc, have insisted for quite some time that this practice is a clear violation of Constitutional rights; it seems to blatantly violate due process of law.
Many states have tried to pass their own rules to restrict this sort of activity and limit the confiscations by requiring a conviction before any property can be confiscated.
In Alabama alone, they're said to have some of the worst civil forfeiture laws in the country.
Q...
If someone is simply in possession of cannabis, or cannabis-related paraphernalia, should they really have thousands of dollars confiscated from them? Their home or vehicle taken from them? All while they didn't engage in any violent crime and there was no victim in relation to their actions of consuming or possessing that cannabis? It seems a bit drastic and unfair, and it's no wonder that it's fueled such resentment toward law enforcement.
Just this week, Alabama lawmakers filed a new bill that is seeking to reform this practice, known as the Forfeiture Accountability and Integrity Reform (FAIR) Act.
“I thought we had always required a criminal conviction before seizing someone's property. I wasn't aware that wasn't the case until two years ago, and that's the reason I filed a bill last year and why I intend to do so again this year,” - Orr admits.
They want to abolish civil asset forfeiture and replace that instead with criminal forfeiture. If passed, the bill seeks to ensure that only individuals who have been charged and convicted, would lose their property to forfeiture.
Law enforcement should prove with evidence, beyond any reasonable doubt that someone is guilty of a crime, whereas now they simply need to prove that there is reasonable satisfaction to go after the property and individual.
Civil asset forfeiture practices might have been first intended to go after mutli-million dollar drug dealers, but the results haven't been that, and it's causing problems for many Americans. And when an innocent person gets swept up in this mess, the onus is on them to prove that their property was innocent. Many people cannot afford the tens of thousands it's going to cost to endure that sort of legal battle. It's really a self-destructive practice that hopefully more lawmakers seek to put an end to.
If passed, the new bill is going to require police in AL to have a conviction before taking property away. It also looks to establish a clear mechanism for innocent parties to challenge what they believe is unjust civil asset forfeiture action, as well as shed some more light on the details of the practice and where the funds end-up.
Pics:
via tenthamendmentcenter.com
via netrightdaily.com
sheneman via NJ.com
Sources:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2018/01/24/new-alabama-bill-would-abolish-civil-forfeiture-require-convictions-to-confiscate-property/#456ff3d82c38
http://reason.com/blog/2018/01/23/alabama-raked-in-22-million-in-civil-ass
http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2018/01/alabama_lawmakers_introduce_bi.html
https://www.heartland.org/publications-resources/publications/research--commentary-alabama-working-to-reform-its-civil-asset-forfeiture-laws
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-asset-forfeiture-ensnares-the-innocent-1489784068
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2016/05/new-hampshire-asset-forfeiture-bill-unmasks-power-of-police-lobby/
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This has been Total B.S right from the start @doitvoluntarily ! especially if they have not even been found guilty of the crime , but lose everything anyways ! at least if they are instead charged with "Criminal Forfeiture " and found "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt " It makes a little more sense . Great post and information , Thanks for sharing ! Upped and resteemed !👍✌👌💕😀
Glad someone is standing up to them. Our govt has grown so corrupt that even criminal forfeiture seems a joke if they are the ones deciding that. Nice post. @markrmorrisjr
One thing I can say is .. fu*k the higher power. It just makes the weak become weaker . The powerful will always get more powerful , it’s always been like this
While I agree that there seems to be a constant trend for power to accrue to the powerful, I note there seems to be a problem with this observation.
After a few thousand years, we see that new organizations constantly replace their powerful predecessors.
What actually happens is they grow increasingly unwieldy, and commit worse crimes, until they are finally destroyed. Given the state of the state at present, I don't think they can long continue to shake us down.
They're going to destroy themselves by trying to get too powerful, as always happens.
I don't even have any hope of this.
I have evidence that 100% of the time, that is what happens.
It's called history.
Thanks!
Informative and well written article. Its like they say though, "Dont steal, the government hates competition." And as usual things seem at their most corrupt in the southeast. I wonder when people will have their fill of "conservative leadership"?
A very interesting article to read. Thanks for sharing @doitvoluntarily.
It's sad that this occurs in such volume in this country.
A qualm I have to pick -- is that in other states, which are currently legalizing marijuana, people who have in the past had assets taken from them on marijuana-related charges do not receive their assets back. Nor do their friends in neighboring states get any penalty lift.
Not only that, but in those same states that have legalized marijuana, individuals remain incarcerated for marijuana-related charges, despite the new laws.
It's awful. Thank you for shedding some light on the subject :)
While better than no conviction, allowing civil asset forfeiture for convictions still doesn't eliminate the conflict of interest for law enforcement. Why can't the legislature see the obvious that allowing any form of profit from such activities corrupts the motivations for justice?
The police should never benefit directly from seizure efforts, otherwise they go after those with the newest vehicles and start planting evidence if they get desperate. The only case when anyone should benefit are the living victims of a crime (when applicable).
Who says they can't? I have no confidence that the deplorable state of the law isn't intentional. It's profitable for them, so I think they do it on purpose.
Well, they can just benefit indirectly, then. That's not much harder. They'd just have to share a cut with some direct beneficiary.
Don't underestimate the ability of fraudsters to adapt. They can find a way to steal in any legal environment.
Or have you ever heard of a legal system where fraud didn't occur?
Pardon my rhetorical style of writing... but this is why I've made a career change from software dev in windows and cross platform apps to blockchain.
“Law enforcement should prove with evidence, beyond any reasonable doubt that someone is guilty of a crime, whereas now they simply need to prove that there is reasonable satisfaction to go after the property and individual.”
Isn’t actualy judge who decides whether to seize the property or not? If only law enforcement gets to decide it, it sounds very scary.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Jurisdictions vary on details of what is necessary to retain funds, and some involve courts. All of them depend on the police first just seizing assets on their own volition.
The legislature of Alabama "forever changed mathematics, science and peace", stating in 1998 that the mathematical constant PI would now be equal to 3.0 instead of the usual 3,14159. At least so it was claimed in the April fools press. Lawmakers from Alabama didn't know about the drawing until then, until began to receive hundreds of calls in protest.
Now, that's hopeful news. One seldomly-mentioned fact about the civil-asset forfeiture regime is its disturbing similarity to the much-cursed Vice-Admiralty Court. Notorious at the time of the American Revolution, the Court of Vice-Admiralty was jacked up to Intolerable level so as to...crack down on smuggling.
Somewhere, the ghost of Lord North is chortling.