Reply With Quote
Even if RBG can hangs on (preventing 6-3), all a Dem pres AND Dem Senate can do is keep the court 5-4.
RBG has two more years to go. Hope she makes it.
Even if RBG can hangs on (preventing 6-3), all a Dem pres AND Dem Senate can do is keep the court 5-4.
Inside baseball:
How police departments make millions by seizing property
In South Carolina,civil forfeiture targets black people’s money most of all, exclusive investigative data shows
hen a man barged into Isiah Kinloch’s apartment and broke a bottle over his head, the North Charleston resident called 911. After cops arrived on that day in 2015, they searched the injured man’s home and found an ounce of marijuana.
So they took $1,800 in cash from his apartment and kept it.
______
When Eamon Cools-Lartigue was driving on Interstate 85 in Spartanburg County, deputies stopped him for speeding. The Atlanta businessman wasn’t criminally charged in the April 2016 incident. Deputies discovered $29,000 in his car, though, and decided to take it.
______
When Brandy Cooke dropped her friend off at a Myrtle Beach sports bar as a favor, drug enforcement agents swarmed her in the parking
lot and found $4,670 in the car.
Her friend was wanted in a drug distribution case, but Cooke wasn’t involved. She had no drugs and was never charged in the 2014 bust. Agents seized her money anyway.
She worked as a waitress and carried cash because she didn’t have a checking account. She spent more than a year trying to get her money back.
The TAKEN team scoured more than 3,200 forfeiture cases and spoke to dozens of targeted citizens plus more than 50 experts and officials. Additionally, the team contacted every law enforcement agency in the state.
This yielded a clear picture of what is happening:
Police are systematically seizing cash and property —
many times from people who aren’t guilty of a crime —
netting millions of dollars each year.
South Carolina law enforcement profits from this policing tactic: the bulk of the money ends up in its possession.
“Having cash makes you vulnerable to an illicit practice by a police organization.
“It’s a dirty little secret. It’s so consistent with the issue of how law enforcement functions
many of the people they are taking money from are not drug traffickers or even users.”
Officers gather in places like Spartanburg County for contests with trophies to see who can make the largest or most seizures during highway blitzes.
They earn hats, mementos and free dinners, and agencies that participate take home a cut of the forfeiture proceeds.
That money adds up. Over three years, law enforcement agencies seized more than $17 million, our investigation shows.
The TAKEN investigation key findings:
• Black men pay the price for this program. They represent 13 percent of the state's population. Yet 65 percent of all citizens targeted for civil forfeiture in the state are black males.
“And when you add in racial disparities around policing and traffic stops and arrest and prosecution, we know this is going to have a disproportionate effect on black communities.”
• If you are white, you are twice as likely to get your money back than if you are black.
• Nearly one-fifth of people who had their assets seized weren't charged with a related crime.
Out of more than 4,000 people hit with civil forfeiture over three years, 19 percent were never arrested.
They may have left a police encounter without so much as a traffic ticket. But they also left without their cash.
Roughly the same number — nearly 800 people — were charged with a crime but not convicted.
Greenville attorney Jake Erwin said the overarching idea is that
the money being seized is earnings from past drug sales, so it's fair game.
“In theory, that makes a little bit of sense," he said. "The problem is that they don’t really have to prove that.”
In some states, the su ions behind a civil forfeiture must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in court, but
there is no requirement of proof in South Carolina.
When a forfeiture is contested, prosecutors only have to show a preponderance of evidence to keep seized goods.
Police don’t just seize cash.
Practically anything can be confiscated and sold at auction:
jewelry, electronics, firearms, boats, RVs.
In South Carolina, 95 percent of forfeiture revenue goes back to law enforcement. The rest is deposited into the state’s general fund.
These seizures leave thousands of citizens without their cash and belongings or reliable means to get them back.
They target black men most, our investigation found — with crushing consequences when life savings or a small business payroll is taken.
Many people never get their money back.
Or they have to fight to have their property returned and incur high attorney fees.
https://www.greenvilleonline.com/in-...on/2457838002/
"Old Times There Are Not Forgotten"
Data From Court Do ents Shows Texas Law Enforcement Playing Small-Ball Forfeiture, Not Doing Much To Stop Drug Trafficking
Texas Tribune did it the hard way. Reading through thousands of pages of court filings, the paper was able to tease out the granular detail law enforcement agencies don't like the public seeing.
What the Texas Tribune uncovered is exactly the reasons asset forfeiture is both problematic and incredibly popular with law enforcement agencies.
Cop shop PR officers may hold press conferences to announce things like the $1.2 million in cash seized from a traffic stop, they're very quiet about the day-to-day work of forfeiture.
The reality is the $50 million a year taken through forfeiture in the state of Texas is composed of hundreds of very small cash seizures.
- Half of the cash seizures were for less than $3,000. In Harris and Smith counties, more than two-thirds were under $5,000.
- About two of every five forfeiture cases started with a traffic stop.
- Many cases were connected to possession of small amounts of drugs. In Smith County, a woman’s 2003 Chevrolet Trailblazer was seized after police found half of a gram of suspected methamphetamine and a partially-smoked blunt in the car.
- In nearly 60% of the cases, people didn’t fight their seizures in court at all, resulting in judges turning over the property to local governments by default.
- Two of every 10 cases didn’t result in a related criminal charge against the property owner or possessor; in Webb County, more than half didn’t.
- And in about 40% of the cases, no one who had property taken from them was found guilty of a crime connected to the seizure.
Small seizures work out best for law enforcement.
The cost of fighting the forfeiture usually outpaces the value of the seized property.
This leads directly to the 60% default rate observed by the Texas Tribune.
Bypassing criminal charges reduces the amount of time police and prosecutors have to spend processing the case, increasing the profitability of the seizure.
Even in the case of the $1.2 million seizure, no criminal charges were brought.
Prosecutors claimed there was no criminal act to pursue since the driver claimed he was unaware of the cash officers found hidden in his trailer.
And, under this deliberately-limited scope, there isn't an obvious criminal act the driver could have been charged with.
But instead of trying to locate the source of the money assumed to be tied to illegal activity, law enforcement kept the money and presumably allowed a drug operation to continue mostly unimpeded.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190623/15494942459/data-court-do ents-shows-texas-law-enforcement-playing-small-ball-forfeiture-not-doing-much-to-stop-drug-trafficking.shtml
====================
Texas police can seize money and property with little transparency. So we got the data ourselves.
https://apps.texastribune.org/featur...-reeves-smith/
How the government can steal your stuff: 6 questions about civil asset forfeiture answered
Until now, the Supreme Court and lower courts, however, have consistently upheld civil asset forfeitures
when ruling on challenges launched under the Fifth Amendment.
The same goes for challenges under
the Eighth Amendment, which bars “excessive fines” and “cruel and unusual punishments,” and
the 14th Amendment, which forbids depriving “any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
Under the leadership of Attorney General Eric Holder, the Obama-era Justice Department determined that
civil asset forfeiture was more about making money than public safety.
It then changed the guidelines for asset adoption.
“I love that program,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions
William Barr, Sessions’ successor in the Trump administration, has also defended this policy.
https://www.spurstalk.com/forums/sho...ght=forfeiture
So Dems reduced civil forfeiture, but Repugs ratcheted it up again.
Repugs love crapifying America. It's was Repug voters want.
And of course, Repug s in robes Federal judges will support rampant civil forfeiture, aka, robbery
These Cops Are Seizing Cash from People Who Smell Like Weed Before They Fly to California
Smelling like cannabis and
buying your ticket right before your flight from this Florida airport
are apparently great reasons for cops to take your stuff.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/q...ampaign_777491
worse than reported burglaries
https://ij.org/report/policing-for-profit/
to put it another way, police defunding us
Wow. I knew a lot of departments had started leaning on that, but the scope and scale is a bit shocking.
Here's a relatable true life tale about it:
"We got him!"
ing over citizens is a ing game to CBP / ICE / law "enforcement"
Citizens are degraded to dehumanized, objectified targets to be punished, to be "got".
Law enforcement STEALING from citizens.
Police Say Seizing Property Without Trial Helps Keep Crime Down. A New Study Shows They’re Wrong.
Civil asset forfeiture laws, which allow police to seize property without trial, are
frequently justified as tools to seize millions from kingpins.
A new study reveals
the median amount taken is as low as $369 in some states.
https://www.propublica.org/article/p...s-theyre-wrong
9. Asset Forfeiture Reforms
Asset forfeiture, especially civil asset forfeiture (without a criminal conviction), is
increasingly unpopular, with 35 states and the District of Columbia approving reforms between 2014 and 2019.
A September poll by YouGov found that only 26 percent support allowing police to seize cash or property from someone without a criminal conviction.
According to a Forbes article,
“59 percent of Americans oppose ‘allowing law enforcement agencies to use forfeited property or its proceeds for their own use.’ …
Opposition to equitable sharing [a federal program that allows state and local police to evade state laws against civil asset forfeiture] was even higher, with 70 percent against the program.”
Here are some reasons why:
In March, in Georgia, the department of revenue got caught spending millions of dollars in seized cash on “engraved firearms, pricey gym equipment, clothing, personal items, even $130 sunglasses.”
That same month, in Michigan, Macomb County prosecutor Eric Smith was hit with a slew of criminal charges for allegedly taking funds seized from drug and other suspects for his own personal use,
including “a personal security system for his house, country club parties, campaign expenses and to buy flowers and make-up for his secretaries.”
In July, in Chicago, the city agreed to a $5 million payout to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by two people whose vehicle was seized after a passenger was arrested for marijuana possession. The settlement will apply to hundreds of other cases where drivers had their vehicles impounded as part of drug cases.
Also in Michigan, the Wayne County Sheriff’s office faces a similar lawsuit for seizing thousands of cars and other property belonging to residents without criminal convictions.
Such abuses helped New Jersey become the 16th asset forfeiture reform state when Governor Phil Murphy (D) signed into law a bill mandating comprehensive disclosure and transparency requirements for the system of civil asset forfeiture in January.
Unfortunately, the few remaining non-reform states are tough nuts to crack, as we saw with
reform bills killed in Arizona, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
But, at least Tyson Timbs, the Indiana man whose seized Land Rover resulted in a 2019 Supreme Court decision scaling back civil asset forfeiture,
finally got his Land Rover back—six years after it was seized over a drug bust.
https://www.laprogressive.com/drug-pandemic
ing corrupt, criminal cops, even in a deeply Blue State
It's Easy For Police To Seize Money.
Worcester's District Attorney Makes It Hard To Get It Back
later dismissed them against Jones-Bernier and all but one person.
Despite that, law enforcement officials held onto his money and phone.
In Massachusetts, they can hold that money indefinitely, even when criminal charges have been dismissed.
Trying to get one’s money back is so onerous, legal experts say
it may violate due process rights under the U.S. Cons ution.
It’s especially punishing for people with low incomes.
Four years passed before the Worcester County district attorney’s office tried to notify Jones-Bernier, as required by law, about the status of his money.
Massachusetts is an outlier among states when it comes to civil forfeiture laws.
Prosecutors in the commonwealth are able to keep seized assets using a lower legal bar than in any other state.
https://amp.wbur.org/news/2021/08/18...r-joseph-early
still happening
NO DRUGS, NO ARREST, BUT TEXAS POLICE TAKE CASH ANYWAY
Mississippi driver Ameal Woods worried about thieves when he came to Texas with
$42,000 to buy trucking equipment in 2019.
a sergeant from the Harris County Sheriff’s Office stopped him on Interstate 10 near Houston,
accused him of following another vehicle too closely,
and launched a roadside interrogation.
One of the sergeant’s first questions was about cash.
Carrying cash is not a crime, and cash transactions are normal for secondhand truck dealers. Woods had nothing to hide, so he volunteered information.
the sergeant took the cash and sent Woods on his way, penniless.
Following the seizure, Harris County prosecutors sued for the cash using a process called civil forfeiture.
The money making scheme, which remains legal in Texas despite several bipartisan attempts at reform,
allows the government to keep assets permanently without convicting anyone of wrongdoing.
https://texassignal.com/op-ed-no-dru...ke-cash-anyway
cops' victim is black, of course
Former Shoe Shiner Wins Back Nearly $30,000 Seized by Federal Agents
Authorities at an airport last year seized a bag of cash that Kermit Warren was carrying to buy a truck.
It was his life’s savings but
prosecutors contended the money was linked to drugs.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/31/us/federal-agents-money-forfeiture.html
ever expanding qualified immunity, created by SCOTUS,
plus civil forfeiture and
corrupt, racist cops,
America is ed and un able
Nice robbery, guise
Cops are ing thieves, among all their other crimes. Thanks, SCOTUS
Report Shows Kansas Law Enforcement Seized $21 Million From People,
Most Of Whom Were Never Charged With Crimes
https://www.techdirt.com/2022/06/13/...d-with-crimes/
Deputies accused a Texas sheriff of corruption and dysfunction. Then came the mass shooting
COLDSPRING, Texas (AP) — Sheriff Greg Capers was the classic picture of a Texas lawman as he announced the capture of a suspected mass killer: white cowboy hat on his head, gold star pinned to his chest, white cross on his belt and a large pistol emblazoned with his name on his hip.
years of complaints about corruption and dysfunction that were previously unknown outside the piney woods of San Jacinto County.
challenges police face across rural America, where small staffs must patrol vast jurisdictions.
It also reveals the difficulty in holding powerful law enforcement officials accountable in isolated areas with little outside oversight.
Former deputies said
Capers’ office has long neglected basic police work
while pursuing asset seizures that boost its $3.5 million budget but don’t always hold up in court.
The county paid $240,000 in 2020 to settle a whistleblower’s lawsuit accusing Capers of wide-ranging misconduct.
Capers fostered a “fear-based” culture and oversaw the improper seizure of tens of thousands of dollars of property.
deputies failed to follow up on reports of 4,000 crimes,
including sexual and child abuse.
https://apnews.com/article/texas-neighbors-shooting-sheriff-3fc5e6d5c0dc004b67d3e94a76812732
His county has 27000 residents.
Theft under the color of law.
Stealing from orphans in this case.
https://www.realclearpolicy.com/arti...ce_975695.htmlWhat happened to Eh Wah undercuts this narrative. He was not a drug lord or even a low-level dealer. He was a volunteer manager for a Christian rock band, raising money for Thai orphans and Burmese refugees. Some of the cash belonged to Eh Wah and the band members, following a monthslong tour across several states. The rest came from concert donations and belonged to the orphans and refugees.
Carrying cash is legal. The money in the car was legitimate. And none of it related to a broken taillight — the reason for the 2016 traffic stop on U.S. Route 69. Eh Wah, who neither smokes nor drinks, had nothing illegal in his vehicle. Other than driving with a burned out bulb, he did nothing wrong.
The deputies pounced anyway, putting civil forfeiture in motion.
To prevail, at least in theory, the government must link seized assets to criminal activity by a preponderance of the evidence, a low standard that means government hunches are more likely correct than not. But in the vast majority of cases, the government does not have to prove anything by any standard.
Property owners get trapped in procedural mazes and lose by default. Many people give up without ever seeing a judge. They often have no choice. Civil forfeiture includes no right to counsel, and attorney fees often outweigh the value of seized assets.
Once the process ends, participating agencies keep 100 percent of the proceeds for themselves. The result is a powerful incentive for police and prosecutors to self-fund through aggressive enforcement.
Predictable whining.
Losing in the NY Post bodes ill for thieving police.
https://nypost.com/2015/11/17/lame-e...ps-be-robbers/During a talk-radio debate last week, Tulsa’s district attorney, Steve Kunzweiler, warned that civil-forfeiture reform would invite “some of the most violent people in the history of this planet” to set up shop in Oklahoma, making decapitated bodies “hung from bridges” a familiar sight in the Sooner State.
Last month, Steve Jones, an assistant district attorney, told Tennessee legislators “criminals will thank you” for making it harder to confiscate people’s property.
These are the noises that cops and prosecutors make when people talk about restricting their license to steal.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
