Despicable, and akin to highway robbery in my opinion.
I'm not just being pedantic, this is part of why it's so incredibly fucked. They have, no exaggeration, taken a portion of the criminal legal system with all the constraints and due process requirements there, excised it with a legislative scalpel and grafted it back on to the civil system.
I honestly to this day don't understand why government is allowed any access at all to the civil system as a plaintiff, at least not beyond the local level.
Oh wait, yes I do understand: It's specifically to fuck the people over.
Nothing more than: highway robbery, is necessary. You're spot on, that's exactly what it is, and it's nothing more. It's robbery. Using any other names for it, just assists the police in covering up what they're doing through confusion. Everyone should begin calling it robbery by police or the equivalent, and stop referring to it as civil asset forfeiture in public forums (that's only useful in a technical/legal regard).
These are all language tricks used to manipulate the masses. "Double plus good" is not a stretch at this point if we become complacent to this kind of manipulation.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/07/14/...
So the law was pushed through. Then some day cops realized they can apply this law for fun and profit. And so they have been.
No one and nothing is charged with a crime in civil asset forfeiture.
The currency is defined as the defendant in the case.
I have come to believe this since I've met some incredibly brilliant PhD's, but I've also met some incredibly dumb PhD's.
I've met some PhDs who would run rings around anyone in their niche, but would be (metaphorically) unable to tie their shoelaces by themselves.
There's no way I'd carry a bank card in OK.
It wouldn't be the first time a news article was wrong, though it'd be nice to know for sure.
The legal theory (which is a total crock and obvious constitutional violation) is that you aren't the real owner, you stole the property so the state can take it away from you. That's what creates the presumption of guilt where you have to prove you're the owner of the property, same as if you dropped it on the street by accident and the cops found it.
Anytime one of these cases gets close enough to SCOTUS for a decision on the overall constitutionality the police/DA drop the case. Most of them seem to know its a scam and don't want to risk an adverse ruling. There have been a few hints that SCOTUS is ready to rule the current scope and scale makes civil forfeiture unconstitutional but who knows.
Exactly, why is it not incumbent upon them to prove that you have gained that money through illegitimate means?
If I open a civil proceeding against you, I can try to prove that you owe me $5k and if I prove that to the appropriate standard you can be compelled to provide me with $5k. I can't hack your bank account, withdraw $5k, and then open a civil proceeding to retroactively legitimize my robbery.
The whole system is a massive violation of due process, no matter what legalese you try to use to justify it. If you're allowed to take people's property and then retroactively sue them if they complain, what is even the point of having the Fifth Amendment?
If there is reason to believe that someone is in possession of property that doesn't belong to them it seems perfectly reasonable for the police to confiscate said property.
That's not what's being described here.
If it turns out the guy running away from the bank just likes jogging with a bag of money the police should return his money and whatever else _immediately_ after the person is released.
How about "police should not take property where no crime is known to have been committed"
Yes. The money may be held in escrow pending the trial, but appropration by police is unjust -- and should be illegal if the person is not charged and arrested.
Edit: all of this is off-topic, as the bank can be proven the owner and the police would not keep the money.
Asset forfeiture is, and always has been, subject to judicial oversight.
There are, in fact, well established and relatively simple procedures for contesting civil forfeiture. There is a fair argument to be made that they sometimes don't work as well as they should but when you say that there is "NO judicial oversight" at all you are just just flat out wrong. You need to update your worldview if you want it to conform to reality.
(Edited to add: I just realized they didn't actually get their money back. They got a check. Yep. You can generally cash those for free if you have a bank account.)
Imagine the situation of someone whose circumstances are less clear, or who can't otherwise afford to stay in one place and fight the seizure for however long it actually takes.
What happens to the person who just had all of their money taken away?
[1] http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/months-after-53-00...
>"If you can prove can prove that you have a legitimate reason to have that money it will be given back to you. And we've done that in the past," Vincent said about any money seized.
... Legit reason? How am I supposed to prove where every cent came from? What happened to "innocent until proven guilty"?