Re:Cops still take more stuff from people than burglars do
by Joker_vD on Wednesday August 02, 2023 @05:19PM
(#36977657)
Even then, maybe it's actually the crew that took a couple of additional crates of whiskey/cigarettes as a side-gig (pretty normal even today) and not on the owners' orders, good luck trying to prove it or anything at all, really.
Imagine that it's 1804, and a ship shows up in port carrying contraband. The sailors on the ship didn't know about it, they just make sure the boat doesn't sink. The owners are nowhere to be found, they live in London or Paris or Antwerp or something, and you'll never be able to arrest them for it (this is the pre-extradition world).
What do you do with the contraband? You need a formal law to deal with seizing it. And this serves as the framework for our modern civil forfeiture laws. A case would be entered into the dockets something like "State of New York vs. 152 Gallons of Whisky" or whatever. The whisky itself committed no crime, there can't be a criminal case.