That way of thinking opens up our current problems of police seizing everything within grasp during an arrest or traffic stop claiming the property is the result of illegal activity. "Hello, I pulled you over because it's late at night and I'm wondering if you're okay. Oh, you happen to have $10,000 in cash on hand? Drug money, I'll take that."
If this is the way the law is being interpreted then we gave up property rights a long time ago.
If you are a cab driver and you have a client that you know is riding your cab to perform illegal trade. Does the police have right to seize your fare?
Isn't that something court should determine?
For assets to be forfeited the government literally sues the property[1] and is required to show the item is subject to forfeiture. If the asset is eligible for forfeiture the owner can claim that they are innocent[2] and prevent the property from being forfeited.
In this case DPR is not claiming that the wallet is his. Because if he did he'd likely harm the criminal case against himself.
You can read the order here: http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/January14/Silk...
Note how the government filed suit against "all assets of Silk Road" - not DPR.
This isn't some secret thing that only the government knows about. You can go to http://www.forfeiture.gov right now and read required notices of forfeiture for all sorts of assets.
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[1] This is how we get court cases with fun names like "United States v. $124,700 in U.S. Currency" and "United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola"
That said, my understanding is yes, if you know that the purpose of the travel is illegal, then you are aiding and abetting. If they can show it to a "preponderance of evidence" standard, they have the power (not "right") to seize your fare. If they can show it beyond a reasonable doubt, they have the power to punish you as well.
As rayiner mentioned previously, the preponderance of evidence standard is actually not terribly out of place here, being that disputes about ownership of property are generally settled that way.
And yes, it is something for a court to determine.
http://www.wbur.org/2012/11/14/tewksbury-motel-owner-fights-...
A hotel owned by someone who has no criminal record or charges is being seized because some of its guests have used it to commit their crimes.
Edit: Seems like the Judge ended up dismissing this specific attempt but the key to take away from this is that the government will try and also sometimes win such cases.
In some circumstances, it's legitimate - "Yeah, I'll be getaway driver for your heist for $X..."
And the government has said, "Hey, if you own this wallet, which we have tied multiple controlled buys to, you're more than welcome to claim it, or we'll sell it. We might want to have a little chat to you about it, though."
Ross said "Nope. Not mine." He relinquished all claim to it, so his innocence or conviction is irrelevant.
Proof beyond reasonable doubt doesn't mean you're definitely guilty. But if it seems reasonably likely (to the judge, or better the jury) that something was legitimately purchased for legitimate reasons, it should be yours.
Campervan fitted out as a mobile meth lab? That should get seized. The house your kid sold drugs from, but is your primary place of residence, and you paid for it with legally obtained money? That should be yours.
The problem is, US police forces seem to want to seize anything that's remotely connected with illegal activities, to raise revenue.
However, in the case of SR they actually may have a pretty good case that those are money intended to buy drugs, etc. - it's not like SR ever hidden what they're selling and the buyers hid what they are buying, and looks like the law enforcement has these records. So since under the current law drug trade is a crime, and they would have absolutely no trouble proving the money is actually the drug money, in this case it is hard to classify this as abuse, at least without venturing into the whole topic of drug legalization and so on, which is beyond the point.
Yes, it would mean stepping up and funding things currently funded with proceeds from seizures, but it would remove significant incentive to overreach.
With a fiat currency, it's not actually destroying anything. I'd rather no one feel it as part of their bottom line, or there will be pressure. Certainly, moving it far from law enforcement would be an improvement, but I think destruction is better.
Putting that person further away from the police probably improves things, as I said, but better that we just build such hospitals and fund such social programs as we actually need, and not rely on people doing bad things (either the people whose stuff is being confiscated, or the police confiscating property of innocents) to make it happen.
Note again that at this scale cash isn't really a resource - it's a claim on resources. Destroying it doesn't destroy those resources, it releases the claim which winds up sort of distributed over other dollars.
It is the way the law is interpreted, and we've given up a lot of rights in the name of the drug war.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/08/12/130812fa_fact_...
Civil forfeiture is not confiscation of your property as punishment for committing a crime. It's a determination that the property was never yours to begin with, because it was obtained in an illegal transaction.[1] That's why the standard for civil forfeiture isn't whether the person is guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt" but rather whether the property is the fruits of a crime by the "preponderance of the evidence." Any civil dispute over the rightful ownership of property is evaluated according to a preponderance of the evidence standard, and the dispute about the status of the property can be resolved without resolving the issue of criminal guilt.
The very important distinction to make here is that the issue of whether Ulbricht is guilty is distinct from whether the money is the proceeds of illegal activity. Maybe Ulbricht gets acquitted because he creates enough reasonable doubt that he isn't DPR, as he claims. Or because he succeeds in getting key evidence excluded because of a procedural failure by the feds. His acquittal doesn't mean that the money wasn't the product of illegal activity. Indeed, he has tremendous incentive to try and prove that he never owned these Bitcoins, because that goes to proving he isn't DPR!
[1] At least when we're talking about cash. There's a whole host of more questionable issues when it comes to things like forfeiture of vehicles and guns used in crimes. See: http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1459... see also: http://ij.org/pennsylvania-judge-calls-civil-asset-forfeitur... (for a particularly egregious example).