How much private property is the government stealing from your state?

[teapartysamurai]

Consider the case of Margaret Davis.
As a 77-year-old woman living alone with multiple medical problems, Margaret left her Pennsylvania home unlocked so her neighbors could regularly check on her. One day while the police were chasing alleged drug dealers through her neighborhood, they all ran through Margaret’s house. The dealers dropped some of their stash on Margaret’s floor, in plain sight.

Instead of apologizing to Margaret for the traumatic experience, the government seized her house.

Under civil forfeiture laws, Margaret’s property—her house—was guilty until she could prove it innocent to get it back. And that’s not all. As it turns out, most state and federal laws allow the government to keep the property they take through civil forfeiture. So authorities have a big incentive to pursue property over justice.


Predictably, abuse is rampant:

• In Louisiana, police were caught stealing innocent people’s property by making up crimes that never happened. They used the proceeds to fund ski trips to Aspen.

• In Texas, a government official was caught pumping forfeiture funds into his re-election campaign.

• In Nebraska, officials stole over $124,000 from a resident without ever charging, let alone convicting, him of a crime.

• In Missouri, authorities were caught turning forfeitures over to the federal government in order to avoid a legal requirement that proceeds go to schools. That way, both groups could split the proceeds without having to share any with the children that were supposed to get the money.

Unfortunately, these are not isolated incidents. Civil forfeiture is now a nationwide epidemic. A new report by the Institute for Justice found that the federal government is now holding over a billion dollars in assets seized through civil forfeiture.

And that’s not counting any of the state and local governments.
IJ’s report, available to view and download for free here, is the first to grade the civil forfeiture laws of the federal government and all 50 states.
What grade did your state get? You can easily search the report by state here

Read all here:

How Much Private Property is the Government Stealing in Your State? - Big Government

This is something I've been against for awhile. I can see confiscating drug dealer's property, but the potential for abuse is WIDE OPEN, and obviously corruption breeds abuse and vice versa.

There need to be huge reforms to this stuff and I doubt we are going to get it with the elitists corruptocrats we have in office now.

They like the potential for abuse, because it empowers THEM.

Remember this stuff come November.

And no this isn't just Democrat, this is all of them. We need conservatives in office that are dedicated to weeding out this crap.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Damn, you beat me to it. Civil forfeiture laws need to be excised from the books and the government needs to restore our due process rights.