Police Can Seize Your Property Without Even Charging You With A Crime

[Clementine]

The law was meant to seize property from drug dealers since they made their money illegally. Instead, the cops use a loophole to go after average citizens and they can seize property and cash without even charging the person with a crime. If the people are innocent and want their possessions and money back, it's up to them to prove their innocence. Most don't fight since it's expensive and often would cost more than they lost. Many have fought and won, though it's a small percent that even try.

A private company trains police and encourages them to seize property, which is shared between the department and the feds. They talk about the gold mine cops are sitting on regarding routine traffic stops and the seizure of money and property. This practice of seizing assets with no criminal charges filed and no convictions is increasing as police ensure their job security by bringing in more money.

No citizen should ever be in a position to have to prove their innocence. Burden of proof is on the accuser, or should be. And no one should ever lose their money or property without being convicted of a crime.

This must be changed before rogue cops steal more from the public.

Aggressive police take hundreds of millions of dollars from motorists not charged with crimes The Washington Post

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Police can DO anything they like. They have the guns, badges, and radios. Whether the court will back them up is the only question.

 

[OriginalShroom]

The only way to stop this is to get the Seizure and Forfeiture laws stricken from the books.. Which will be difficult as you will have every police chief in the State against you.

 

[shart_attack]

Stuff like this just makes me want to get a custom-fitted assault charge.

Fed up with the ever-increasing power of the police state.

 

[ClosedCaption]

When you actually have a debate about whether or not a cop should or should not shoot an unarmed person. Taking someones property is small ball

 

[Mad Scientist]

Taking someone's property BEFORE they've been convicted means they may not have the funds to defend themselves properly.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Who passes laws like this?
The way I see it this is a slippery slope toward "guilty until proven innocent".
There are ways to protect one's self from these seizures...
Never carry large amounts of cash. Do not answer probative questions from the police.
It is none of their business, where you are going, coming from, who you've been with, who you are going to see, if the address on your license is current....None of it.
By asking these questions, the police are pushing toward surrendering your rights. They use intimidation, implied threats of detention or even arrest if the motorist does not acquiesce to their probe.
And it works. Most people find traffic stops intimidating. They just want to be free to go about their business. Police know this.
Now, this applies only to cops who are LOOKING for trouble. We all know the type. The cop that is having a bad day or considers himself a 'hero to the community' as though he considers himself the one man crime wrecking crew.
The bottom ,line is we are not required to do anything but cooperate with the stop. License, registration and insurance ID....That's IT....Attorneys across the country advise people to not answer any questions. By doing so the person is doing the cop's job for them. DON'T!

 

[bendog]

Lincoln did the same in 1863 that bustard. (-:

 

[asaratis]

Without a conviction of a crime, the cops are participating in legalized armed robbery of law abiding citizens.

...similar to the Gestapo!

 

[Clementine]

It's one thing to seize property of convicted drug cartel members. We need to amend this law to protect the innocent. Our rights state that everyone is innocent until proven guilty and the burden of proof falls on the state. This is an atrocity. While most police aren't practicing this, it appears that it is catching on. Of course, the feds aren't rushing to fix this since they get a nice portion of the money.

 

[Clementine]

This started in the 80s and made sense then. It remains reasonable to seize money and property from scumbags who made that money by selling illegal drugs. I don't know if there were loopholes in the law or whether there were changes made that allowed police to seize property without even charging people. There should be evidence of a crime and a conviction before this process can start.

Regardless of how this latest trend started, it is time to stop it before more innocent people get caught in the net. Punishing people without charging them, allowing a fair trial and having a guilty verdict is a violation of our rights.

The good news is that there is bipartisan support for addressing this problem.

In recent weeks, both Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., have introduced legislation in Congress to reform federal forfeiture laws along the lines outlined above. In support of his bill, Walberg recently took to the floor to criticize the lack of due process protections in federal forfeiture laws. A number of states have recently taken up the mantle and passed reforms as well.


Just last week, Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J., and Rep. Tony Cardenas, D-Calif.,introduced H.R. 5502, the House version of Paul’s legislation. In other words, bipartisan reform looks like a real possibility in this Congress or the next.


But as lawmakers debate the "how" of civil forfeiture reform, one thing is absolutely clear: The path forward cannot be the status quo.

Time to Change Course Stop Letting Police Seize Property from Innocent People

 

[Darkwind]

Always carry a video camera and have it on you dash if you get stopped. Your response should be, "Hello Officer. For your protection and mine, I am recording this traffic stop."

And I agree. These laws need to be repealed, but government greed will defend the right to confiscate private property for personal gain every time.

 

[whitehall]

Put the blame on the right bureaucracy. Americans approved the gigantic federal bureaucracy called Homeland Security because they trusted Bush to do the right thing and Bush kept Homeland in it's proper perspective for a while but Americans didn't anticipate how a radical left wing democrat administration would abuse the power. We have IRS spying, Homeland spying, the feds gun running and now the Feds are training state and local police agencies how to act like fascists. Didn't Clinton's gestapo attack on Waco teach us anything?

 

[shart_attack]

It's one thing to seize property of convicted drug cartel members. We need to amend this law to protect the innocent. Our rights state that everyone is innocent until proven guilty and the burden of proof falls on the state. This is an atrocity. While most police aren't practicing this, it appears that it is catching on. Of course, the feds aren't rushing to fix this since they get a nice portion of the money.

Sorry, but nope: incorrect.

The feds don't necessarily get any monies whatsoever from raids on homes.

Unless the DEA, ATF or some other federal law enforcement agency has some role in providing the information about monetary or any other kind of proprietary assets taken in a seizure, the federal government has no legitimate claims toward any of those assets.

Those assets can be claimed by state and local authorities only.

 

[theDoctorisIn]

Put the blame on the right bureaucracy. Americans approved the gigantic federal bureaucracy called Homeland Security because they trusted Bush to do the right thing and Bush kept Homeland in it's proper perspective for a while but Americans didn't anticipate how a radical left wing democrat administration would abuse the power. We have IRS spying, Homeland spying, the feds gun running and now the Feds are training state and local police agencies how to act like fascists. Didn't Clinton's gestapo attack on Waco teach us anything?

Civil asset forfeiture has nothing at all to do with "Homeland Security".

 

[Clementine]

Sorry, but nope: incorrect.

The feds don't necessarily get any monies whatsoever from raids on homes.

Unless the DEA, ATF or some other federal law enforcement agency has some role in providing the information about monetary or any other kind of proprietary assets taken in a seizure, the federal government has no legitimate claims toward any of those assets.

Those assets can be claimed by state and local authorities only.

Shart, you are assuming that they are using the law the way it was intended. Sadly, they have found a way to get around it.

There is a thing called equitable sharing, where the feds do get involved for a share of the money. You didn't the government would allow this without getting something out of it, did you?

That is what makes this so corrupt. The police are doing this even though they know it's wrong and they are involving the feds constantly since they know no one will stop it if everyone benefits.

Finally, a practice known as "equitable sharing," in which local and state law enforcement officers seize property and then refer forfeiture actions to federal authorities in return for a portion of the resulting proceeds, encourages state and local authorities to do an end-run around some state laws that limit the ability of local authorities to seek forfeiture and to keep the resulting proceeds. This practice should be severely curtailed or eliminated.

http://dailysignal.com/2014/09/30/time-to-change-course-stop-letting-police-seize-property-from-innocent-people/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social


Cash seizures can be made under state or federal civil law. One of the primary ways police departments are able to seize money and share in the proceeds at the federal level is through a long-standing Justice Department civil asset forfeiture program known as Equitable Sharing. Asset forfeiture is an extraordinarily powerful law enforcement tool that allows the government to take cash and property without pressing criminal charges and then requires the owners to prove their possessions were legally acquired.


The practice has been controversial since its inception at the height of the drug war more than three decades ago, and its abuses have been the subject of journalistic exposés and congressional hearings. But unexplored until now is the role of the federal government and the private police trainers in encouraging officers to target cash on the nation’s highways since 9/11.

Aggressive police take hundreds of millions of dollars from motorists not charged with crimes The Washington Post

 

[OriginalShroom]

The problem is that the law started out good. Seize the money and possession of Criminals and drug dealer and use it fund the police.

Then the police, as people will do, got greedy.

They went to the judges and got the rulings they needed to expand the program.. Then they showed the local and State Politicians how much money they were getting and how it was easing the budget issues, so the local and State politicians went along with expanding the laws and making it easier for the cops to seize stuff for themselves and harder for the original owners to get back.. even to point that even if the person was found not to have committed any crimes and that money and possessions were legally theirs and they won the lawsuits they filed to get back their stuff.. They didn't get it all back. After all, the police and State deserved something for their trouble of "keeping it safe", so many times they had to settle for getting back $0.75, or less, on the dollar.

And that didn't include their own legal fees in fighting the charges and filing the suits to start with...

 

[Clementine]

It's a huge racket and the feds are just as guilty as local authorities. They've combined forces to steal more money from people. The way it's set up, they can use each other to get around the law and expand their power.

It's good that a bipartisan effort is underway to address this.

 

[paulitician]

Would you expect anything less in a Police State?