Surely a conservative Supreme Court will rein in police confiscation of private property?? HAHAHA - no.
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Yeah, it can take a long time when the citizens sit on their hands and do absolutely nothing about it for about a year and a half, despite their receiving timely legal documents regarding it.
The State of Alabama filed a forfeiture complaint against Culley’s car on February 27, 2019, just 10 days after the seizure of the car. But Culley waited six months before answering that complaint. And she waited another year— until September 21, 2020—before raising an innocent owner defense in a motion for summary judgment. Soon thereafter, on October 30, 2020, an Alabama state court granted Culley’s motion and ordered the return of her car.
Sutton similarly moved slowly in her forfeiture proceeding. Alabama brought a forfeiture case against Sutton’s car on March 6, 2019, just 13 days after the seizure of the car. Sutton initially failed to appear in the case, causing the state court to enter a default judgment for Alabama. Sutton later requested that the state court set aside that judgment, and the state court did so. Sutton then submitted a brief answer and served discovery requests on Alabama, but Sutton otherwise took no action until the state court set a date for the forfeiture trial. On April 10, 2020, three weeks before the scheduled trial date, Sutton finally moved for summary judgment on the ground that she was an innocent owner. Soon thereafter, on May 28, 2020, the state court granted her motion, and she recovered her car. ...
Shouldn't be on them at all. "Raised an innocent owner defense in motion for summary judgment" is another way of saying "spent a few thousand dollars in lawyer fees".
But sure - let the record show that the victims were properly blamed.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dane_in_LA
Shouldn't be on them at all. "Raised an innocent owner defense in motion for summary judgment" is another way of saying "spent a few thousand dollars in lawyer fees".
But sure - let the record show that the victims were properly blamed.
If there had not been illegal drugs in the cars, then the cars wouldn't have been seized to begin with. These people are not victims.
Can somebody please explain the SCOTUS ruling and the underlying case to me? I don't understand it.
It appears to be that SCOTUS ruled that a car owner does not have a Constitutional right to a preliminary hearing regarding property ownership in forfeiture cases.
I have always hated asset forfeiture laws as I feel they violate the 5th Amendment " against the taking of property by the government without compensation." I do agree that property purchased as a result of a crime -- you stole $1 million and buy a Ferrari with some of that money for example -- then the purchased Ferrari is basically a stolen Ferrari, since the purchase was with stolen money. All you did is convert the stolen money into a Ferrari, and so it is not really your legally obtained property and so you are forfeit that property.
Otherwise, any car you legally purchased through legal means, would not be forfeit just because you used it in a crime or had criminal contraband in the car. But I lost that battle years ago when the courts said it was legal.
In this SCOTUS case, it seems the plaintiff was claiming that their should be a preliminary hearing over ownership.
Man is caught in his car with cocaine. His car is subject to forfeiture.
But if son is caught in Dad's car with cocaine, Dad should not be punished by losing his car due to son's crime. At the end if the entire trial process, car gets returned to Dad.
It sounds like the plaintiff was saying, the determination of if the car is subject to forfeiture should be made up front in a preliminary hearing long before the criminal trial over the underlying crime, and the car returned to the "innocent" party who's car got caught up in the potentially guilty party's crime.
That makes perfect sense to me. Congress could fix that by requiring a preliminary hearing in the case of asset forfeiture but it is not the role of SCOTUS to create that law from whole cloth. SCOTUS said that the Constitution does not require a preliminary hearing for that. And so it does not. Congress can easily fix this by saying that a prompt preliminary hearing is required to first determing the status of property in advance of the criminal trial.
I hate asset forfeiture anyway, except where assets were obtained by criminal act or with money obtained by criminal act. I still think it is or should be prohibited to lose your property just because the property is associate with some crime committed.
Most asset forfeiture is jut plain wrong and is corruptly done just to enrich police departments. At the very least, police should not be able to financially gain from asset forfeiture, to remove their conflict of interest to decide to seize assets.
If there had not been illegal drugs in the cars, then the cars wouldn't have been seized to begin with. These people are not victims.
You should never lose your property just because a crime is associate with it. You shouldn't lose your home because you stabbed someone in your home. That is stupid.
You shouldn't lose your car because you smoked a blunt in it.
The only time you should lose your car is when it is proven that you purchased the car with ill gotten gains. that is it. It should not be because drugs were found in the car or you used it as a getaway car, or used it in a crime.
At the very least, police should not be able to financially gain from asset forfeiture, to remove their conflict of interest to decide to seize assets.
Location: 23.7 million to 162 million miles North of Venus
24,009 posts, read 12,794,550 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Igor Blevin
You should never lose your property just because a crime is associate with it. You shouldn't lose your home because you stabbed someone in your home. That is stupid.
You shouldn't lose your car because you smoked a blunt in it.
The only time you should lose your car is when it is proven that you purchased the car with ill gotten gains. that is it. It should not be because drugs were found in the car or you used it as a getaway car, or used it in a crime.
I fully agree. Asset forfeiture laws are wrong in every sense of the word, but right now AF is legal under the law. And I don't know of anyone, state or federal and on either side of the aisle who is trying to stop this practice.
If you win big in a caseno you get paid in green cash. You better hope you don't get stopped on the way to the bank.
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