Americans no longer have to be guilty to be stripped of their property, rights and liberties\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nIt\u2019s been called by some \u201ca modern-day form of highway robbery,\u201d but the Supreme Court nevertheless has gone along with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s the practice by police of using delay tactics when they confiscate cash, jewelry, cars and other valuables from people who sometimes are completely innocent of any offense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They are \u201casset forfeiture\u201d cases and often involve no criminal charge against the property owner, according to a report from the Rutherford Institute, which fights in America\u2019s courts for constitutional, religious and civil rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The latest high court action came in a 6-3 decision in Culley v. Marshall, where the justices held that there are \u201cno due process protections for citizens in asset forfeiture proceedings to have an early court hearing to contest the government keeping possession of their seized property while they await trial.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lawyers for the Rutherford were joined by those from the ACLU and Cato Institute to argue that an early hearing was needed to \u201cprotect citizens against the government\u2019s delay tactics, which make it difficult for individuals innocent of any wrongdoing to recover their property in a timely manner from police who stand to profit from the forfeiture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Justice Neil Gorsuch said it is a problem to have police delay proceedings and keep citizens\u2019 private property for as long as a year or more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said that could coerce the owners to \u201csettle\u201d the dispute by paying a penalty for property they need for their work, or that they love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the majority overruled him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAmericans no longer have to be guilty to be stripped of their property, rights and liberties,\u201d warned constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. \u201cYou just have to possess something the government wants.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The institute explained, \u201cAsset forfeiture has become a \u2018booming business\u2019 for the government, with federal forfeitures alone having brought in $2.5 billion during 2018. Civil asset forfeiture is a practice where government agents (usually the police) seize private property they \u2018suspect\u2019 may be connected to criminal activity, then, whether or not any crime is actually proven to have taken place, the government keeps the citizen\u2019s property, often divvying it up with the local police who did the initial seizure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The government claims in such cases that some sort of property is \u201ctied\u201d to a crime, and then takes it. Then it forces the owner to prove the \u201cinnocence\u201d of that property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the government sets up hoops and obstacles for the owners to negotiate in trying to regain their own property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cChallenging these takings in court can cost an owner more than the value of the confiscated property itself, which, as Justice Gorsuch\u2019s concurrence explained, is why some agencies reportedly place special emphasis on seizing low-value items and relatively small amounts of cash,\u201d the institute reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The case developed when police in Alabama confiscated cars belong to Halima Culley and Lena Sutton which had been used by other individuals who were accused of drug possession.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From reports there are certain police agencies that have been abusing this capability when doing highway stops looking for drug traffickers. And I’ve read a few cases where people who were not doing anything illegal had a hard time getting their property back after traffic stops. So the way the country is moving towards a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7439"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7440,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7439\/revisions\/7440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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