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Civil Liberties
Related: About this forumJustin Amash has introduced a bill to end civil asset forfeiture nationwide.
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@justinamash
has introduced a bill to end civil asset forfeiture nationwide.
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Justin Amash has introduced a bill to end civil asset forfeiture nationwide. (Original Post)
mahatmakanejeeves
Dec 2020
OP
Very nice ... thank you Mr. Amash ... I agree it should be ended as a practice ...
mr_lebowski
Dec 2020
#1
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)1. Very nice ... thank you Mr. Amash ... I agree it should be ended as a practice ...
Warpy
(113,130 posts)2. It ended in NM some years ago. It had turned into a racket
as it has in police departments across the country. Cops were helping themselves to ski trips and lots of fancy alcohol on the stolen property of citizens and visitors, alike.
It was a horrible, unconstitutional policy and it needs to go.
hatrack
(60,821 posts)3. Excellent idea!
Just as private prisons incentivize locking people up on bullshit charges to make money, civil forfeiture incentivizes bullshit arrests so that cops can fucking steal.
A Pennsylvania judge was sentenced to 28 years in prison in connection to a bribery scandal that roiled the state's juvenile justice system. Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. was convicted of taking $1 million in bribes from developers of juvenile detention centers. The judge then presided over cases that would send juveniles to those same centers. The case came to be known as "kids-for-cash."
The AP adds:
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court tossed about 4,000 convictions issued by Ciavarella between 2003 and 2008, saying he violated the constitutional rights of the juveniles, including the right to legal counsel and the right to intelligently enter a plea.
Ciavarella, 61, was tried and convicted of racketeering charges earlier this year. His attorneys had asked for a "reasonable" sentence in court papers, saying, in effect, that he's already been punished enough.
EDIT
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/08/11/139536686/pa-judge-sentenced-to-28-years-in-massive-juvenile-justice-bribery-scandal
EDIT
The countys district attorney, a fifty-seven-year-old woman with feathered Charlies Angels hair named Lynda K. Russell, arrived an hour later. Russell, who moonlighted locally as a country singer, told Henderson and Boatright that they had two options. They could face felony charges for money laundering and child endangerment, in which case they would go to jail and their children would be handed over to foster care. Or they could sign over their cash to the city of Tenaha, and get back on the road. No criminal charges shall be filed, a waiver she drafted read, and our children shall not be turned over to CPS, or Child Protective Services.
Where are we? Boatright remembers thinking. Is this some kind of foreign country, where theyre selling peoples kids off? Holding her sixteen-month-old on her hip, she broke down in tears.
Later, she learned that cash-for-freedom deals had become a point of pride for Tenaha, and that versions of the tactic were used across the country. Be safe and keep up the good work, the city marshal wrote to Washington, following a raft of complaints from out-of-town drivers who claimed that they had been stopped in Tenaha and stripped of cash, valuables, and, in at least one case, an infant child, without clear evidence of contraband.
Outraged by their experience in Tenaha, Jennifer Boatright and Ron Henderson helped to launch a class-action lawsuit challenging the abuse of a legal doctrine known as civil-asset forfeiture. Have you looked it up? Boatright asked me when I met her this spring at Houstons H&H Saloon, where she runs Steak Night every Monday. She was standing at a mattress-size grill outside. Itll blow your mind.
EDIT
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/08/12/taken?source=search_google_dsa_paid&gclid=CjwKCAiAoOz-BRBdEiwAyuvA68KJYEi76YlW00N7vs39Up5HNlRtz2GeIA1ywso0U-3JskoBBXv7zRoCphAQAvD_BwE
wryter2000
(47,377 posts)4. Isn't he the one who used to be a Republican?
Good for him.
Lucky Luciano
(11,410 posts)7. Yep. He's mostly terrible on issues, but he is principled...
...and is sometimes actually correct on an issue or two like this one.
KT2000
(20,822 posts)5. Washington state is one of the worst
This site should alarm WA residents as even 3rd parties could get hit.
https://ij.org/pfp-state-pages/pfp-washington/#:~:text=State%20Forfeiture%20Laws,in%20order%20to%20forfeit%20it.
Karadeniz
(23,388 posts)6. Good!