January 26, 2010
Creeping Totalitarianism Department
The Continuing Evil of Civil Asset Forfeiture
By the way, Radley Balko is not just a guy who knows how to find wacky videos. He's also one of the most interesting investigative reporters working today. His latest piece is about some of the shocking things being done in the area of civil asset forfeiture.
I've been saying for a while that asset forfeiture is theft by government employees, but what I didn't realize is that they've started to privatize the thievery:
Timothy Bookwalter, the elected chief prosecutor for Putnam County, Indiana, did not represent the county in its effort to keep Anthony Smelley's money. Nor did anyone else in his office. Instead, the case was handled by Christopher Gambill, a local attorney in private practice. Gambill manages civil forfeiture cases for several Indiana counties, and he gets to keep a portion of what he wins in court. "My contingency for my own county is a quarter; for the others it's a third," Gambill says.
Read the whole thing.
3 Comments
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Forfeiture is becoming more and more pervasive in this country. If you want
to see the 800+ pages of property our country has seized and is permanently trying to take from its citizens see "forfeiture.gov". There are
more than 200 Federal Statutes that can result in a forfeiture---the Gov.
can seize on mere probable cause. If you have the audacity to file a claim,
the Gov. will then file a judicial lawsuit against the property---requiring you
to hire a lawyer to handle motions, discovery, trial, etc.---or your property
could get named in a criminal indictment---and your only day in court will be
at the conclusion of the criminal trial, in the "ancillary hearing". In either case, it could be YEARS before a judge will even be presented with your side of the story,,,,and we call this "due process"
The whole idea that the government can proceed against a piece of property without having to worry about the rights of the owner is an absurd fiction. I don't understand why it's taken seriously, other than that the people doing it have all the guns.
I think that there does exist some due process claims that are implicated by civil forfeiture claims, particularly the fact that these laws are vague enough that they are enforced in arbitrary and discriminatory ways, and the fact that these laws contain unfair presumptions that claimants find difficult or impossible to rebut.