TexasCHLforum.com

The DEA has stolen hundreds of millions of $$ in the last decade. In a recent case, the person sued to get their money back - $25K was stolen by the DEA from someone who was on their way to buy a used truck in California - and the DEA was forced to return it......but kept $4000 of it because "prosecutors concluded that “a small percentage of the funds should be forfeited.""

.....because, despite a lack of due process for the person they stole it from, "they concluded"...........

They can, will, and do steal money all the time from people who are never charged with anything. They are dirty thieves, and they get away with it. It's outrageous.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016 ... /88474282/

Lambda Force wrote:I think I have a pretty good idea what the founding fathers would think of asset forfeiture without a trial.

nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law

Yep! I have VERY strong opinions about it because I hate injustice, in any form. I hate it even more when the person who perpetrates it claims to be God-fearing. MY Bible says:

Micah 6:8English Standard Version (ESV)

8 He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,[a]
and to walk humbly with your God?

What allegedly Christian cop who steals your assets without any due process is doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with his God? The answer is exactly none.

And do you know what legal fiction is used to "justify" it? The person who holds the assets hasn't been proven guilty in a court of law, but the assets have been determined to be guilty, and since the assets aren't people, they allegedly aren't protected by the Constitution, no no trial is necessary to determine the guilt. So if you have too much legal tender on your person, the legal tender MUST be guilty by association with drug sales or other criminal activity, because "normal" citizens don't carry that much legal tender.........which is of course HOGWASH!!!!

Whenever I take a road trip for more than a day or two, I ALWAYS carry a large amount of cash as an emergency measure - say $2K or so - in the event that I have major car or medical problems, and a credit card is either going to be maxed out, or a card won't be accepted. The cash was obtained entirely legally, over a long time, and it is a small part of my general preps, so I've had it for a long time. Any sensible person who is blessed with the resources to do so keeps a ready supply of cash on hand for emergencies. Under asset forfeiture law, that makes you suspicious, and so your emergency cash must get confiscated so that you never again commit the crime of being prepared for an emergency.

So if I get pulled over in Oklahoma by an overzealous OK State Trooper (where they have a BIG problem with illegitimate asset forfeitures that state legislators are working on a bill to ban it), and I'm automatically a criminal and treated like one because Bubba needs a new gadget for his squad car. The board does not allow the kind of language that crap deserves. And the way the law is written, it will in most cases cost you more in legal fees to get your money back.......AND THE POLICE KNOW IT!!!! So they feel completely comfortable in taking it, knowing there will most likely not be any consequences for their theft of your assets. AND.....in the unlikely event that someone is so PO'd that they DO take it to court, and they DO prevail, these thieving cops and DA's know that you'll only get pennies back on the dollar, because they'll make it SO expensive in legal fees to recoup all of your losses, that you'll settle for a reduced amount in exchange for quitting them of any further liability.

There is exactly ZERO moral difference between asset forfeiture in a large number of the cases, and what the mafia does. They are merely criminal thugs operating under the color of the law. I hate them, and I hope this law gets federally repealed.

Other than that, I have no particular opinion in the matter......

If you are a cop, and you suspect that someone is dealing crack or whatever, get them the old fashioned way. Asset forfeiture, in addition to being immoral and unconstitutional, is just plain lazy police work, in which police agencies are willing to substitute theft for catching criminals and arresting them.

It is a despicable practice. There is no bottom to how poorly I view the practice, or the lowdown thieves who practice it. They are immoral thugs of the worst order. They are the orcs of law enforcement. I think of their actions on the lives of most people the same way a farmer feels about wild hogs in his fields.

And before anyone jumps to some kind of defense of the practice as legitimate, let me remind you that in MOST cases where it happens, law enforcement never really knows if the person they stole from is guilty of a crime. Why? Becaused in most cases they don't CHARGE them with a crime, and there is NO TRIAL to determine guilt. They punish, without a trial, and regardless of ACTUAL guilt or innocence. You've not nothing to hide, you say? How will you feel about it when you get pulled over for driving while black (or redneck, or Hispanic, or whatever), and the cop decides that you couldn't possibly be a doctor or lawyer, and so that $75K Mercedes you're driving must have been obtained through illicit means, and he just TAKES it. Then it costs you at least $50K in legal fees to get back a used car that cost you $75K, but you couldn't sell today for more than $40K. And when you get your money, you've settled for 30K......or maybe even less.

THAT is what these fascists are counting on.

tomneal wrote:At first glance a couple of decades ago, Asset Forfeiture seemed like a good idea.
Now, I am older and wider, and have read about regular HONEST citizens that have been lassoed by this practice. I am against Asset Forfeiture as a 'crime fighting' tool. I'd like to see it ended in Texas and in the rest of the United States.

Unfortunately, I am wider too than I was back then.