sessions announces plans to increase cash seizures from citizens

[dherd]

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday said he'd be issuing a new directive this week aimed at increasing police seizures of cash and property.

“We hope to issue this week a new directive on asset forfeiture
we plan to develop policies to increase forfeitures".

Asset forfeiture is a disputed practice that allows law enforcement officials to permanently take money and goods from individuals suspected of crime.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/07/17/jeff-sessions-wants-police-to-take-more-cash-from-american-citizens/?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_sessions-seizures-340pm:homepage/story&utm_term=.d07d436f38ff

 

[ThunderCat98]

"sessions announces plans to increase cash seizures from criminals"

fify

 

[herdit44]

"sessions announces plans to increase cash seizures from criminals"

fify

except that's not true. you don't have to be convicted of a crime or even charged with a crime in most jurisdictions.

 

[Raoul Duke MU]

except that's not true. you don't have to be convicted of a crime or even charged with a crime in most jurisdictions.

It has been abused so much it isn't funny.

This may be a sign he is going after legal weed.

 

[ThunderCat98]

except that's not true. you don't have to be convicted of a crime or even charged with a crime in most jurisdictions.

You're wrong. This is a directive from the AG on FEDERAL forfeiture practices, and has nothing to do with state/local forfeiture. The feds generally don't seek forfeiture unless someone has been charged.

 

[herdit44]

You're wrong. This is a directive from the AG on FEDERAL forfeiture practices, and has nothing to do with state/local forfeiture. The feds generally don't seek forfeiture unless someone has been charged.

that's just not true.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-charged-with-a-crime/?utm_term=.4ccc28e371f5

 

[ThunderCat98]

I can only speak for their practices in KY, and I have never seen a forfeiture not attached to a charge.

 

[ThunderCat98]

Besides, the article is somewhat misleading. Just because property was forfeitted civilly DOES NOT mean there weren't contemporaneous criminal proceedings as the story suggests.

For example, drug dealer is arrested with 1 lb of Ice and $50,000. DEA charges him with PWID and institutes both criminal AND administrative/civil forfeiture proceedings simultaneously. Drug dealer doesn't contest civil forfeiture (which he will receive notice of and can ALWAYS do) and money is forfeited. Drug dealer later pleads to charge, and criminal forfeitire is dismissed, because the property has already been forfeited. Stats show a civil forfeiture unconnected to a criminal offense, which is misleading. Don't believe everything you read/hear, without knowing the underlying facts.

 

[Raoul Duke MU]

You're wrong. This is a directive from the AG on FEDERAL forfeiture practices, and has nothing to do with state/local forfeiture. The feds generally don't seek forfeiture unless someone has been charged.

I read it has to do with sharing the money with the locals. Charging users with conspiracy just to get a lead and keep their shit.

 

[ThunderCat98]

I read it has to do with sharing the money with the locals. Charging users with conspiracy just to get a lead and keep their shit.

Hate to break it to you, but the "charging users" narrative is garbage. The federal government doesn't have the time or resources to charge people that are simply end drug users, unless there are extraordinary circumstances. Moreover, someone who is strictly an end user can't be charged with a conspiracy as a mere buyer/seller relationship does not meet the necessary element of a criminal agreement. Do drug users get charged in federal court? Absolutely. That's because 95% of drug dealers are also users. Bottom line - if you've been charged in a federal drug conspiracy, it's because you distributed drugs to someone else.

 

[GK4Herd]

I've read so many horror stories about
property being confiscated under civil forfeiture laws without charges or due process that a ton of care needs to be taken in the direction this thing goes. You're naive if you believe that civil forfeiture isn't being abused. Human nature tells me that there are going to be municipalities or counties that use civil forfeiture as a funding mechanism for their police force. This shouldn't even be a political left/right volleyball. This is a constitutional issue.

Forfeiting property without a trial is so contrary to the tenets of our country that you'd have to be willfully influenced by the adoption of this issues by your already held political ideology to support it. This is a common sense, constitutionally based argument. You don't take property until you're convicted and found guilty by a judicial process.

Some of you guys are more interested in running your idrological opponents nose in stuff than you are in applying fairness and logic to the argument.

 

[Raoul Duke MU]

Hate to break it to you

You are correct, most drug users are technically distributors. Technically if I let you take a toke off my joint I am distributing drugs. If I sell you a little of my stash I am technically distributing. That's a long shot from what you claim and most of the public believes, that all these people arrested for dealing drugs are really dealing drugs. And neither the feds or states have the resources to continue this charade, but damned if they don't try.

I don't deny your experience, but don't deny mine either: I've seen enough nickel and dimers busted by "federal drug task forces" to know how this bullshit works. Is federal law still a 100 gram minimum for heroin? I can tell you of people arrested on federal charges that didn't actually conspire to deliver 300 hits of heroin. I mean it is laughable. These are straight up junkies. Then again, you might never have seen paperwork on such people, because they sure seem to get out of jail pretty quick although they had a 100k bond and didn't have a pot to piss in, and then never go to federal prison..or any prison. I figure they snitch. And your district in KY might not have taken their shit, but others do.

I imagine we can both agree that nothing we are doing is working.

 

[i am herdman]

I've read so many horror stories about
property being confiscated under civil forfeiture laws without charges or due process that a ton of care needs to be taken in the direction this thing goes. You're naive if you believe that civil forfeiture isn't being abused. Human nature tells me that there are going to be municipalities or counties that use civil forfeiture as a funding mechanism for their police force. This shouldn't even be a political left/right volleyball. This is a constitutional issue.

Forfeiting property without a trial is so contrary to the tenets of our country that you'd have to be willfully influenced by the adoption of this issues by your already held political ideology to support it. This is a common sense, constitutionally based argument. You don't take property until you're convicted and found guilty by a judicial process.

Some of you guys are more interested in running your idrological opponents nose in stuff than you are in applying fairness and logic to the argument.

So let's say you arrest a guy with a truckload of Heroin, pills, cocaine in Huntington and he has $750,000 in cash and other assets.

You don't want them to take it? How do you fight a drug problem if you can't take the dealers assets? While he is waiting his trial the money goes throughout his network and they keep selling your kids that rot gut.

 

[extragreen]

So let's say you arrest a guy with a truckload of Heroin, pills, cocaine in Huntington and he has $750,000 in cash and other assets.

You don't want them to take it?

Has he been convicted of a crime? No? Then the answer for me is no.

 

[i am herdman]

Has he been convicted of a crime? No? Then the answer for me is no.

So you don't freeze his money. You give the money and assets back to the drug dealers?

 

[herdit44]

So you don't freeze his money. You give the money and assets back to the drug dealers?

i'd be okay with actually freezing the money, but that's not what is happening in most cases. they're taking the money without a conviction and in a lot of cases even charges. if you want to change the process to be they can freeze money/assets related to crimes once someone has been charged with a crime, then if they're found not guilty releasing it back to them, but if guilty it is seized, i'd be cool with that.

 

[GK4Herd]

So let's say you arrest a guy with a truckload of Heroin, pills, cocaine in Huntington and he has $750,000 in cash and other assets.

You don't want them to take it? How do you fight a drug problem if you can't take the dealers assets? While he is waiting his trial the money goes throughout his network and they keep selling your kids that rot gut.

Come on...you know I'm not talking about the guy with a truckload of drugs. Those aren't the horror stories. The horror stories is the guy carrying &10,000 cash when pulled over because he was going to buy a used car from and individual or the guy carrying $17,000 to buy used kitchen equipment to start a new restaurant that maybe other than speeding had his money confiscated without cause.. I've read so many stories and articles about absurd confiscation that it's ridiculous. You can deal in hyperbole to make your worldview sensible, but a reasonable thinking person understands we're not talking about a person with s ton of drugs in their possession. This is is exactly what I mean when I say that ideological thinking puts blinders on you.

 

[extragreen]

So you don't freeze his money. You give the money and assets back to the drug dealers?

You confiscate the drugs. The person has been found to have illegal drugs. That's illegal. You don't take the money. It's not illegal to carry $750,000 in cash as far as I know.

 

[ThunderCat98]

I've seen enough nickel and dimers busted by "federal drug task forces" to know how this bullshit works. Is federal law still a 100 gram minimum for heroin? I can tell you of people arrested on federal charges that didn't actually conspire to deliver 300 hits of heroin.

First, if you are a nickel and dimer, you can't be held accountable for a quantity of drugs that isn't reasonably forseeable to you. The Sentencing Guidelines and ALL establshed caselaw prohibit that from happening. Moreover, no prosecutor is going to try and make that happen.

Now, if you're a mid-level dealer that sells grams of heroin that you've been buying in ounce quantities at a time from the same source of supply once a week for the past year are you going to be held accountable for all those drugs? Of course, but that's what you're responsible for, and you should be held accountable for it.

Same sceneario, but you know your supplier is moving 10-20 lbs a month because you've been there when his shipment arrives. Are you going to be held accountable for that? Maybe. Depends on whether or not those quantities are reasonably foreseeable to you based on your knowledge of the overall conspiracy. I say it qualifies as relevant conduct in that situation and you get hit with the full amount.

 

[ThunderCat98]

I've read so many horror stories about
property being confiscated under civil forfeiture laws without charges or due process that a ton of care needs to be taken in the direction this thing goes. You're naive if you believe that civil forfeiture isn't being abused. Human nature tells me that there are going to be municipalities or counties that use civil forfeiture as a funding mechanism for their police force. This shouldn't even be a political left/right volleyball. This is a constitutional issue.

Forfeiting property without a trial is so contrary to the tenets of our country that you'd have to be willfully influenced by the adoption of this issues by your already held political ideology to support it. This is a common sense, constitutionally based argument. You don't take property until you're convicted and found guilty by a judicial process.

Some of you guys are more interested in running your idrological opponents nose in stuff than you are in applying fairness and logic to the argument.

Again, I'm talking about federal forfeiture law. I don't doubt that forfeiture is abused at the state and local levels. I have Never seen it abused at the federal level.

 

[ThunderCat98]

i'd be okay with actually freezing the money, but that's not what is happening in most cases. they're taking the money without a conviction and in a lot of cases even charges. if you want to change the process to be they can freeze money/assets related to crimes once someone has been charged with a crime, then if they're found not guilty releasing it back to them, but if guilty it is seized, i'd be cool with that.

I've already explained how the numbers are skewed. If you refuse to look beyond an obviously biased/inflammatory headline, there's not really much more I can tell you.

 

[ThunderCat98]

You confiscate the drugs. The person has been found to have illegal drugs. That's illegal. You don't take the money. It's not illegal to carry $750,000 in cash as far as I know.

Uh, it is if it's drug proceeds.

 

[ThunderCat98]

Come on...you know I'm not talking about the guy with a truckload of drugs. Those aren't the horror stories. The horror stories is the guy carrying &10,000 cash when pulled over because he was going to buy a used car from and individual or the guy carrying $17,000 to buy used kitchen equipment to start a new restaurant that maybe other than speeding had his money confiscated without cause.. I've read so many stories and articles about absurd confiscation that it's ridiculous. You can deal in hyperbole to make your worldview sensible, but a reasonable thinking person understands we're not talking about a person with s ton of drugs in their possession. This is is exactly what I mean when I say that ideological thinking puts blinders on you.

These people can always challenge the forfeiture, with or without hiring an attorney. Which, btw, I'm sure someone who has $10-15K just laying around can afford to do. Know why they don't most of the time? Because the money was obtained through illegal means, or through legal means "under the table" and they've likely committed some type of tax fraud by never reporting it as income.

Three questions:

How many people do you personally know that have had money taken from them through forfeiture?

Was this money obtained through legal means? If so, how do you know?

 

[ThunderCat98]

See below for a brief primer on how federal forfeiture works.

https://www.justice.gov/usam/usam-9-112000-administrative-and-judicial-forfeiture

 

[ThunderCat98]

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...CB8wAQ&usg=AFQjCNEuxk3UjWo8GfcV0hHKu0zZElYziA

 

[Raoul Duke MU]

First, if you are a nickel and dimer, you can't be held accountable for a quantity of drugs that isn't reasonably forseeable to you. The Sentencing Guidelines and ALL establshed caselaw prohibit that from happening. Moreover, no prosecutor is going to try and make that happen.

Now, if you're a mid-level dealer that sells grams of heroin that you've been buying in ounce quantities at a time from the same source of supply once a week for the past year are you going to be held accountable for all those drugs? Of course, but that's what you're responsible for, and you should be held accountable for it.

Same sceneario, but you know your supplier is moving 10-20 lbs a month because you've been there when his shipment arrives. Are you going to be held accountable for that? Maybe. Depends on whether or not those quantities are reasonably foreseeable to you based on your knowledge of the overall conspiracy. I say it qualifies as relevant conduct in that situation and you get hit with the full amount.

I know all this as the law and procedure. I am telling you something you may not know as practice in other districts. I am not trying to be argumentative. Of course no federal prosecution is going to make the nickel and dimer stick, but in practice the arrests are still made and cases started in some districts. I've seen cases around Huntington go exactly like this. The feds are simply cultivating rats. I've seen too many names in the paper as a federal charge and they never go away, federal or state (as in if the feds drop the case the state doesn't even pick it up). Explain that.

Did you work in the Western or Eastern district in KY?

 

[Raoul Duke MU]

So let's say you arrest a guy with a truckload of Heroin, pills, cocaine in Huntington and he has $750,000 in cash and other assets.

You don't want them to take it? How do you fight a drug problem if you can't take the dealers assets? While he is waiting his trial the money goes throughout his network and they keep selling your kids that rot gut.

Upon conviction, sure.

I don't want local, state, or federal cops taking a goddamn 1992 Honda and a hundred dollars for anything.

 

[extragreen]

Uh, it is if it's drug proceeds.

You don't know that, and neither does anyone else.

 

[MStap]

I used to deal with this in the Huntington area. The majority of the time the cash was voluntarily forfeited by the Defendants as part of a deal to get them out pending indictment or get their bond reduced. The real drug dealers were smart enough to use it as a bargaining chip.

With that said, I think there are some serious constitutional issues with the government taking someones property without due process.

 

[Raoul Duke MU]

I used to deal with this in the Huntington area. The majority of the time the cash was voluntarily forfeited by the Defendants as part of a deal to get them out pending indictment or get their bond reduced.

And then how many of those cases didn't wind up being shit? Dismissed, pled down to nothing. It's legalized bribery if that happens, IMO.

And I agree, serious constitutional issues.

 

[ThunderCat98]

To date, SCOTUS disagrees with you.

 

[Raoul Duke MU]

To date, SCOTUS disagrees with you.

Eh, they didn't do shit for Dred Scott, either.

 

[herdfan06]

So you don't freeze his money. You give the money and assets back to the drug dealers?

If they are not convicted, yes.

I used to deal with this in the Huntington area. The majority of the time the cash was voluntarily forfeited by the Defendants as part of a deal to get them out pending indictment or get their bond reduced. The real drug dealers were smart enough to use it as a bargaining chip.

With that said, I think there are some serious constitutional issues with the government taking someones property without due process.

So it is an easy way to pay off the government and not get into legal trouble? Do you not find it scary that law enforcement is profiting by not fully enforcing the law and effectively turning a blind eye?

 

[i am herdman]

Come on...you know I'm not talking about the guy with a truckload of drugs. Those aren't the horror stories. The horror stories is the guy carrying &10,000 cash when pulled over because he was going to buy a used car from and individual or the guy carrying $17,000 to buy used kitchen equipment to start a new restaurant that maybe other than speeding had his money confiscated without cause.. I've read so many stories and articles about absurd confiscation that it's ridiculous. You can deal in hyperbole to make your worldview sensible, but a reasonable thinking person understands we're not talking about a person with s ton of drugs in their possession. This is is exactly what I mean when I say that ideological thinking puts blinders on you.

Can you provide real world examples of that? I don't know of that many people(and I deal in business large and small everyday) carrying around that much cash to go buy stuff.

Pulled over for speeding and their car is searched(which is somewhat odd in itself) and they have 17,000 in cash on hand to go buy equipment.

Not saying it happens but I would imagine it is damn odd.

 

[i am herdman]

You confiscate the drugs. The person has been found to have illegal drugs. That's illegal. You don't take the money. It's not illegal to carry $750,000 in cash as far as I know.

It is if you made it selling drugs and are running a drug dealing operation.

 

[i am herdman]

I know all this as the law and procedure. I am telling you something you may not know as practice in other districts. I am not trying to be argumentative. Of course no federal prosecution is going to make the nickel and dimer stick, but in practice the arrests are still made and cases started in some districts. I've seen cases around Huntington go exactly like this. The feds are simply cultivating rats. I've seen too many names in the paper as a federal charge and they never go away, federal or state (as in if the feds drop the case the state doesn't even pick it up). Explain that.

Did you work in the Western or Eastern district in KY?

Do you blame them? God almighty that shit is killing people right and left up there. It needs cleaned up. Time to get tough.

 

[herdfan06]

I know this has been posted before, but here it is again.

 

[extragreen]

It is if you made it selling drugs and are running a drug dealing operation.

You are ASSUMING the money was made dealing illegal drugs. I dont think someone's money should be confiscated on an assumption. You just cashed a couple paychecks, bought a couple ounces of pot and have $3000 in cash on you as you drive home. You get pulled over, you think your $3000 in cash should be confiscated?

 

[GK4Herd]

To answer several of you asking for examples...I've personally posted articles three or four times on this forum in the past of forfeiture abuse. But let me humor you. Actually take the time to read several of these articles. Civil forfeiture is a basic right issue and no way should it be something that's argued along ideological lines.

Seriously...read a few of these...


http://dailycaller.com/2015/01/30/the-7-most-egregious-examples-of-civil-asset-forfeiture/

http://listverse.com/2015/06/29/10-egregious-abuses-of-civil-asset-forfeiture/

https://www.policemisconduct.net/explainers/civil-asset-forfeiture/

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/08/12/taken

http://dailysignal.com/2015/09/29/4-startling-forfeiture-abuse-stories/

 

[GK4Herd]

And by the way...civil forfeiture is a pet cause for the Heritage Foundation. You can't get any more conservative than the HF. Are some of you so bent on soaking in schadenfreude that you can't see this for what it is...a basic rights issue? Civil forfeiture is such a blatant abuse of our civil liberties it's mind boggling to think that anyone could come down in support of it.

I want to catch the bad guys as much as anyone, but not at the expense of fairness and civil liberties.