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  Spoils of Drug War Forfeitures Prove Too Lucrative
Posted by FoM on March 26, 2002 at 19:59:27 PT
Opinion 
Source: The Monitor TX 

justice Not since Edward Teach first prowled the high seas in pursuit of merchant ships as a “privateer” for the British crown has a war on commerce been so profitable.

What separated him from today’s drug warriors, though, is that Teach eventually crossed the line into out-and-out piracy as the notorious outlaw Blackbeard, ultimately to be hunted down and killed. The agencies that prosecute America’s war on drugs need fear no reprisal.

They seize and benefit from substantial loot — houses, boats, cars, planes, etc., along with wads and wads of cash — with the law’s full blessing.

And they don’t even have to prove the guilt of the alleged drug dealers whose ill-gotten gains have been impounded. Needless to say, no one who hoisted the Jolly Roger over the Spanish Main ever had it so good.

In Colorado, two state lawmakers are introducing a measure to rein in this forfeiture power when wielded by law officers in that state. The move follows legislation by Congress a couple of years ago limiting federal agents’ ability to seize assets.

Forfeiture power, initiated on the hopeful premise it could undermine drug traffickers by depriving them of their lucre, has become a cynical game on the part of government. The ability to take possessions of alleged wrongdoers — it doesn’t even have to involve the drug trade; it could be used against anyone presumed to be involved in any felonious activity — has turned into not only an unjustifiable penalty but also a reliable, and relied-upon, source of revenue for law enforcement.

One lawmaker says police have seized cars, cell phones, jewelry and guns and then used them in subsequent undercover work — or sold the property and used the proceeds for pizzas, parties and, in the case of one police department, an aquarium.

The pending Colorado legislation would redirect the property and proceeds from forfeitures toward services such as treatment programs and to innocent co-owners of the seized property, such as family members. Indeed, there have been cases around the country in which children were deprived of their homes because dad was thought to be a dope peddler.

The reason authorities have been able to get away with it is that the assets are disposed of under civil rather than criminal laws, meaning the state has less to prove in court than it does in pressing criminal charges against the suspects themselves.

That also means that even if the property’s owner is tried and acquitted, he doesn’t necessarily recover his belongings because it’s a separate legal action. Often, the legal costs in fighting the civil case are prohibitive and sometimes, by the time the criminal case is resolved, the property as been auctioned off — with proceeds going to the local constabulary.

Accordingly, the legislation aims to shift the burden of proof for civil forfeitures to the government and to raise the legal standard for seizures prior to a conviction. It would require that, in most cases, a property owner be convicted of a crime before any forfeiture. Texas and other states should follow Colorado’s lead and protect property from being seized in cases where no crime has been proved.

Law enforcement agencies’ resources should not derive from arrests that didn’t even result in a conviction. That, in effect, penalizes the innocent. Let’s not sully law enforcement’s noble mission by reducing it to thinly veiled piracy.

Complete Title: Spoils of Drug War Forfeitures Prove Too Lucrative for Police

Source: The Monitor (TX)
Published: Tuesday, March 26, 2002
Copyright: 2002 The Monitor
Contact: letters@themonitor.com
Website: http://www.themonitor.com

Related Articles & Web Site:

F.E.A.R.
http://www.fear.org/

Who Gave Your Rights Away?
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11438.shtml

Drug War Redux - Reason Magazine
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10983.shtml


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Comment #6 posted by Lehder on March 28, 2002 at 04:15:04 PT
a medicine to feed the disease
Indeed, there have been cases around the country in which children were deprived of their homes because dad was thought to be a dope peddler.

The article offers Colorado's newly proposed legislation as a solution:

The pending Colorado legislation would redirect the property and proceeds from forfeitures toward services such as treatment programs and to innocent co-owners of the seized property, such as family members.

Innocent co-owner? In an acrimonious divorce, for example, an innocent co-owning husband will plant dope on his wife or simply whisper that she sells dope and become an innocent full-owner.

The War on Drugs is designed to destroy society by destroying, one by one, all human relationships. It has decimated the lives of millions of honest and productive people and empowered the most vicious and unworthy people in country with brutal authority over all others. At the top of the heap we now present to the world our nuclear lunatic George Bush. The final result of the War on Drugs will be nuclear war. Thanks to all the mindless assholes who support the intolerance of a Drug Free America.

While these tactics have been routinely used by police states to control their populations, they can also be a very effective means of destroying a free society from within. It should alarm anyone who values their freedom that we're now seeing these same tactics being put into practice in America today. Consider the tactics that are being employed in what is claimed to be a war on drugs, but which is increasingly becoming a war on the basic principles of our free society.

It started with a campaign to demonize drug dealers - a class of citizens who only exist because prohibition has created an artificially profitable market for their products. All drug dealers could be instantly eliminated by eliminating the socially destructive prohibition that props up their market, but that would also end the justification for eroding civil liberties. Instead the tactic of choice is to flood the media with messages promoting as heroes those who spy on their neighbors and turn in drug dealers. Claiming to be motivated by concern for the safety of children, the schools are increasingly being used to turn students into informants for the authorities.

Having broken down the principle of respecting each other's privacy with the manufactured fear of the drug war as justification, it's proving an easy step to expand the practice to other imagined offenses. The media treats as heroes those who spy on their neighbors and make accusations of child abuse, improper care of pets, or engaging in a growing list of proscribed activities. What gets far less media coverage is that many of these accusations turn out to be unfounded. Nor does the media like to report on the amount of trouble our increasingly intrusive government causes for the falsely accused.

Snooping and gossiping have now been elevated into honored functions of protecting society from imagined threats. Those among us who have long wanted to dictate to others how to live their lives now believe they've been empowered to persecute anyone who doesn't conform to the dictator's view of a proper life-style. And these former busybodies turned defenders of society are very eager to take on this imagined new duty.

Each intrusion on our civil liberties appears a worthy cause on a superficial level. But none are of greater value than the basic principles of a free society that are compromised when citizens begin to spy on each other and become agents of authoritarianism. Every society that has allowed its citizens to be turned against each other has degraded into some form of authoritarianism.

http://prorev.com/nationofspies.htm

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Comment #5 posted by kaptinemo on March 27, 2002 at 06:03:03 PT:

I wonder if there are treatment programs
for kleptomaniacs addicted to DrugWar forfeiture funding? Withdrawal symptoms must be terribly painful...but not anywhere near as painful as it's been for the true victims of these 'victims' of their own greed.

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Comment #4 posted by Jose Melendez on March 27, 2002 at 04:47:41 PT
trouble finding the original
comment # 3 was from:
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n151/a11.html?12847

having trouble finding the original (complete) story...

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Comment #3 posted by Jose Melendez on March 27, 2002 at 04:46:25 PT
great story!
As a drug warrior for the Cumberland County Sheriffs Office, I saw countless innocent people lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and property.  Until the authorities arrested my son for selling marijuana out of my car, which he did without my knowledge and certainly without my consent, and seized my car, I had no idea how vulnerable innocent property owners can be. 

New Jersey's forfeiture law encourages police departments to take property for their own enrichment, even when the owner has not been accused of any crime.  Only when the tables were turned did I see what's wrong with the system. 

As a member of the drug task force, I was regularly sent on raids to capture drugs, cash and other property from suspected offenders.  I often wondered why we were never going after the big guys.  Then it clicked: It was more profitable to go after a lot of small-time dealers who didn't have the resources to fight us rather than to focus on a few bigger guys.  The emphasis on civil asset forfeiture is on easy profit, not justice, and certainly not on stopping the flow of drugs into our communities. 

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Comment #2 posted by The GCW on March 26, 2002 at 20:28:19 PT
Did someone say Lucrative?
"Don't believe the media!", DISHONESTY WON'T WIN WAR ON DRUGS: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n588/a07.html?397. Yes, there's real money in the drug war. Unfortunately, most of it goes to the bad guys. And that's the real truth.

DRUG WARRIORS ARE DODGING CONSTITUTION http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n575/a03.html?397.

And this one - POLICE SEIZURES VIOLATE INNOCENT OWNERS' RIGHTS

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n151/a11.html?12847 is a story about a cop who got his car forfeited by the cops and did not like it.

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Comment #1 posted by The GCW on March 26, 2002 at 20:11:22 PT
Colorado
has quite a few news stories out now about this issue. This one caught my mind, with its ignoidal backward thinking.

Pueblo's district attorney said Thursday that his office can't afford to buy computers, cameras and other equipment without proceeds from property confiscated under Colorado's civil forfeiture law.

Gus Sandstrom Jr. said the law is working just fine, and he doesn't want the legislature to change it.

"We're desperate for dollars. We can't keep up with the crooks without the forfeitures," Sandstrom said. "We use the money to make up for the training the city and county can't pay for and to buy equipment.

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n572/a01.html?11919 PUEBLO DA INSISTS FORFEITURE LAW NEEDED



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