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Saturday, July 22, 2017

The Awfulness of Jeff Sessions This Week

Earlier this week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a new initiative at the DOJ to expand Civil Asset Forfeiture.  In his statements, he appears to either not know what he's talking about, or he thinks we're too stupid to know what he's talking about.  My money is the latter option.
"[W]e hope to issue this week a new directive on asset forfeiture—especially for drug traffickers," Sessions said. "With care and professionalism, we plan to develop policies to increase forfeitures. No criminal should be allowed to keep the proceeds of their crime. Adoptive forfeitures are appropriate as is sharing with our partners." [Bold added - SiG]
The thing that makes this Epic Fail-level wrong is that bolded text; in particular, asset forfeiture is being used against people who have never been charged with a crime, and are never charged with a crime.  I don't think many people have a problem with a criminal convicted in a fair trial being assessed monetary penalties.  Criminal punishments like "10 months or $100,000" are not unusual (those are made up numbers as an example).

Sessions in particular poked at drug cartels.  Avoiding the ethics of the whole War on Some Drugs, if the DOJ were to convict the head of one of the cartels in a fair trial in the US courts, and as part of the sentence, the cartel forfeited some money/cars/property that were seized during the arrest, that doesn't bother me much.  The problem with civil forfeiture is things like the Motel Caswell of Tewksbury, MA, a case I wrote about back in 2012.
This town’s police department is conniving with the federal government to circumvent Massachusetts law — which is less permissive than federal law — to seize his livelihood and retirement asset. In the lawsuit titled United States of America v. 434 Main Street, Tewksbury, Massachusetts, the government is suing an inanimate object, the motel Caswell’s father built in 1955. The U.S. Department of Justice intends to seize it, sell it for perhaps $1.5 million and give up to 80 percent of that to the Tewksbury Police Department, whose budget is just $5.5 million. The Caswells have not been charged with, let alone convicted of, a crime. They are being persecuted by two governments eager to profit from what is antiseptically called the “equitable sharing” of the fruits of civil forfeiture, a process of government enrichment that often is indistinguishable from robbery.
Got that?  The government sued an address - an inanimate object.  They never charged or convicted the owners, the Caswells; they didn't even accuse them of any wrongdoing whatsoever.  They were ruining this family strictly to collect money very loosely related to drug crimes (something like .05% of the rooms they rented out since 1994 were used by a drug dealer - without approval, of course).  Thankfully when the case made it to court, the government's case was dismissed.

Around Daytona, Florida, in the 1990s, sheriff Bob Vogel was notorious for stopping cars on I-95.  If you had cash, you must be a drug dealer, so the cash was seized.  Drivers were virtually never charged with a crime, guilt was therefore never proven and the police made over $8 Million dollars for a department fund.

Just excerpting the stories I've already told here would make this my longest post ever - and I wouldn't scratch the surface of this subject.  So going back to Reason magazine's story:
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), a consistent Republican advocate for reforming asset forfeiture laws, said in a statement to Reason Monday: "As Justice Thomas has previously said, there are serious constitutional concerns regarding modern civil asset forfeiture practices. The Department has an obligation to consider due process constraints in crafting its civil asset forfeiture policies."

Lee was referring to conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' notable dissent in an asset forfeiture case this June. Thomas wrote that forfeiture operations "frequently target the poor and other groups least able to defend their interests in forfeiture proceedings."
Justice Thomas hit the nail exactly.  Governments don't go after corporations that permanent staffs of full-time lawyers.  They go after people like the Caswells.  They go after people like Mandrel Stuart, who was carrying $17,550 in cash for equipment and supplies for his barbecue restaurant.  He eventually hired a lawyer, and a jury gave him his money back, but he lost his restaurant while fighting the government.  They go after people like James Lieto who had the FBI seize $392,000 from his business because the money was being carried by an armored-car firm he had hired that had fallen under a federal investigation. He was never charged with any crime, nor was it alleged he knew the armored car company was under investigation, yet he had to spend thousands in legal fees to get his money back.

That's the typical Modus Operandi.  They go after "little guys", and take whatever they can.  They seize a pile of money, assuming the victim will think it's not worth the gamble of hiring a lawyer to fight for their money.  Governments bully small guys who can't afford teams of high-powered lawyers; those "least able to defend their interests" as Justice Thomas put it.  They're easier to screw over. 

Recall that in 2014, for the first time ever, the U.S. government seized more property from Americans than burglars did

I've found over the years that civil forfeiture is pretty much despised by all sides of the political spectrum.  Lefties hate it as much as righties hate it - for example, here's a link to HuffPo talking about Florida's 2016 law making civil forfeiture harder.  That would make it seem like it should be possible to try to get congress to shut Sessions down, or even the President to tell him to "sit down and shut up".  Reason points out that Sessions was a prosecutor and has always been a supporter of Civil Forfeiture, so this isn't surprising.  (It seems only police departments and prosecutors - who benefit from free money - seem to like the idea)  Sessions clearly needs a "clue by 4" upside the head to convince him to back off.


7 comments:

  1. I have to agree with you SiG. I always thought that through the justice system assets of criminals could be seized as part of the criminal procedure. That law enforcement can do this to ordinary citizens is tantamount to being mugged, literally robbed at gun point because what are you going to do? Even if you argue, resist, you wind up in jail or worse for your efforts.

    So we go from the Holder/Lynch DOJ to this one doing these kinds of things. Where is Trump to put squelch this kind of crappola? This should not stand, and it is worth media attention. But noooo, Russia! I don't really care for groups like the ACLU but where are they in these kinds of cases? What about the so-called Freedom/Liberty minded legal defense groups? Where the hell are you guys??

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  2. I agree and would take it one step further. No monetary fines for any infraction/crime. Traffic laws appear to have the single purpose of enriching local coffers. A very tiny town near me with about 500 yards of jurisdiction over the interstate funds half the towns expenses with traffic tickets on the freeway. I would imagine that if we put that effort into actual law enforcement people lives could be saved, rapes and robberies prevented and the police would garner more respect. If you want to punish a speeder, for instance, than assess them points on their drivers license. BUT if the speed limit is intentionally lowered for the express purpose of creating a speed trap I think that the police and political entity that created it should go to jail.

    Having said all this there is nothing I can find that is redeeming about drugs that are presently illegal.

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  3. Trump isn't about to tell Sessions to change his position on asset forfeiture. He is in favor of it.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/07/trump-jokes-with-sheriffs-about-destroying-a-texas-legislators-career-over-asset-forfeiture/?utm_term=.cdfcd228b1af

    Do a search on "trump asset forfeiture"
    Someone should send him a copy of the Constitution.

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  4. Why are any of you so outraged? You wanted this. You VOTED for this in every election. Most of you still support this as long as it is just "bad" people that get robbed by government. You only seem annoyed that now the same murdering thieves that have plagued the rest of the world since 1945 have decided to turn on you. You will not vote(or bitch) your way out of this one. The ballot box has failed. The Jury box has failed. The soap box has failed. So fight or learn to live with the pain. 'Cause the Beast has a taste of your blood now, and it will never stop till YOU stop it.---Ray

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    1. The difference between a protection racket and a government, is that a government has a state religion to hide the fact that it's a protection racket with good PR.

      Recall that in 2014, for the first time ever, the U.S. government seized more property from Americans than burglars did.

      I can't imagine private burglars took 1-2% from everybody in 1776. That means the U.S. government was always in the lead.

      Around Daytona, Florida, in the 1990s, sheriff Bob Vogel was notorious for stopping cars on I-95. If you had cash, you must be a drug dealer, so the cash was seized. Drivers were virtually never charged with a crime, guilt was therefore never proven and the police made over $8 Million dollars for a department fund.

      If these drivers had shot these highway robbers in the face in self-defense and then driven away in righteous indignation, who would you sympathize with? Would you drop a dime on them, and act to support that organized criminal enterprise by supplying military intelligence?

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    2. If these drivers had shot these highway robbers in the face in self-defense and then driven away in righteous indignation, who would you sympathize with? Would you drop a dime on them, and act to support that organized criminal enterprise by supplying military intelligence?

      A purity test! I love these!

      Yes, oh great judge. I would have cheered in support of those who shot their great suppressors. I never, ever would supply intelligence. Not that I had any to supply anyway, but if I did, I wouldn't supply it.

      Of course, the Florida Supreme Court ruled the Sheriff could do this, so we would have needed to have gone to Tallahassee and shot the majority of them. And then the majority of the legislature. And then the majority of law enforcement in the state.

      I'm sure it would have made all the difference in the world, too. If only one of us would gone off and done this, the entire unfolding of modern history would have reversed. Rather than leaving our families destitute and being branded as "some kind of crazy" in the media.

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    3. I'm sure it would have made all the difference in the world, too. If only one of us would gone off and done this, the entire unfolding of modern history would have reversed. Rather than leaving our families destitute and being branded as "some kind of crazy" in the media.

      False dichotomy fallacy. Reality offers many more organizational alternatives than all the defenders queuing up so they can be dispatched one at a time. Suppose that 1% of the 3% did this at once. That would be 300E6*.03*.01 = 90,000 incidents, which is 30 incidents per county. Lewis' "with the approval of their own conscience" applies to freedom fighters, too. Or just stop paying taxes, that's safer and easier.

      so we would have needed to have gone to Tallahassee and shot the majority of them. And then the majority of the legislature. And then the majority of law enforcement in the state.

      The Nazis and the Soviets didn't just give up after one of their soldiers was removed from the battlefield, neither did the warring nobles in Europe, or the MLK-era KKK-LEO. Every organized criminal enterprise needs to be actually opposed and overcome.

      New purity test: Suppose 1% of the 3% stop obeying all the bad laws. In response, the police behave like they did when they were recently on strike in New York city: stop nothing except the most obviously clear-cut violence. Lots of people start carrying pistols everywhere, and brandish them in threatening situations without consequence. Scanner machines at the TSA checkpoints get overturned, then passengers cheer walk past them. Enormous numbers of TSA-in-shambles pictures get passed around. Emboldened, automobile license plates start being removed. Tax collection starts to fall apart. Liberty is breaking out everywhere. America trembles on the edge of the next gold rush, where all the government-owned stuff is homesteaded by private owners. Why should I work for a lifetime to "buy" some stick-built suburban crap, when I could live on a whole floor of a nicely built government building?

      Now, I speculate, comes the freak out from the actual conservatives, who would prefer to live in a Norman Rockwell fantasy where Jimmy Stewart stands up in the town meeting to make a speech. Government can't exist without the conservatives squealing on the tax cheats and zoning evaders. What should be done about the conservatives to prevent them from being junior G-men?

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