Civil forfeiture, plea bargains and losing the ability to vote are all great detriments to our society. They prevent those who are involved in crimes from being able to get back on their feet and show an increasing number of those in the justice system don't believe in rehabilitation. It's labelling theory in practice and it's the reason the US has the highest incarceration and repeat incarceration rate of the western world.
Plea bargains reward disloyalty and often allow some of the worst people a ticket out of their crimes by implicating someone else. It's just a game and prosecutors want their stats to go up, no matter what is good for society.
I don't even want to touch the sex offender registry. I'll just say this. Australia's registry is confidential.
While I agree that the U.S. and other criminal systems do not stress rehabilitation enough (or at all), the problem with all the things you mentioned aren't rehabilitation-centered.
Civil forfeiture is plain unconstitutional. The legal idea behind it, that property is charged with a crime, and so it doesn't matter if a person is guilty/inocnent or even charged is simply absurd. Plea bargains cause people to plead guilty even if they aren't because they fear the lengthy process of litigation that is many times stacked against them. In doing so they may, depending on juresdiction, lose access to wealfare and other forms of government help that is many times vital to these people. As to losing the abbility to vote after being convicted, it's blatantly undemocratic and absurd. A person convicted of a crime loses some rights but that is done for the benefit of society and the convict himself, to allow hime to rehabilitate and become a productive member of society. A convict shouldn't lose rights if they don't directly contribute to the societies well being or his own. A person voting doesn't constitute a danger to society.
> Civil forfeiture is plain unconstitutional. The legal idea behind it, that property is charged with a crime, and so it doesn't matter if a person is guilty/inocnent or even charged is simply absurd.
Civil forfeiture isn't a punishment for guilt or innocence. It's an adjudication that, more likely than not, nobody has an interest in the property that the law will protect.
Say the police raid a mob stash house and find $10 million in cash. Even if the court cannot figure out exactly who owns the money, it can determine by a preponderance of the evidence that nobody has a legitimate property interest in it because it's more likely than not the proceeds of a crime. Same thing if the property is contraband (drugs, automatic firearms, child porn etc.) There is no need to figure out who owns the property then charge that person because nobody could have a legitimate legal right to contraband. Due process doesn't require anything more than that.
The idea that the "property is charged with a crime" is mistaking the form of the action for the underlying rationale. The cases are styled "U.S. v. 10 cupcakes" because the case is about the legal status of the property, not about any particular person's guilt or innocence.
Now, I think civil asset forfeiture creates more risk of abuse than it is worth, and we should get rid of it. But it's not based on some outlandish legal theory like you imply. If there was a sensible way to cabin it to its purpose (seizing assets that are found in circumstances where it is obvious they are the proceeds of crime), it might even be a good idea.
> Even if the court cannot figure out exactly who owns the money, it can determine by a preponderance of the evidence that nobody has a legitimate property interest in it because it's more likely than not the proceeds of a crime. Same thing if the property is contraband (drugs, automatic firearms, child porn etc.).
That really shouldn't be the standard of proof. After all, if the property does belong to someone, then to keep it would amount to a hefty fine — to impose it a criminal standard of proof should be required.
If the property itself is contraband and thus inherently illegal, then merely finding that it is itself contraband (to a criminal standard, of course) should be sufficient for the State to keep or destroy it.
If the property is legitimate (e.g. money), though, the State should only be permitted to retain it a) if the owner does not claim it or b) if it can be taken from the owner in a criminal proceeding.
I have always thought of a hypothetical where a police officer takes a stack of cash off of somebody under the name of civil forfeiture and then doesn't arrest. The victim them kills the police officer and claims self defense because he was the victim of an armed robbery. I can't say that I would find a fault in his argument.
We can certainly argue about the legitimacy of civil forfeiture, but your statement is absurd. The current law is the current law. When a police officer arrests someone that isn't kidnapping. When they take possession of property that someone gained through illegal means that isn't armed robbery.
It is if them don't charge the person. That is my point. He knows he's not getting his money back and the officer is not going to report it because he can't. It's armed robbery, plain and simple.
> NYPD can’t count cash they’ve seized because it would crash computers: Despite multimillion dollar evidence system, NYPD have no idea how much cash they seize.
> The New York City Police Department takes in millions of dollars in cash each year as evidence, often keeping the money through a procedure called civil forfeiture. But as New York City lawmakers pressed for greater transparency into how much was being seized and from whom, a department official claimed providing that information would be nearly impossible—because querying the 4-year old computer system that tracks evidence and property for the data would "lead to system crashes."
So, you're technically correct. It's reported in great detail. So great they can't actually query the data at all.
You describe the theory. But look at the stories of people whose money is taken unjustly by civil forfeiture and then say the reality matches the theory.
>Civil forfeiture isn't a punishment for guilt or innocence. It's an adjudication that, more likely than not, nobody has an interest in the property that the law will protect.
"The law will no longer protect the ownership of this cash."
'Ah, cool, so it's basically no-man's land, can't count on police to recognize it as robbable, I'll keep that in mind when I take it ho--"
"NO! That is now property of the US government! Step back, thief of legitimate property!"
> Civil forfeiture isn't a punishment for guilt or innocence. It's an adjudication that, more likely than not, nobody has an interest in the property that the law will protect.
How would that apply to the opening story in the article though? There the woman was rightful owner of the car but the crime was conducted by her son.
So it seems to me she would have an obvious law-backed claim to the car as she obtained it lawfully and didn't conduct any crimes with it. Yet the judge still refused to return the car.
(The judge's argumentation seems extremely strange to me anyhow though and I can't imagine it would have survived with an attorney present.
He seems to have elevated the already bizarre requirement "prove that the asset was not involved in the crime" to "prove that the asset will not ever be involved in any crimes in the future", which is insane. That case seems to be protection of asset forfeiture mixed with blatant racism.)
Even if the court cannot figure out exactly who owns the money, it can determine by a preponderance of the evidence that nobody has a legitimate property interest
Proving a negative? I think the crux of this is why an asset's existence creates a property interest of the state. I'm not sure "finders keepers" is a good trait to have in a bureaucracy.
What about filing a claim of ownership? If the prosecution doesn't formally charge you with a crime within some amount of time after such a filing, you get it back without any further work. If they do, then it's held until the case is over.
It seems like it would allow them to handle abandoned ocean ships or drugs, which are the classical cases. And it lets everyone else get their property back, if they're willing to take the risk of admitting to owning property possibly used in a crime.
What about times where it's obvious that a crime has been committed but it's not clear who committed the crime? In that case there is no one for the prosecution to formally charge.
There should be some kind of consistent legal principle that tells you when something should be seized by the government.
It can't be, "Anything which is the proceeds of a crime can be seized by the government", because 90% of dollar bills have traces of cocaine on them and would be seizable.
I believe that "Criminals should not benefit from a crime" is one. Then, if someone files the paperwork to claim ownership of some item that was used as part of a crime, and his admission of ownership is not enough evidence to charge him, then in your case it hasn't been shown that a criminal has benefited from a crime when it's given to this person.
If it's known that either a husband or wife took $10,000 to murder someone, and it's unclear who did it, then neither could claim the money without effectively admitting guilt.
If multiple people claim the item, then the problem resurfaces and the government may end up keeping it. Most of the "police seized my $10,000" cases that work people up aren't like that, though.
It's possible that there are other principles that could be used; I don't know of any others that could apply.
Every time I see one of those silly "Can you believe those wacky laws still on the books!?" articles I think, y'know, it being illegal to spit on the sidewalk in Hoboken (or whatever) is a hell of a lot less bizarre than the fact that inanimate objects can be held liable in a court of law for the actions of animate humans. The picture that goes with it should be something like a Toyota Corolla sitting behind the defense's table, with somber lawyers around it.
If we as a society believe the person is still a danger, then we shouldn't let them out, ever. If that's not the case, then anything past their incarceration / parole is blatantly unfair.
> Taking a piss in woods managed by Fish and Wildlife Services will land on on the sex offender registry, if caught. It's absurd.
That's seriously absurd. Are the any instances of this being enforced in a public park? I've read of many cases of getting added to the registry from public urination, but they're all in cities[1].
[1]: And usually it's not even in "public". It'd be behind a dumpster or the end of an alley. Yes it's not something we as a society want, but who in their right mind puts that person in the same category as a pedophile.
Holy crap I didn't realize it was that easy. That's incredibly scary, because presence on that list basically destroys your life, your family's life, and your ability to ever build a life - all because it is public and used for every background check under the sun instead of obviously protected professions like teaching, etc.
> If we as a society believe the person is still a danger, then we shouldn't let them out, ever.
We should recognize that we cannot always judge that correctly. So you either let people out who might still be a danger, or you keep people locked up who might not be a danger. (And, in fact, you do both - all you can do is adjust the proportions.)
But people scream really loudly if you keep people locked up who arguably are no longer a danger...
Of course we aren't going to get it right 100% of the time[1], but either they are rehabilitated & "served their debt to society" or they aren't. The whole sex offender list is a half-ass way to cover the bases. We need to get over ourselves and pick: they need to be incarcerated[2] or they can rejoin society. The list is incarceration on the prisoner's dime and puts them at the fringe forever.
Lumping all of these into one pot is another foolish idea with the list.
1) heck, we don't get guilty / not guilty right which is why I'm against the death penalty
> If we as a society believe the person is still a danger, then we shouldn't let them out, ever.
Well, no.
After multiple DUIs, someone can have their license taken away permanently. The justice system has a long history of restricting peoples behavior who are (a) out of jail, but (b) still a danger to themselves or others.
When it works correctly, absolutely. The problem is that often times it doesn't lead to bigger fish but more fish of equal or lesser size since the system often values quantity over quality when it comes to felony convictions.
You'll see this a lot of times when they catch a mid-level dealer. The dealer will roll on the street-level dealers instead of their supplier since it yields dozens of easy felony drug convictions instead of one really difficult case that could eat a ton of resources and still be lost.
I read some comment that in the post Gates era the Los Angeles police stopped going after bigger fish and just started straight out prosecuting little fish. Which probably worked better.
The problem with the previous way was criminals would turn 'states evidence' and either finger other little fish, or littler fish, innocent people[1], or big fish already in jail. Then they'd get released and go back to committing crimes. Not to mention the police protecting criminals that made a career out of turning in people as a form of protection.
Looking back I don't see that the OP mentioned the other big issue with plea bargaining: when innocent people plead guilty because it's often the best choice. My bad for adding my own context onto it.
tl;dr: the current system incentivizes defendants (especially poor ones) to plead guilty regardless of innocence. This is caused by a combination of prosecutors/judges trying to be "tough on crime", overloaded public defenders, excessive bail, mandatory minimums and several other things.
I don't think plea bargaining is absolutely unfixable or evil but I also don't think it's a well-functioning part of the system as-is. I believe this is one of those cases where removing an option might be better for the justice system as a whole.
And (as I often argue here[1]) that's still a mispurposed argument when used against plea bargaining per se, rather than against the forces that give prosecutors so much disproportionate leverage that people take them.
It's not even a case where removing an option can have good global effects; if you remove plea bargaining but change nothing else, all that accomplishes is that disadvantaged people get railroaded harder, and choke up the courts even longer as they play out their lopsided trials.
Plea bargains reward disloyalty and often allow some of the worst people a ticket out of their crimes by implicating someone else. It's just a game and prosecutors want their stats to go up, no matter what is good for society.
I don't even want to touch the sex offender registry. I'll just say this. Australia's registry is confidential.