Most of your takeaway of what I wrote is simply a fabrication, and not at all what I was saying.
My main point was to note that the ruling only makes this particular act illegal for police officers. I'm not saying the police should have no authority beyond that of citizens.
The "unfortunate" part of civil asset forfeiture is that it is almost always abused for the benefit of the police at the expense of otherwise law-abiding citizens. You are correct that it has nothing to do with the court's statement, and that's ties into my first point.
> My main point was to note that the ruling only makes this particular act illegal for police officers.
No, federal law makes it illegal generally, without any exception for police officers.
This 1993 ruling that forms the context for the recent action noted that independent illegality, found also that that illegality as an underpinning of reverse-sting operations violated due process of law and that, as a consequences, convictions based on it were invalid and should be vacated.
But this “ruling” isn’t a ruling, didn’t declare anything illegal, its an administrative action by the State Attorney for Broward County applying the 1993 ruling after a routine audit found that many convictions remained on the books despite the 1993 ruling.
No, you have it backwards. It wasn't legal for anyone to manufacture crack cocaine. The police were already committing illegal acts by doing so. I suspect they weren't really punished for it, though, unfortunately. But the court case was more about whether or not this chain of (already illegal) activity could be used to prosecute people for buying crack, and the answer was "no".
The actual problem might have been that the people who could be baited with powder cocaine were out of bounds for the police. But they had this large supply of powder cocaine meanwhile if it were crack cocaine they'd have plenty of legitimate targets.
It was incorrect of you to say the court scoped its statement to a particular illegal act. It said police cannot commit illegal acts full stop. There goes your first sentence.
You repeat your error in your reply: “the ruling only makes this particular act illegal for police officers”. That makes no sense. It literally says that police cannot do illegal acts and that this is why they could
not convict people based on making crack. How could it even be otherwise? You really think the court is saying police could vandalize a store or murder someone to bust others involved in the crime, since those illegal acts weren’t specified in the ruling?
It seems like you missed the part where eurleif said the TLDR is a verbatim quote from the ruling.
In your second sentence you made an inapt comparison to civil forfeiture. What makes civil forfeiture outrageous is precisely its legality. The whole point of the ruling is that police must confine themselves to legal behavior. So civil forfeiture is as relevant to this ruling as walking, cooking, or breathing. Legal and permissible by police.
It’s also wrong of you to accuse eurleif of fabrication. I can’t see a single thing they fabricated. They very carefully and precisely explained why your entire comment was wrong. You should thank them!
At the time, police and courts gave themselves permission to manufacture and sell crack cocaine informally, despite this being very clearly illegal.
Currently, police and the courts with formal legislative backing give themselves permission to rob people, despite this being very clearly unconstitutional.
Civil forfeiture is part of the legal codes in various states and has been left intact in its present state by the courts.
Making crack is just something some police did. No law was ever passed saying they could do it.
This ruling isn’t saying the laws on the books are good, or universally constitutional. It isn’t saying police will always stay within the constitution by following laws. It is simply saying that they are definitely not allowed to go outside the law. That’s the baseline standard of behavior the ruling established.
My main point was to note that the ruling only makes this particular act illegal for police officers. I'm not saying the police should have no authority beyond that of citizens.
The "unfortunate" part of civil asset forfeiture is that it is almost always abused for the benefit of the police at the expense of otherwise law-abiding citizens. You are correct that it has nothing to do with the court's statement, and that's ties into my first point.