A department of the Georgia state government has decided to return a few million dollars it took from small businesses under Civil Asset Forfeiture. www.lehtoslaw.com
Of course it's wrong, it's THEFT. If any of us lowly peons did this we'd be in jail in a heartbeat. What really needs to happen is absent a CONVICTION, the money is returned to the aggrieved plus interest for loss of use.
...or not taken in the first place. In what other case does punishment begin before a suspect is tried and convicted? Yes people who are arrested and held are sometimes sentenced to "time served" but in that case the detention is not intended to be a punishment (although it is one), it's done for other reasons.
Paying back the interest won't happen. Look at the IRS. If you pay in more, you just get that back. But, if your late they will charge you interest on what you owed !
Steve in Alaska the road board went to italy with their families cost $750,000 claimed it was for a road seminar, then claimed that they didn't have money needed to plow snow. I doubt anyone in any government office will actually not waste money or spend only on reasonable expenses.
The original example would be when the property's owner couldn't be charged... such as with a ship smuggling goods where the owner is abroad or unknown. But nowadays that's a pretty rare instance, or at least it's easily written in as an exception to any criminal asset forfeiture legislation.
@@admthrawnuru Yes, these laws were enacted by the first U.S. Congress primarily in order to aid in the collection of customs duties, which provided up to 90 percent of the finances for the federal government during that time. The US Supreme Court upheld those laws, with Justice Joseph Story (Supreme Court Justice from early - mid 1800's) writing that the "vessel which commits the aggression is treated as the offender, as the guilty instrument or thing to which the forfeiture attachés, without any reference whatsoever to the character or conduct of the owner." Justice Story justified these forfeitures "from the necessity of the case, as the only adequate means of suppressing the offense or wrong, or insuring an indemnity to the injured party."
Love Art Bell. Can't believe you have a T-shirt for him. Your conversation broadcast today reminds me of a similar conversation that I have had with attorney friends. Why can't there be a law that makes criminals financially responsible for the act that for which they are convicted. Steal a lawn mower, they have to pay for the stolen merch before that can get out of jail. State restitution acts. I know several states have "state restitution" acts but few of them ever collect. I was involved with one in the 90's in South Carolina. I never got a dime. Make the criminals pay "up front" before they can leave jail. If they have no money stashed away, then they get their friends to pitch in or stay in jail. Most states have a work release program or they can pick up trash with a prison crew until they earn the money. At least the victims of the crime would get their money back even if it took several years to do it.
Loved the shirt. I used to listen to his radio program when I worked nights. He interviewed some crazy people. Flat earthers, aliens, people kidnapped by aliens, and people that hung out all night at the Walmart coffee shops. Ghost to Ghost was one of my favorites. I worked right next to a big cemetery in a wastewater plant, and was afraid to go out of the building after listening to their stories......
William Francis Sutton Jr. (June 30, 1901 - November 2, 1980) was an American bank robber. Sutton was asked by reporter Mitch Ohnstad why he robbed banks. According to Ohnstad, he replied, "Because that's where the money is".
No one who has a good lawyer who is innocent has brought it before a judge is the reason. As explained in the video most of them have less than it would be to sue to get it back taken so it doesn't go to court BUT it has to go to court for them to have standing for said case. You also have the people who do have standing and are innocent usually don't have the money for the lengthy court trail a 4th amendment case will be. Small businesses IF they get together might the thing is they never take stuff from big business as big business can and will sue them. Big business also has lawyers on staff who know the law in the state they are assigned or in more than just that 1 state. So taking from them illegally will mean a big law suit on the states hands. It is a case of take from the poor not the rich kind of thing. To that they don't take enough for the not poor to care enough ... until recently when they did it to small business who do use the equipment taken and they did go to far by taking their kids college fund. The police can defend taking the college fund IF they can directly link it to a crime being committed with the funds being funneled into the account. How it is presented in this video makes it seem the account just had alot of cash in it so they took it without making a clear connection from any crime committed to the fund. To the part about a kids college fund they should of just put a freeze on it so no money can come in nor any money come out then investigate. As it is digital money no one will be able to move it nor spend it if it is a frozen account.
The original judgement probably made sense in context, but the way it is used right now is clearly wrong. This reminds me of Terry Stops. Police can do a frisk (a search normally prohibited by the 4th Amendment) which is justified as reasonable and allowed by the courts because the officer is trying to find weapons that may endanger their safety. And I agree, that's fine. But it's been extended so that anything found during that search (which again, would normally be prohibited by the 4th Amendment) can be used against you in court - even if it's clearly not a weapon. This has allowed police fishing expeditions which totally violate the 4th Amendment. I think Terry Stops would be fine IF the police were told that any evidence they found during their search could not be used as evidence against the suspect. Likewise, if they cause any injury or damage as part of their search, or if they violate the dignity of the suspect during the course of the search more than would happen during a normal frisk, their department will be held responsible to provide adequate compensation to the suspect. I suspect if that ruling were in place, we'd see a lot fewer Terry Stops conducted.
Because even the government only follows the rules if they are forced to. Whenever the benefit or the ambition outweigh the penalty, the rules go out the window.
Thanks Steve for continuing to talk about, and explain the Civil Asset Forfeiture issue. Hearing that Georgia has done the right thing was a bit of good news which is something that I really needed to hear right now.
Georgia government seizes over $5M in forfeiture funds, returns $2.1M and it's called a win??!! Note to law enforcement: The Bureau of Engraving and Printing would be a great candidate for a civil asset forfeiture visit.
What is happening. I feel like I'm in a parallel universe right now. Police kneeling, quitting, hugging, crying, and giving money back. What the hell is going on!
Asset Forfeiture laws really put a spotlight on out elected officials' lack of integrity that this hasn't been immediately addressed. Instead, it's been allowed to continue for many years.
Thanks again Steve, for this important work. Since reversing this unconstitutional BS isn't going to happen from the inside, you & we will need to keep up the outside pressure. 60 Minutes needs to weigh in on this.
The late Art Bell. I listened almost all of his talk shows available on youtube. More than once. That was the King of the night talk shows. Nice shirt.
if you talk to people about civil asset forfeiture, you know what they will say ... my assets haven't been taken yet ... so it's not a problem yet ... lol
Steve, thank you for continuing to diligently teach folks about civil asset forfeiture. The more sunshine we can shed on such gross and unjust abuses the better. I still don’t understand how we ever got to the point that the courts determined it was appropriate to charge cash with having committed a crime as that makes about as much sense as charging pebbles lying on the ground with criminal intent as though they were part of some grand criminal conspiracy (racketeering rocks?). It should be obvious to any person of reasonable competence that only people can commit criminal acts and that if there were a legitimate criminal act associated with the money then there must necessarily be a person that perpetrated that crime and they should have to be charged before property, or cash, is seized. It is equally insane that victims can not recover their attorney fees when they fight to get their money back when wrongfully seized...it is like every single step in the process was explicitly engineered to make it utterly impractical for victims to recover their money and ever be made whole again and that just makes it a literal highway robbery where it is not in the least a matter of fighting crime but instead a matter of extorting money out of the innocent just to pad their department budget and give themselves undeserved raises and expensive new luxury toys using money stolen from the innocent! I remember back in the early 80s when news organizations first really began to try and shed light on the nature of such forfeitures and associated abuses where even ordinary middle class families would have their homes seized from them simply because their teenage son or daughter was caught with a small quantity of pot, or even a single joint, and for that minor crime the entire family loses their home and it’s contents, given 15 minutes to vacate the property, and then have it auctioned off while they are still forced to pay the mortgage on a house they no longer possess (and the sudden loss of collateral can literally bankrupt the family if the bank suddenly demands the mortgage be paid off in full). With the house auctioned out from under them by the time the case ever gets to court, even if the family wins their case the most they can hope to ever get back is the paltry sum the police auctioned the house off for, nowhere near its actual assessed value, much less the loan amount, and often was not even enough money to cover the attorney’s fees incurred. It is an absolute travesty that 40 years later we still have this abomination and affront to our Constitution and the very “ concept of due process and that departments are still using it as a tool to justify stealing from innocent persons with impunity! And our police forces wonder why the public’s trust and respect for them and their job is at all time lows in many parts of our country and deteriorating with each new year. We need real reform in our law enforcement divisions such that they live and operate bound by the exact same laws and rights as those they are meant to serve and protect as we are meant to be but one people, indivisible I might add. We also need to focus more on training so that deadly force and ii8escalation behaviors are not the first line response to every challenge - innocent persons don’t deserve to be shot because an officer ordered a teen to put their car in park and then shooting and killing the teen when they reach for the gear shift precisely as they were instructed by the officer to do. Something is very, very, wrong when even total and immediate compliance and cooperation from the get-go is still resulting in many innocent unarmed civilian deaths due to officers being improperly trained to see a weapon in every shadow or movement, whether one exists or not, and the mere mistaken belief there could be a weapon is legal grounds to kill with impunity. While officers deserve the benefit of the doubt in less clear cut cases, they should be held just as liable for wrongful and unnecessary deaths as the rest of us would be if we wrongly employed lethal force against a non-threatening person. Just as we are human beings and can make terrible mistakes and have to be held accountable and punished for our poor judgement, so too should our officers when they make those same terrible mistakes due to poor judgement.
did you know that georgia can keep a person in jail for up to a year to wait trial just for a misdemeanor ... they have all sorts of methods for delaying trial ... imagine the financial damage they can do to the person
I think I remember hearing a few years ago about cops were looking into carrying portable credit card readers so they could take funds from ATM & Prepaid credit cards.
Amazing what happens when the media does it's damned job and exposes this kind of criminal behavior. Real journalists seem to be as rare as honest politicians.
All these protest right now, and I don't hear anyone talking about actually fixing problems like Civil Asset Forfeiture or Qualified Immunity. What a wasted opportunity.
Like you've said before, the best way to end this is to send the money to the state rather than the department that stole property for their own use. However, I think it would be kind of hilarious if the property were required to be spent on public defenders or subsidizing legal help for low or no income people.
I dont know if they already do this but it would be great if the department had to pay for the lawyer fees if they were found to have taken money from innocent people, that would make them think twice before stealing peoples shit.
Asset forfeiture is just a step on the path towards despotism. "Citizen, I like your property. You are property of the state. Thus your property is the property of the state. You agree, yes, Citizen, or shall the men with badges and boots and weapons discuss it with you?"
I know a guy who went to sell guns from his collection at a gun sale. Coming home, the cops stopped him & claimed he was illegal and took $5000 that he had in cash. I don't think he got a penny back...Oklahoma.
Thanks again Steve for continuing shedding light on this issue. One would think that law enforcement agencies will want to do everything that defines them as valued "Public Servants", especially when the actions of some agencies, or the members thereof, bring such detriment to the reputations of all law enforcement agencies via the natural association the public will invariably make about law enforcement as a demographic.
The State (n): The most powerful criminal gang in a given geographic area, given to claiming legitimacy by virtue of the fact that they're capable of greater violence than all the other criminal gangs in the area.
This makes you glad to hear about the good cops, when you do, because things could turn out very differently if you meet a bad one. Nix that: not bad cop, but bad decision.
Seized property is guilty until proven innocent. Shiny red Viper is guilty as sin. For no other reason than the cop wants to check it out, you may be stopped. Good thing you're an attorney.
My wad-o-cash rarely exceeds $19.20. (a $20 - the cost of a soda at the circle K). I started looking at the local legal announcements. We have a couple of cases like Georgia vs. $513.00
In Canada the provincial government ( similar to state government) have to apply to seize property as proceeds of crime. We are talking $5m house , high end sport cars and millions in seized cash. The crime doesn’t matter but the owners have to been charged and convicted of a serious criminal offence , mostly drug trafficking.
This side of the pond we have the proceeds of crime act - it has to go through the court system but there are special measures to raise money before the assets devalue - the funds are held until conviction
That's how it typically works anyway. You have to sue the government to prove that whatever they took was not linked to a crime. Either way you have to pay for a lawyer which often makes it not worth it.
@@christarbutton1279 Isn't that guilty until proven innocent though? The USA justice system claims to be innocent until proven guilty. So even the basis it is on how it works is flawed.
Exactly what we have in Canada. Criminal asset forfeiture upon conviction. Pretty simple. Plus local agency’s don’t get to keep it ... unless things have changed since I retired ten years go.
This also has to stop at the federal level, Taking money from a business man flying to a different town to buy a truck, or business equipment, and the cash is seized by TSA
I know many of the people that had gaming machines confiscated, they belonged to gaming operators not the stores. Georgia has been trying to get the operators to take the machines back, but they don't want them, it costs Georgia a fortune to store the machines and they have to warehouse them for a certain amount of time. Ga is now stuck with them, which is prob why they are returning this money, so that they can legally dispose of these machines and quit paying for storage fees.
There are other hidden bad byproducts of civil asset forfeiture. I was pulled over and when told to exit the vehicle I quickly told the officer I was going to reach for my money - $5000(having on mind the asset forfeiture stories) then the officer drew his pistol. It was a traffic stop and the officer let me go without even a warning. I've been traumatized since remembering how I could have easily gotten shot.
And under criminal asset forfeiture, enforcement bureaus should still not be allowed to keep the money. At the very least, its allocation should be overseen by a neutral third party of elected officials or by appointed personnel following legislated guidelines for its allocation.
Super news. Let's keep up the pressure. Just because you have a badge shouldn't make this system of armed robbery legal. Unless you get a conviction. No crime was commited. It's that simple. Prove your case or go home.
So here's a question, and bear in mind I'm just playing devil's advocate, I feel 100% that civil asset forfeiture should be banned. Suppose a drug manufacturing operation is discovered and bags of cash are collected and several people are arrested and charged. Won't each person have a separate trial? And if so, during whose trial do you determine whether the cash is forfeited? It may not be possible to determine who "owns" the cash. It's almost like there would need to be a separate trial to determine forfeiture, but how do you put "stuff" on trial?
I think one of the reasons this doesn't get more attention is that many people are confused about the terms and think civil forfeiture is criminal forfeiture... Then they just think f criminals I don't care. Not realizing that you don't need to be convicted... Or even accused... for civil forfeiture to happen.
How does anyone not know about civil asset forfeiture? I recall this being a thing in the early 1990s. Something that is this wrong, and this prominent, and after 30 years people still don’t know about it?
Hey Steve, your going to have to change your Blue Viper to Red now!... The reason these common sense laws have to be made by Politicians, which don't have any Common sense, and they would have to think, and that Hurts..
"WE THE PEOPLE" is making a comeback, slowly but surely. People who get hostile over a Political candidate are not We The People, they are Government enablers. True Americans are making this change happen. Mattew 20:16
Wasn't there a case in the court a few years ago when the judge ruled that this illegal not according to the law. Then the prosecutor then sheepishly admit it was. It was on the news where I forgot. I do not known if it involved the SC or the lower court. So these could be a basis to get back their money with interest and a criminal oe civic case to boot. I read it is a way for the city to get additional funds for the meantime or permanent way when the respondent does not appeal.
The Fourth Amendment requires the government to allow Americans to be secure in their person, papers and effects. Secure is defined by the citizen stating how they "FEEL". Forfeiting $138 at the airport is NOT making me fee secure in my papers & effects.
So does Virginia does the same thing with civil act or do they have something different. Also I you get pulled over and they find let’s say 5,000 to $10,000 can they just take it for a speeding ticket 🤔
