Comment by MathMonkeyMan 4 days ago
That would make legitimate civil asset forfeiture impossible to execute.
Better, I think, would be to pass a law that says "civil asset forfeiture is no longer a thing." The problem then would be "so what do we do with property that should be seized by the state?"
The fire department gets called to an exploded meth lab containing a few dead bodies and a safe containing $200,000. What do?
I'd bet this is covered by other laws. Practically if you come back to claim it you probably expose yourself to being advised of running the meth lab. If it's unclaimed it's then abandoned property, and pretty sure there's laws of how that gets dealt with.
>so what do we do with property that should be seized by the state?
Just don't. God forbid a drug dealer keep his car.
It hurts society less to not seize things than to have the police routinely seizing things on the pretext of suspicion of involvement in a crime.
> The fire department gets called to an exploded meth lab containing a few dead bodies and a safe containing $200,000. What do?
Find out whose money it was, and wrap it up in their probate. This should be nothing to do with the police.
If you get convicted the court can seize the funds as part of the sentence
If you don't get convicted...well sounds like there was no crime
> > The fire department gets called to an exploded meth lab containing a few dead bodies and a safe containing $200,000. What do?
> Find out whose money it was, and wrap it up in their probate. This should be nothing to do with the police.
The example was a meth lab though and the claim was "This should be nothing to do with the police.". Is operating a meth lab not a crime?
Use criminal asset forfeiture, which requires a conviction. Shouldn't be too hard to secure in those circumstances.
Make a law the the police can only operate under criminal law, not civil law. Problem solved instantly and with common sense. Anything the police do should have the protections/restrictions/rules/requirements of criminal law, not the looser standards used by civil law.
> That would make legitimate civil asset forfeiture impossible to execute.
Assuming such a thing exists. . .
> The fire department gets called to an exploded meth lab containing a few dead bodies and a safe containing $200,000. What do?
I'm not sure I see how the fact that meth was present changes anything there (i.e., vs. a house fire with a few dead bodies and no meth). If some agency wants to go through a court proceeding to establish that the money was used illegally that's fine. The problem with civil asset forfeiture is it's done without any of that process.