Help me understand Civil Asset Forfeiture

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If a drug dealer gets popped, shouldn't the law be able to confiscate all his money, property, and belongings?

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all? no

and you're assuming that person is convicted

CAF most often occurs at arrest or pre-indictment

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Where do you folks draw the line?

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1. conviction required
2. a determination must be made (state has the burden, clear/convincing evidence) that the property in question has a direct nexus with the crime the person was convicted of

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If a drug dealer gets popped, shouldn't the law be able to confiscate all his money, property, and belongings?

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Only if he's convicted. The basic foundation of our justice system is that someone is innocent until proven guilty. While I can understand wanting to limit someone where such a trial is really just a formality, the extent to which CAF has been abused (especially with people found not guilty trying to get their shizzy back) has gone far enough beyond the pale as to show far too many law enforcement groups are too willing to abuse this power as it currently stands.

The police will seize the house they're living in, the car they're driving, etc no matter who owns it. Plenty of unsuspecting grandmas have been kicked out of their houses because Daquan sold a nicklebag there once.

You can't sieze property without a warrant. To sieze it, you must have probable cause that it was used in the commission of the crime. You also have to give it back once the proceedings are over if the charges are dropped or the defendant is found not guilty.

In civil asset forfieture, they take everything (including their house, pension, random possessions, ect), they often do so without ever charging the individual, and when charges are dropped or a not guilty verdict is reached, they force that person to sue them to get it back.

And since criminal defense doesn't award attorney fees, that leaves these people desperate for a public defender. Which means 95% of the time, he's going to be found guilty of something because public defenders fon't have time to investigate the crime. They only have time to read over the charges once the day of trial and review the plea deal.

It's an unconstitutional racket.

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Getting stopped and having 5k in cash and you can't tell the police where you got it and they take it from you because they claim it was from something nefarious. You have to sue them to get it back in which you will never get all of it back.

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Yeah, that's super fricked up. I don't agree with that at all.

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If a drug dealer gets popped, shouldn't the law be able to confiscate all his money, property, and belongings?

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Well theres a couple of things here...

1)Theres a difference between criminal asset forfeiture and civil asset forfeiture. Criminal forfeiture happens post trial and conviction. Most people have no problem with this.

2)Civil Asset Forfeiture on the other hand is a mechanism for the DA to essentially sue the money and seize it without trial, conviction, or even criminal charges or an arrest.

3)Once the property has been seized, its the property owners responsibility to prove his property was innocent of being involved in criminal activity. This is in direct contradiction of "presumed innocent until proven guilty". They can get away with this because property is not a person and has no access to the bill of rights.

4)This has everything to do with money. Most departments use CAF to pad their budgets by seizing property often unrelated to any crime because they know the owners wont fight it in court.

There are books and books of stories of terrible abuses to often innocent citizens who had their property seized without trial or charge. Recently there was a case in Philly where a family had their home seized after their son sold $40 worth of drugs out of it. Another case where police siezed $20k from a missionary going cross country, and yet another one where a deli owner had $100k+ siezed because the IRS didnt like how they were depositing money.

The most aggregious was in Tenaha Texas, where officers were pulling over random out of state license plates looking for valuables inside, and if they didnt waive their rights to their engagement rings, jewelry, ipads, etc, they threatened to take the kids to CPS or jail them on felony drug/money laundering charges. Literal highway robbery.

I dunno, the fair and just requirement for civil forfeitures should at least require a FRIGGIN CRIMINAL CONVICTION first.

I've seen situations where seized firearms and ammunition become part of the agency's inventory if approved by a judge but was limited to types and calibers already in use by the agency. I've also seen where seized drug money had gone into funding for drug treatment programs, etc.

Then there are seized things like this: