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 veggie
Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 5,723
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 To keep cops honest, don’t let them keep the money
#8393830 - 05/12/08 06:49 PM (3 months, 16 days ago) |
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To keep cops honest, don’t let them keep the money
May 12, 2008 - azbiz.com
By Lionel Waxman
You’re cruising along Interstate 20 east of Shreveport, La. Your new Porsche 911 is a thing of beauty and you are taking it on a shakedown cruise. It is growing late in the day and the last rays of the waning sun glint off your Arizona license plate.
You plunge ahead into the darkness past Minden, Arcadia and Ruston. Your new car is performing perfectly. And yet, before the night is over, you will become a pedestrian looking for an intercity bus to take you home.
The Louisiana State Police is notorious for confiscating fine and exotic cars. Like yours. As you drive on, you suddenly notice red and blue lights in your mirror. You cuss silently to yourself and pull over.
It’s the usual routine: license, registration, insurance card. But you are invited out of the car and told to stand over there.
The officer calls for backup. He has "found" cocaine in your car, which is placed on a flat-bed truck and taken to the impound yard. You are relieved to find no charges against you. But an action of forfeiture has been filed against your car. As an instrumentality of crime, it stands accused.
Not being a person, your car has no rights. And you can’t even contest the forfeiture action without posting a bond for the value of the car. The presumption is that the car is guilty unless you can prove it isn’t. You can’t.
Kiss your car goodbye. But don’t fret, it will be put to a good use. The arresting officer will be given an opportunity to buy the car from the police department for a fishcake.
You have just participated in the asset forfeiture program designed to motivate police and provide adequate funding for their activities.
Police are given the power to confiscate for their own use properties, from cash to cars to real estate, if they have been used in the commission of a crime.
To say this presents a conflict of interest is to put it mildly.
A retired Tucson police command officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told me prosecutors in Tucson often evaluated the forfeiture potential of a case to decide if the case was worth bringing. In many cases, they never intended to prosecute criminally, but merely to pursue civil forfeitures.
The Louisiana State Police have the worst reputation in the country for taking the valuable assets of out-of-towners passing through their territory. But all police departments are affected by the motivation to generate slush funds for purposes they deem important, like attending conferences, departmental recreational activities, and ski trips.
This kind of motivation can result in horrible miscarriages of justice. Perhaps the most infamous case involved a piece of land in California a police department wanted, adjacent to other land it already owned. Failing to negotiate a purchase, police "found" several marijuana plants growing on the outskirts of the property.
They instituted a forfeiture action and when they came to evict the owner, an elderly man, he jumped out of the bathtub and came down the steps carrying a pistol, thinking he was being robbed. Police shot him dead. They also succeeded in getting his land for their use.
On May 4, the Arizona Daily Star reported on an investigation it had conducted showing hundreds of thousands of dollars seized by Pima County law enforcement agencies over the last five years under state and federal forfeiture laws had been spent on things including banquets, promotional items such as golf tees and polo shirts, expensive office furniture and funeral flowers.
The constitution provides for the separation of powers for a good reason. Agencies should spend only money appropriated by the legislature. To allow otherwise puts priorities askew and short circuits checks and balances. In every case, it distorts the proper function of the agency, enabling it to abuse the rights of citizens.
Every agency of government that collects funds or other assets should remit them to the treasury to be spent only on appropriation of the legislature. This allows the people’s representatives to keep a handle on what the agencies are doing and prevents their going into business for themselves.
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usg543
◕‿◕
Registered: 02/11/07
Posts: 4,140
Loc: on the lot, brah
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Re: To keep cops honest, don’t let them keep the money [Re: veggie]
#8393853 - 05/12/08 06:53 PM (3 months, 16 days ago) |
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dirty fucking cops
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 Coaster
ChemicalResearcher
 
Registered: 05/22/06
Posts: 10,973
Loc: La La Land
Last seen: 4 hours, 47 minutes
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Re: To keep cops honest, don’t let them keep the money [Re: veggie]
#8393855 - 05/12/08 06:53 PM (3 months, 16 days ago) |
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yay more good news
i love america
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NobodyImportant
Stranger
Registered: 05/04/08
Posts: 201
Last seen: 8 hours, 8 minutes
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Re: To keep cops honest, don’t let them keep the money [Re: Coaster]
#8394374 - 05/12/08 08:48 PM (3 months, 16 days ago) |
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man if a cop ever planted coke in my car I would murder him with his own gun.
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rodfarva
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=====-----=-=-=-=-I
Registered: 07/31/07
Posts: 1,204
Loc: Deep in the mitten
Last seen: 4 hours, 10 minutes
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Re: To keep cops honest, don’t let them keep the money [Re: NobodyImportant]
#8395459 - 05/13/08 03:46 AM (3 months, 16 days ago) |
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Fortunatly my reputation > a cop's.
I refuse to belive in the hierarchy of society that a 40000$ a year (most likely less) cop could trump my standing.
They would have quite a contest if they did. The ammount of energy i put into fighting a situation like this would be more then enough to ensure everyone knew about it at least.
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