*** OFFICIAL *** We Must End Civil Forfeiture (legalized government stealing) Thread

[Dan Druff]

Be careful about flying with large amounts of cash. Civil forfeiture, while not as prevalent as it once was on a federal level, is still happening in some states.

Arizona is one of them.

Civil forfeiture is a nasty law which allows governments to seize cash or property from you, claim that you have to prove your innocence to get it back, and they are never required to charge you with a crime. This most commonly occurs when out-of-state cars are targeted on the road, which are believed to be carrying a lot of cash, such as popular highways to/from casinos.

This also occurs at airports sometimes, which is why you need to be careful about flying with a lot of cash, even though it's not illegal to fly domestically with large amounts of cash.

Jerry Johnson runs a small trucking business in North Carolina. He scraped together $39,500 to buy equipment in Phoenix. He brought that much cash with him, and it was seen in his luggage. He was then detained, and threatened with arrest unless he signed a "waiver", which made it easier to seize his cash without the ability to contest it.

Even had he not signed the waiver, they could have seized the cash.

Based upon this and other cases, Arizona is trying to pass a bill seriously reducing civil forfeiture, but it is now getting roadblocked in the state house.

https://ij.org/press-release/innocen...ms-are-gutted/


Really ugly story.

Also, you should be aware that a lot of small jurisdictions are once again using federal help to circumvent state law against civil forfeiture. This was made illegal in 2014, but became legal again in 2017.

Watch where you are driving when you have a lot of cash, and watch where you fly.


Only 14 of the 50 states have decent laws regarding civil forfeiture, with a seizure standard of "clear and convincing evidence" of a crime having been committed. Those "good" states are: Colorado, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Utah, Vermont, California, Wisconsin, Connecticut, North Carolina, Montana, Nebraska, and New Mexico.

However, as I said, this doesn't mean a whole lot in smaller jurisdictions which use the federal government's help to circumvent state protections! However, these states are less likely to seize your cash at major airports.

Iowa is one of the more notorious civil forfeiture states, where cops are known to target out-of-state vehicles traveling to/from casinos. This also happened a lot in northern Nevada.

[Walter Sobchak]

Be careful about flying with large amounts of cash. Civil forfeiture, while not as prevalent as it once was on a federal level, is still happening in some states.

Arizona is one of them.

Civil forfeiture is a nasty law which allows governments to seize cash or property from you, claim that you have to prove your innocence to get it back, and they are never required to charge you with a crime. This most commonly occurs when out-of-state cars are targeted on the road, which are believed to be carrying a lot of cash, such as popular highways to/from casinos.

This also occurs at airports sometimes, which is why you need to be careful about flying with a lot of cash, even though it's not illegal to fly domestically with large amounts of cash.

Jerry Johnson runs a small trucking business in North Carolina. He scraped together $39,500 to buy equipment in Phoenix. He brought that much cash with him, and it was seen in his luggage. He was then detained, and threatened with arrest unless he signed a "waiver", which made it easier to seize his cash without the ability to contest it.

Even had he not signed the waiver, they could have seized the cash.

Based upon this and other cases, Arizona is trying to pass a bill seriously reducing civil forfeiture, but it is now getting roadblocked in the state house.

https://ij.org/press-release/innocen...ms-are-gutted/


Really ugly story.

Also, you should be aware that a lot of small jurisdictions are once again using federal help to circumvent state law against civil forfeiture. This was made illegal in 2014, but became legal again in 2017.

Watch where you are driving when you have a lot of cash, and watch where you fly.


Only 14 of the 50 states have decent laws regarding civil forfeiture, with a seizure standard of "clear and convincing evidence" of a crime having been committed. Those "good" states are: Colorado, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Utah, Vermont, California, Wisconsin, Connecticut, North Carolina, Montana, Nebraska, and New Mexico.

However, as I said, this doesn't mean a whole lot in smaller jurisdictions which use the federal government's help to circumvent state protections! However, these states are less likely to seize your cash at major airports.

Iowa is one of the more notorious civil forfeiture states, where cops are known to target out-of-state vehicles traveling to/from casinos. This also happened a lot in northern Nevada.

Thanks Republicans, and thanks Trump for reversing Obama's policy so civil forfeitures can start again. Great work.

[MrTickle]

Wasn't civil forfeiture banned by Obama AG Eric Holder? I had no idea it still existed in some states.

[Dan Druff]

Wasn't civil forfeiture banned by Obama AG Eric Holder? I had no idea it still existed in some states.

Sort of. It was not banned federally at any point.

Eric Holder, one of the worst Attorneys General ever, did one good thing during his term, ending what was known as "equitable sharing" at the federal level. This was what allowed shady small towns to circumvent state laws prohibiting frivolous civil forfeiture, by partnering with federal authorities, and making it a federal bust instead of a state-level bust. The "equitable sharing" agreement allowed the fed to keep 50% and the local jurisdiction to keep the other 50%, even though the locals did most of the work. Everyone won in this arrangement... except the innocent people who were being stolen from by the government!

Trump then reinstated this in 2017. It's not clear why he did it. I think he didn't understand the whole thing, and was talked into believing that civil forfeiture was important an important tool used for thwarting major drug dealers. That's how it began, but over time it got perverted into a legalized stealing operation, and thus should have been eliminated a long time ago.

While it's easy to blame all Republicans for this, that's not really the story here. Civil forfeiture is widely hated by all political parties, yet it somehow persists. To show you how it's not politically biased to one side, the states with the strongest laws against it are New Mexico (blue), Nebraska (red), and Montana (red). The states with the weakest laws against it include ones like Massachusetts (blue), Alaska (red), Alabama (red), and Rhode Island (blue). The states with the biggest civil forfeiture problems historically have been Iowa, Nevada, and Arizona -- all purple!

Republicans hate it because it involves the state trampling on individual rights.

Democrats hate it because it involves violation of civil liberties.

Libertarians despite it because.... well, do I even have to say?


There's actually a simple way to reform civil forfeiture to where it can still be used to target the bad guys (drug dealers, smugglers, black market salesmen) while making it impossible to abuse the innocent.

First, set a floor of $200,000 as the minimum amount which can be seized. This will prevent almost all targeting of innocent people carrying cash to/from casinos or to/from legitimate transactions.

Second, ban all forms of waivers or any other documents where the accused agree to forfeit the money in exchange for no prosecution. This will prevent the blackmail where innocent people are threatened with 20 years in prison if they don't sign away the assets seized.

Third, provide a quick and easy hearing process where the people with the seized money can appear before a judge and explain where the money came from. And if the state loses that hearing, it has to pay for all of the court and travel expenses for the accused. Furthermore, the accused can appeal it to a state-level court to hear their reasoning, if they feel they were railroaded by a corrupt local court.

Fourth, require clear and convincing evidence of the money or assets having been obtained illegally, in order to seize it. This means there would have to either be clear evidence in the vehicle or on the person when they're stopped, or they would have had to have been the subject of an existing investigation. A drug sniffing dog indicating a drug scent in the car wouldn't count, nor would the discovery of a recreational amount of drugs. This would prevent random people from being targeted in places like airports or on highways.

QED

SFO

[Avon Barksdale]

Not directly related to this, but noticed Druff's remark about setting a 200k floor.

They really need to do something. When they made the law that bank tellers had to fill out a CTR for deposits over $10k, that was back in the 70s when that 10k was probably close to 70k in today's money.

Now they will even flag you even you are depositing more than 5k a week in cash to a bank teller.

It won't be too far into the future that cash will be obsolete imo.

[gut]

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge objector to society becoming cashless, and I still generally use cash for most day-to-day purchases. I also think (as I'm sure everyone here does) that the civil forfeiture laws are some horseshit.

BUT

Why the fuck is dude flying with 40k??? You're telling me a small-business owner (albeit VERY small, according to the article) doesn't have a bank account? I feel like the Phoenix auction site or whatever was probably kind of shitty, and offered him some discount for paying in cash, which would be pretty shady for that big of a purchase. I just can't imagine cash being that dudes idea. I'd be shitting bricks flying with that much.

Also, could he not find a similar deal a little closer to home? Is Phoenix a hotbed for used big-rigs? Mumbles any knowledge of this? The whole story outside of the forfeiture just baffles me.

[TexasFugitive]

As I understand the law, this man should have put the loan terms in writing, filed IRS Form 8300, and carried the IRS Form and loan documents with him. The smartest thing to do is to wire yourself the money in addition to the documentation so that you are not traveling very far with the actual cash. I'll be surprised if he gets it back without getting charged.

IRS Form 8300 info...

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small...-of-over-10000

Text copied from...

https://cdllife.com/2021/trucking-co...t-authorities/