We’ve been making fun of Patrick Kennedy here, for good reason. This doesn’t help. It’s a well-intentioned-sounding piece unless you know what Patrick is spending most of his time these days doing, in which case the irony is unbearable. And no, Patrick, you are not your uncle.
The New York Times editorial board has come out with a powerful and scathing editorial: Racially Biased Arrests for Pot
Regardless of laws in individual states, federal officials and local police departments need to abandon policies that evaluate officers based on numerical arrest goals, which encourage petty arrests, along with illegal stops that violate the Fourth Amendment.
This also means restructuring a main federal program that finances state and local efforts to enforce drug laws so that petty marijuana arrests are no longer counted as evidence of effective police performance. Beyond that, law enforcement agencies need to put an end to what is obviously a widespread practice of racial profiling.
Interesting little court case in Illinois with the silly title traditional in forfeiture cases: THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS v. $280,020 in UNITED STATES CURRENCY. This was one of those cases where police were tipped off that someone bought a one-way bus ticket in cash, searched the luggage, found a bunch of cash, had a drug dog sniff it and dutifully alert, and seized the money. The court ruled that buying a one-way ticket isn’t probable cause, and without the owner’s consent to search, the officers had nothing and must return the money. Good call on the profiling, and good reminder to never consent to a search.
…and the defense attorney helps himself to 1/3 of that stolen money for getting it back, right?
Duncan,,they kept my grow lights and hydro nutrients when they dropped the felony possession and I asked where the “due process” was,,the county judge said they were taken from a cabinet with growing marijuana in them,,due process served. She offered to take me to trial for growing. I declined and built more.
Wow, I never knew that Dr. Tashkin was Uncle Fester’s identical twin.
Hmm, I suppose it’s possible that he is Uncle Fester?
Worth your time:
http://www.alternet.org/drugs-addiction
I never understood how property seizure gets around the 5th Amendment:
Seems like the 5th Amendment is pretty clear. You can’t take someone’s property without them being tried and found guilty by a jury of your peers. That’s what “due process” means. This idea of charging the property with a crime is totally ridiculous, Kafka-esque even.
well all those $20 bills were sitting around getting loaded. duke the dog said so
Forfeiture is a government crime committed by petty tyrants against people they want to subdue and oppress. The technique has been in use for nearly a thousand years. See Leonard W. Levy, A License to Steal: The Forfeiture of Property (1995).
Tony, it is literally an artifact of the Witch Trials and the Inquisition. Our legal code even uses the terminology the Inquisitors used, referring to the property in question as a “Deodand”, or demonic object.
Interesting…Wiki sez:
DPF’s asset forfeiture primer says this practice of giving up lethal or harmful things to the Crown / Church is the origin of modern asset forfeiture.
But is the term actually still used?
I may be partially incorrect about the root of the word, but it is still used, and in our codes.
More on the origins of forfeiture…during the inquisitions, forfeiture was called confiscation. Some of its early dynamics and atrocities are recorded here by H. C. Lea, History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, Vol. 1, pp. 501-33. Excerpt:
“Lucius III, in his Verona decretal of 1184, sought to obtain for the Church the benefit of the confiscation which he again declared to be incurred by heresy. One of the earliest acts of Innocent III., in his double capacity of temporal prince and head of Christianity, was to address a decretal to his subjects of Viterbo, in which he says,
.
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The government sues the property not the owner. IIRC a person can’t establish ownership of property acquired as a result of criminal activity. If the property isn’t owned by anyone it’s legally up for grabs(? I may be all wet on this assertion: double check please)
Regardless, an action in civil court is adequate to satisfy the due process requirement. The thing that people are most likely to recognize to happen because of the due process requirement is an eminent domain action which is wholly a civil action.
I’m not sure this site is being maintained. Lots of broken links:
Forfeiture Endangers American Rights F.E.A.R. http://www.fear.org/
from the Daily Kos in Jan:
literally every day that goes by the gummint falls further behind in the science of cannabis. In just the last month the usefulness medically of cannabis continued to glow brighter.
And still nary a peep from Mr Obama. I haven’t checked the news today to see if the protest across from the WH at Lafayette Park is getting any attention. brb…
and good on the US News and World Report:
Civil Rights Leaders: President Obama’s War on Drugs ‘Doesn’t Work’
Great quote from the Governor of Iowa: “I think that is a little bit of a killing of an ant with a sledgehammer”
So… would that accomplish the goal of killing the ant? Cause the current “killing the ant with anteater cut-outs” isn’t working very well…
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20130617/NEWS09/130617017/Branstad-Legalizing-pot-isn-t-answer-racial-disparity-black-arrests
Also, he want to discuss it, surely there must be a 3rd way besides legalization right? Anybody selling a 3rd way?
Three-year Humboldt-Utah pot investigation leads to bust
http://tinyurl.com/kemg4c8
Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:
On 06-11-2013 and 6-12-2013 the Humboldt County Drug Task Force, Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office, United States Forest Service, United States Marshal Office assisted the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration Metro Narcotics Task Force and the Davis Metro Narcotic Strike Force out of Salt Lake City, Utah regarding a 3 year long marijuana investigation in Humboldt County that was linked to Salt Lake City, Utah.
The Federal Drug Enforcement Administration issued indictments for several Humboldt County residents out of the Federal District Court in Salt Lake City, Utah for engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiracy to manufacture, distribute and possess with intent to distribute marijuana. Federal and state search warrants were served in Utah during the course of this investigation. ‘snip’
They are taking them out of CA for trials if the defendants decide to fight. I wonder how many manhours and the costs of this investigation plus the bust costs of a three year investigation add up to,,and how many new growers in Humboldt county started their crops today.