-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- Seizure Fever: The War on Property Rights Mass confiscation has become politically fashionable. Politicians and the courts have created an overwhelming presumption in favor of the government's right to seize control over private land, private homes, boats, and cars, and even the cash in people's wallets. While the dispute over property rights is often portrayed as merely an economic contest, the power of government officials to seize private property directly subjugates citizens to the capricious will of those officials. Once upon a time, possession was nine-tenths of the law. Nowadays, gossip is sometimes nine-tenths of possession. Thousands of American citizens are being stripped of their property on the basis of rumors and unsubstantiated assertions made by the government's confidential informants. Beginning in 1970, Congress enacted legislation to permit government to seize property of Mafia organizations and big-time drug smugglers.[1] In succeeding decades, other forfeiture laws were enacted, and federal agents can now seize private property under more than 200 different statutes.[2] From 1985 to 1991, the number of federal seizures of property under asset forfeiture laws increased by 1500 percent--reaching a total of $644 million.[3] State and local governments have also seized hundreds of millions of dollars of property in recent years.[4] According to Steven Kessler, a New York lawyer who authored a three-volume 1993 study on federal and state forfeiture, "The use of forfeiture has probably increased a hundred-fold in the last ten years."[5] Thousands of Americans have had their property confiscated thanks to the forfeiture laws. Unfortunately, the more forfeiture laws legislatures enacted, the less attention police seem to pay to major criminals. Representative Henry Hyde of Illinois noted in June 1993 that 80 percent of the people whose property is seized by the federal government under drug laws are never formally charged with any crime.[6] Representative John Conyers of Michigan declared at a June 1993 congressional hearing: "A law designed to give cops the right to confiscate and keep the luxury possessions of major drug dealers mostly ensnares the modest homes, cars and hard-earned cash of ordinary, law-abiding people."[7] Legalized Theft Willie Jones of Nashville was flying to Houston on February 27, 1991, to purchase plants for his landscaping business. Because Jones was black and paid cash for his plane ticket, the ticket clerk reported him to nearby Drug Enforcement Agency officers, who presumed Jones was a drug courier. DEA officers at the Nashville airport approached Jones, checked his identification, and asked permission to search him. Although Jones refused to grant permission, the officers searched him anyway and found $9,000 in cash. The DEA agents then announced that they were "detaining" the money. Jones observed: "They said I was going to buy drugs with it, that their dog sniffed it and said it had drugs on it." (A 1989 study found that 70 percent of all the currency in the United States had cocaine residue on it.)[8] Jones never saw the dog. The officers didn't arrest Jones, but they kept the money. When Jones asked the officers for a receipt for his money, they handed him a receipt for an "undetermined amount of U.S. currency." Jones objected and asked the officers to count the money out, but the officers refused, claiming that such an action would violate DEA policy. Federal judge Thomas Wiseman, in an April 1993 decision, concluded that "the officers' behavior at this point was casual and sarcastic... they believed that the seizure of the currency was all but a fait accompli ... they cared little for Mr. Jones's feelings of insecurity ."[9] Judge Wiseman concluded that the DEA officials' testimony on the seizure was "misleading," "unconvincing," and "inconsistent" and ordered the money returned--after a two-year legal battle. Jones observed: "I didn't know it was against the law for a 42-year-old black man to have money in his pocket."[10] A married couple in Ottsville, Pennsylvania, had their $250,000 home confiscated after police found marijuana plants inside the house; the couple and their three children were effectively evicted from their own home. District Attorney Gary Gambardella, who filed the motion to confiscate the home, observed: "People say that selling drugs is a victimless crime, but the children are the real losers here." [11] Asset forfeiture increases the power of local policemen over people they do not like. In Washington, D.C., police routinely stop black citizens and "confiscate small amounts of cash and jewelry on the streets and in parks--even when no drugs are found or charges filed."[12] Ben Davis, a resident of Washington, complained, "I've got money in both pockets, but I don't know how much. The assumption is, if I can't tell you exactly how much I have, it must be from criminal enterprise."[13] Increasingly, the mere suspicion of a government official is sufficient proof to nullify all claims that a citizen legitimately owns his property. The Volusia County, Florida, sheriff's department set up a "forfeiture trap" to stop motorists traveling Interstate 95 and seized an average of over $5,000 a day from motorists between 1989 and 1992--over $8 million dollars total. In three-quarters of the seizures, no criminal charges were filed. An investigation by the Orlando Sentinel revealed 90 percent of those seizure victims were black or Hispanic.[14] When confronted with this statistic, Volusia County Sheriff Bob Vogel said, "What this data tells me is that the majority of money being transported for drug activity involves blacks and Hispanics." People whose cash was seized by the deputies received scant due process of law; as the Sentinel noted, one deputy told two blacks from whom he had just confiscated $19,000: "You have the right to follow us back to the station and get a receipt." Even citizens who provided proof that their money was honestly acquired (including a lottery winner's proof of his lottery receipts) were treated like drug dealers. Volusia County officials routinely offered "settlements" to drivers whose cash they seized, offering to return a percentage of the seized cash if the drivers would sign a form promising not to sue. Asset forfeiture laws are turning some federal agents into the modern-day equivalent of horse thieves. Ranchers are being victimized by seizures based on allegations of violations of environmental laws. On March 10, 1992, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and state agents trespassed 15 miles onto Richard Smith's Texas ranch, accused him of poisoning eagles, and seized his pickup truck. The agents later tracked down Smith's 75-year-old father, W.B. Smith, and seized his pickup truck--threatening to leave an old man who had had five heart bypass operations ten miles out of town with no transportation.[15] The agents produced no evidence to support their accusation and returned the trucks nine months later without filing charges.[16] W.B. Smith complained: "The Fish and Wildlife Service is out of control, and the Endangered Species Act has given them the tools to destroy the ranching industry."[17] Lawyer Nancy Hollander told the House Government Operations Committee in June 1993: "All too often, in my practice back in Albuquerque, I see cases where someone loses the family pick-up truck at the time of arrest for a non-money related, non-drug federal crime. These persons frequently give up the criminal case, even when the prosecution has little merit, to negotiate the release of a vehicle which provides their livelihood." [18] Confiscation based on mere suspicion is the essence of contemporary asset forfeiture. In Adair County, Missouri, local police seized Sheri and Matthew Farrell's 60-acre farm based on an unsubstantiated tip from a paid drug informant who claimed that Farrell had a vast field of marijuana and used tractors outfitted with special lights to harvest it at night. Police made no effort to investigate the allegations before seizing Farrell's farm. The case against Farrell and 34 other local defendants collapsed when the informant refused to testify in court--first because he claimed he had laryngitis, and then because he claimed a total loss of memory.[19] Despite the collapse of the prosecution's case, the police refused to return Farrell's farm. They had a change of heart after the Pittsburgh Press exposed the case, although they required that the Farrells sign an agreement promising not to sue before giving back the farm. The case cost the Farrells over $5,600 in legal fees. Distorted Law Enforcement Priorities Asset forfeitures distorts law enforcement priorities; instead of chasing violent criminals, some police target wealthy citizens. Early in the morning of October 2, 1992, a small army of 31 people from eight law enforcement agencies smashed their way into 61-year-old Donald Scott's home on his 200-acre Trail's End Ranch in Malibu, California. The raiders were equipped with automatic weapons, flak jackets, and a battering ram.[20] Scott's wife screamed when she saw the intruders, Scott came out of the bedroom with a pistol in his hands, and police gunned him down. After killing Scott, the agents thoroughly searched his house and ranch but failed to find any illicit drugs. Ventura County district attorney Michael Bradbury investigated the raid and issued a report in 1993 that concluded that a "primary purpose of the raid was a land grab by the [Los Angeles County] Sheriff's Department."[21] Bradbury revealed that at a briefing before the raid took place, government agents were informed that the ranch had been appraised at $1.1 million and that "80 acres sold for $800,000 in 1991 in the same area."[22] The law officers at the briefing were told that if they discovered as few as "14 marijuana plants" on the ranch, the entire property could be seized.[23] Bradbury also concluded that a Los Angeles sheriff's deputy had lied to obtain a search warrant and declared: "This search warrant became Donald Scott's death warrant. This guy should not be dead."[24] Los Angeles officials claimed that a confidential informant told them that marijuana was being grown on Scott's ranch, but the informant denied ever making such a statement.[25] In Pittsburgh, federal prosecutors last year devastated Jane Ward after she had fully cooperated with them in testifying to help solve the murder of her husband, John Ward. Prosecutors decided that John Ward had been a drug dealer and that all of his previous income was drug-related. They proceeded to confiscate almost all of the assets of the widow (who had her own legitimate business); federal officials arrived with a truck at the Ward's home and carted off all the family's furniture. Prosecutors even sought to confiscate all the proceeds from Ward's life insurance; Jane Ward and her three children were forced to go on welfare, according to Terrance Reed, Ms. Ward's lawyer and one of the nation's leading authorities on forfeiture law. Asset forfeiture property grabs are sparking fights across the nation--even in states known for giving government a long leash, such as Maryland. In Frederick, Maryland, police seized a 1988 Toyota pickup truck from a local resident after he bought $40 worth of a drug placebo from an undercover cop at an open-air drug market. Under Maryland law, local police and prosecutors have effectively unlimited power to confiscate any vehicle they suspect was involved, or that the owner intended to be involved, in transporting drugs. Maryland police have confiscated thousands of autos and trucks in recent years, often based on mere accusations. After Maryland Delegate John Arnick proposed a law to reform the forfeiture procedure to shore up defendants' rights, state officials went berserk. Harford County State's attorney Joseph Cassilly denounced Arnick's proposal: "It's a crazy law. Absolutely crazy... It's just going to inconvenience the hell out of everybody" by requiring police officials to testify in court to explain why cars were confiscated.2[26] Frank Charles Meyer, an assistant state's attorney in Baltimore County, justified the existing law: ''It hurts the bad guy, it benefits the good guy and it doesn't really cost."[27] Police sometimes "settle" the forfeiture cases by allowing the auto owners to buy back their car for half the car's value. Government by Gossip The Justice Department's 1992 annual report on asset seizures declared, "No property may be seized unless the government has probable cause to believe that it is subject to forfeiture."[28] In reality, government officials are seizing people's property based solely on ''hearsay"--rumor and gossip--from anonymous informants.[29] (Hearsay evidence is held in such low esteem in the American judicial system that it cannot be introduced into court in criminal proceedings.) Police routinely refuse to reveal their source of a rumor about the forfeiture target; some policemen have likely invented anonymous informants to give them a pretext to take private property they covet. In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, police seized the $250,000 home of a dead man from his heirs who had cared for him while he was dying of cancer. The justification for the seizure? A "confidential informant told police that [two years earlier] the owner . . . took a $10,000 payment from drug dealers who used a dock at the house along a canal to unload cocaine. The informant can't recall the exact date, the boat's name or the dealers' names, and the government candidly says in its court brief it 'does not possess the facts necessary to be any more specific,' " as the Pittsburgh Press reported.[30] Although the police had no evidence that the deceased homeowner was involved in drug dealing, an informant's vague, uncorroborated assertion was sufficient to evict the owners and seize the property. While government agents can use hearsay evidence to justify a seizure, property owners are usually prohibited from offering hearsay evidence to support their claims. Law enforcement officials are also seizing apartment buildings to punish the landlords for not eradicating drug dealing in the apartments. (If the same standard were applied to inner-city public housing projects, almost every public housing project in the country could be seized from the government; in 1993 Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke blamed maintenance problems at one public housing project on drug dealers who refused to let city workers enter the buildings.)[31] In Florida, the Dade County Commission revised county laws in 1989 to allow county officials ''to demolish a nuisance building within 30 days after the police report drug activity at the property. Proof of drug activity is defined in the ordinance as one arrest."[32] The owner of a 36-unit apartment building in Milwaukee sought to placate the police by evicting ten tenants suspected of drug use, giving a master key to local beat cops, forwarding tips to the police, and hiring two security firms to patrol the building. The city still seized the building be- cause, as Milwaukee city attorney David Stanosz declared, "Once a property develops a reputation as a place to buy drugs, the only way to fix that is to leave it totally vacant for a number of months. This landlord doesn't want to do that." The owner had encouraged the police to send undercover agents into the building--but the police claimed they were too short of officers.[33] In July 1992, several Cleveland landlords informed the police of drug dealing in their buildings; the city responded by quickly seizing the buildings and evicting all tenants, even in a building where drug-dealing occurred in a single apartment.[34] Apparently, the worse the police fail to control crime, the more power police acquire to seize law-biding citizens' property. The Long Arm of Legal Plunder Asset forfeiture is spreading like wildfire through the statute books. (To be continued) ================================================================= Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> *Mike Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day. ================================================================= <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soap-boxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. 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