Comments on: An Oklahoma forfeiture story https://www.overlawyered.com/2016/05/oklahoma-forfeiture-story/ Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Tue, 03 May 2016 20:31:29 +0000 hourly 1 By: Bill Poser https://www.overlawyered.com/2016/05/oklahoma-forfeiture-story/comment-page-1/#comment-335911 Tue, 03 May 2016 20:31:29 +0000 http://overlawyered.com/?p=58957#comment-335911 Reforming the statutes is all well and good, but short of eliminating civil forfeiture, I don’t see how it will help. Why should we expect raising the standard of proof of criminality to help if so many cases, such as this one, plainly do meet even the current low standard of preponderance of evidence? How will it help if courts are willing to accept the ridiculous inference from “dog alerts to car” to “cash was used by bearer in drug transaction”?

Indeed, what bothers me most about these cases is that they seem to reflect a widespread culture of corruption among the police, prosecutors, and courts. Prosecutors and judges, at least, have a certain level of education and are selected in part on the basis of intelligence. Is it really plausible that so many of these people sincerely believe the absurd claims they swear to in civil forfeiture proceedings?

]]> By: Al https://www.overlawyered.com/2016/05/oklahoma-forfeiture-story/comment-page-1/#comment-335902 Tue, 03 May 2016 12:02:32 +0000 http://overlawyered.com/?p=58957#comment-335902 “Let it go Jake….It’s Oklahoma”

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