Comments on: Pennsylvania high court limits civil asset forfeiture

By: Hugo S Cunningham

Hugo S Cunningham — Mon, 12 Jun 2017 03:03:25 +0000

@PS–
If it looks like a punishment, walks like a punishment, and quacks like a punishment, it’s a punishment. It has been many decades since forfeiture were limited to the proceeds of illegal acts. I am glad to see a court invoke the Eighth Amendment ban on “excessive fines” to curb an excessive forfeiture.

By: internatinal reader

internatinal reader — Fri, 02 Jun 2017 14:33:22 +0000

Funny i am reading at long last “Atlas shrugged” by Ayn Rand, well known. This is exactly how in the first part the dystopian US government portrayed in the book stifles competition and ruins the nation (applied in the book to primary transformation industries and railroad). In France we run an experiment to administer the housing rental market along similar lines (authorization to rent, controlled rents, prohibit short term rentals, protect tenants, tax rental revenues) – we shall see.

By: PurpleState

PurpleState — Thu, 01 Jun 2017 07:23:16 +0000

I’m concerned that the court has limited seizures such that they “…cannot be disproportionate to the offense…”. This implies that the seizure is punishment, when in fact it’s simply a means to remove the profitability of an offense and to to seize ill-gotten gains.

Given that conviction is not generally required for seizures, we must take care to ensure that the police don’t use seizures as a profitable replacement for actual convictions – punishment and all.