Comments by LaContra

If you can't appreciate the irony of a woman championing feminist ideals on pay equality, bemoaning being paid less than her male counterparts in business, and then calling herself Munchkinette.....

Then perhaps its you with the deficiency.

Forints?

Who the hell would want to be paid in Forints!
:)

..and really Hedgie you've got such a romantic view of the CJ system!

Yes he got caught.
Informed on by an associate for immunity.
The legitimate business corelation would be if the IRS could paid people or give them immunity from tax payment to inform on other businesses for tax irregularities.

Moving assets?
You don't honestly think that a transfer of assets would derail a criminal or civil forfeiture?

Lawyer out of the phonebook?
Probably not...How can you afford to pay a lawyer if they have frozen your accounts and assets?...No, strictly overworked underpaid court appointed representation.

Convicted felons are denied the right to vote
:)

What do you propose that we *should* use to judge and choose our leaders?

If they are Democrats:
Producing a simple US Birth Certificate.
....and obviously, next time, be white

If they are Republicans:
The ability to defend Citizens United and reflexively equate anonymous money with free speech
Have the moral wherewithal to receive money and endorsements from the religious right while screwing prostitutes, performing oral sex on congressional pages, or downloading kiddie porn.

If they are T-Partiers:
A lie detector test that they not only read Hayak and Skousen but actually understood them.
Have an address which isn't a PO Box at a trailer park

If they are Ron Paul supporters:
The ability to produce gold bullion rather than fake US fiat currency in demand for payment
Have watched at least one 911 truther film on youtube in the past 6 months
Know how to fold the required tinfoil hat so it stays on straight.

Excellent!

I don't suppose CAFRA can be retroactively applied to all the poor bastards whom the government stripped of their property and possessions prior to 2000 then?

;)

No I said the same jurisdiction...Federal
Yes Capone was convicted on Tax Evasion a separate crime stemming from his other illegal activities but the evidence for civil forfeiture doesn't stem from the criminal activity it is the same evidence. not separate evidence of a separate crime.

Lastly, again unless things have changed, The Feds don't need to prove the house was the fruit of illegal activity or connected in any way. There is no assumption of innocence in civil forfeiture...The onus was always on the individual to 'prove' the house was separate from the criminal activity which is almost impossible to do, especially from a pretrial detention center.

Yeah but in the developed world we try to avoid the 2 dozen people living in the basement

Perhaps not flat incorrect as much as out of date.

This point went before The Supreme court back in the mid 90's and the SC held that the Civil and Criminal matters were somehow legally distinct (wholly ignoring any claim to Double Jeopardy)

The Feds then modified their approach anyway to circumvent any further issues and started to hold the civil proceedings in abeyance.

It was always amusing that even in the 90's the DEA received more in forfeitures than its total budget, making in probably the only enforcement service in the developed world to operate on a profit making basis.

Brings a whole new slant to the claim of 'being the best money can buy'
:)

Nope. Guilty as charged.
Does it matter which law was fell foul of first?

So much for Double Jeopardy.
2 separate and distinct penalties, in 2 separate proceedings, in the same jurisdiction, based entirely on the same crime, and the same evidence?

Yes Lex I'm well aware of that.

From memory the house was in one of the Carolinas and the guy lived and operated his business in San Diego.

His name was on the title but his sister and her family lived in the house and maintained the property long before he started his criminal activity.

He hadn't seen the house in over a decade (actually when the civil papers were served he didn't even recognise the address of the house as his grandmothers property!) and the Feds evicted his sisters family to sell it at auction.

Yes they do.
Not quite as rapaciously applied as with the US system

...but give them time, the UK only adopted the practice within the last 5 years.

Hearsay evidence?....Absolutely.

What can I say?
He got 18 months in Federal custody and his court papers had no 'downward departure' sentencing allowances for any cooperation (meaning that by the Federal Sentencing Guidelines he was a small volume dealer as far as the Feds were concerned)

I can only attest to this since he was my cellmate for those 18 months (of course my 7 year sentence did put me rather higher up the food chain)

I know plenty of people who fell foul of the civil forfeiture laws...myself included.

It might be hearsay to you but to me its a lived experience full of oral histories.

LaContra?
It refers not so much being a contrarian (though I am most assuredly guilty of that too) but the Spanish word contrabandista

:)

I'm not referring to the leadership or political elites when I note the imbalance in income distribution...

I was referring more to perhaps the 4 people who own property in my building as opposed to the 28 people who rent from them...or maybe more tellingly the 24 odd people living in the basement 'flat' with no running water who sweep the courtyard, empty the trash, and clean the street outside.

That kind of structural imbalance.

Melissia makes an excellent point.

The Feds are notorious for executing the civil and the criminal warrant simultaneously.
Of course the result of a criminal trial could be 12 or 18 months in the offing where as the civil matter is expedited with a few months.
Naturally the Feds have no interest in maintaining houses or storing boats, planes, and valuables so they are sold at auction as soon as the civil forfeiture proceedings are complete.

The fact that 12 months later one is found not guilty or the case is dropped means nothing....your goods have been legally sold and you have no further claim on them except to negotiate a compensation deal with the Feds based on the auction prices not the market values.

There is no further legal recourse in any way.

Hedgie you are being naive if you think that Federal forfeiture laws are applied based on ones position in the criminal hierarchy and not on the value of the assets in question.

Mind you the corollary to this maybe the obvious self perpetuation of the system, after all, when they have taken all your money, your belongings, and left you homeless, marked for life as convicted felon...

The obvious solution is to return to what you know and rebuild thru re-offending.

Grist for mill.

I remember a colleague of mine who was a small volume Marijuana dealer who got himself ensnared in a much larger conspiracy being prosecuted by the Federal authorities.

Now its eminently fair that they took his car, his watches and jewelry, his bass boat and other toys. They had all been purchased in cash during the period of time he was known to be dealing.

But confiscating the family house that had been bequeathed to him by his grandmother 25 years prior? A house that was patently NOT the proceeds of illegal activity?

Its the all encompassing nature of these civil lawsuits which make them unfair.

Where the mistake occurs is when one thinks the 'rules' exist for blind obedience to the result.

As I wrote:
You follow the rule and if after, the result is inelegant or clumsy, one rewrites the sentence.

You may blindly follow the rule but not always to the result.

How about the aristocracy or the landed gentry?

John George Vanderbilt Henry Spencer-Churchill,
11th Duke of Marlborough
He was a director at Bacardi Martini before it was bought out, surely there are many other directorships handed out at the 'Club"?