DEA "seize"young guys life savings without ever charging him

[Honor]

[sombrio]

Yes. Civil asset forfeiture is one of the most fucked things about the American legal system. It gets worse and worse the more you learn about it.

In law school, we learned some historical background about civil procedure. I'm going from memory here, but the idea of charging property as opposed to a person ("in rem" proceedings) has been around for quite some time, at least since the early 1800s in the U.S., and I think it has, or at least had, some legitimate place in the common law system in general. I do not think it was a purely American invention, although I could be wrong. I would be very interested to learn what the lawyer AFers from other countries think about the general concept of in rem jurisdiction and where exactly the U.S. went wrong.

Walrus? ROD? How did things get so fucked up over here? My first thought is that this is brought on by the War on Drugs and/or the general trend toward more abusive, oppressive government in the U.S. What do you guys think?

[Les / Vipers Rule]

[Les / Vipers Rule]

BTW, that said and because of said screwed up laws. My advise for people would be to not carry such large sums of cash especially out of state or country. Get a Bank draft for the amount of cash you want to use, take with you. You can just make it payable to you. Once you get settled in the new place, state then deposit the amount in your new bank account at your new bank. Yep, it may not seem fair nor right but as long as the law enforcement community and by extension its corrupted govt. can use and abuse stupid laws the law FEARS NOBODY!

[thewalrus]

[Les / Vipers Rule]

[thewalrus]

[Les / Vipers Rule]

I agree about invasive and absurd laws. The US is not the only one with such. But being such a notable nation it has a larger spotlight shining on it.

Simply though regardless of which peer nation, laws as this one in the topic title are typically frivolessly ignored by the voting public. That or even championed by said ignorant public in the guise of falling for misplaced fear and paranoia especially if said fear and paranoia is created and pressed on by levels of govt. and their sorted bureaucracies