Balko finds another ridiculous case of law enforcement seizing property without ever proving it was involved in any crime,t his one from New Hampshire.
The state Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that the government can keep and destroy more than 500 CDs taken from Michael Cohen, owner of Pitchfork Records in Concord, in 2003 even though the state failed to prove that a single disk was illegal.
Cohen was arrested for attempting to sell bootleg recordings. But the police case collapsed when it turned out that most of the recordings were made legally. Police dropped six of the seven charges, and Cohen went to trial on one charge. He beat it after the judge concluded that the recording was legal.
However, the police refused to return Cohen's CDs. In the state Supreme Court's Tuesday ruling, Chief Justice John Broderick, writing for the majority, reasoned so poorly that it appeared as if he'd made up his mind ahead of time...
ndeed, the majority's reasoning is chilling. The majority concedes that no crime or illegal act was proven, but allows the confiscation anyway by concluding that a crime might have been committed. The majority used words such as "apparently," "likely" and "would have" to describe the alleged illegal activity.
It should go without saying that speculation by a few judges that a crime might have been committed is a frightening basis for taking someone's property.
It should be absolutely illegal to seize and keep anyone's property unless they are convicted of a crime involving that property. Period.
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I hope this guy appeals this decision to a higher level.
It seems to me that the Constitution is pretty clearly in agreement with your conclusion at the end there.
Then again, the Constitution is pretty clear about the separation of church and state....
The drive towards authoritarianism is also being driven by the copyright maximalists -- the people like the RIAA who throw around the spectre of piracy as freely as Cheny throws around the spectre of terrorism. It's not as obvious, nor as visceral, as the fear of terrorism, but it's also a drive for maximum central control.
-Rob
It looks like New Hampshire's motto ("Live Free or Die") is false advertising.
The state Supreme Court judges who formed the majority should be impeached. Period. Insisting on punitive action against a person who has already unequivocally been found "not guilty" (no maybes or coulda-beens there) is, ipso facto, illegal. I hope someone in NH gets articles of impeachment on the table soon.
Sooooo... the state believes that it's allowed to punish people who haven't committed any crimes? Scary.
Sooooo... the state believes that it's allowed to punish people who haven't committed any crimes? Scary.
Consider that a lot of these seziure laws are exactly intended to do that. Or more to the point to allow the state to punish those who they can't prove commited crimes. It is a direct end run around the burden of proof. Sounds great when it is taking away ciggarette boats running cocaine but the net result is that seizures are rarely used in those circumstances - far more often they are used in situations like this. Which is why it is critical to fight this even when they are right in their seizures - it is simply a method of getting around the constitution.
Sixty Minutes did a piece on this kind of horror story a while back. Their examples included a man arrested for having a money belt full of cash when he was on his way to pay cash for a large order of trees for the nursery he owned so he could get a good discount and a man who lost his plane and therefore his business when he made the mistake of conducting business with people that were drug dealers when he had no idea that's what they were. The whole thing has been going on for years and is one of the most disgusting things about the "war on drugs".
Welcome to the People's Republic of Amerika.
Elect Republicans, they'll put a stop to this.