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Originally Posted by j8ear
Regardless of how this portion of the debate plays out....why in the world should this completely innocent man have to prove a thing to anyone. It is my understanding, and a bedrock of our entire system of jurisprudence, that any burden of proof rests with the government, not the accused....
-bear
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I keep reading references to standards of proof that lead me to believe that a number of you are not making adequate distinction between civil proceedings and criminal ones.
This practice, of seizing assets, has been around for almost a decade. It's a
civil proceeding, as are civil gang injunctions. My friend researches the latter, and we both see these types of proceedures as end-arounds to "flip" suspected criminals into the less protected domain of the civil court systems.
So if that means that narco-traffickers get their bling jacked and bangers can't hang at the local parks, it also means that ordinarily law abiding people need to pay particular attention to their conduct to not be swept up in a net they demanded be employed.
These public policies were reponses to a public demand during the hayday of public outcry about a (mythical) lenient criminal justice system. They were implemented over and above the objections of experts. Crime touches people in both tangible and gut level ways--and it often results in public responses that have no basis in sound responses that have been tested empirically.
Civil forfeiture, gang injunctions, 3 strikes, measure 11, mandatory minimum sentences, the new spate of anti-sex crime legislation that was until recently trumpeted as necessary and sufficient to address molestations, STEPping gang members, extending the RICO Act to gang members and drug traffickers (not to mention the empirically debunked link between traditional street gangs and narcotic trafficking) are all products of public hysteria over problems that either don't exist to the extent believed or produce much worse consequences than they hope to resolve.
BOTTOM LINE: public pressure on government to successfully prosecute drug traffickers, and failing that to at least disrupt their ability to conduct business as usual, created a situation that might possibly entangle law-abiding citizens...so don't moan about tyrannical government entities when they are merely responding to the demands of the people...
...and as someone who's been there and done "that," his story sounds like horseshit. but I don't begrudge him from trying and if he can muster up enough BS to win his money back all the power to him.