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minnesota supreme court broadens state tyranny
Minnesota Supreme Court: State Can Grab Cars from Innocent Owners
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The Minnesota Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the right of police to confiscate vehicles from owners who have done nothing wrong.
Minn state law says "A motor vehicle is not subject to forfeiture under this section if its owner can demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that the owner did not have actual or constructive knowledge that the vehicle would be used or operated in any manner contrary to law," Minnesota Statutes Section 169A.63 states. "...If a motor vehicle is owned jointly by two or more people, each owner's interest extends to the whole of the vehicle and is not subject to apportionment."
The 4-3 majority on the court, led by Justice Lorie Gildea, concluded that it is sufficient for one owner to be guilty to nullify the innocent owner defense. It did so by construing the statute to mean that "all owners" must be innocent in order to block forfeiture.
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(total judicial tyranny by the majority here as the purposefully misinterpret this law)
Quote:
Justice Paul Anderson disagreed with the majority's interpretation, insisting that the ambiguous law should be read in a way limits, not broadens, state power.
"Given that the power to seize a person's property carries with it the potential for misuse, courts of justice must carefully scrutinize how the government exercises that power," Anderson wrote. "The context within which we must conduct our analysis is a disfavored forfeiture statute that we must strictly construe which means that if we have any doubt about the application of the statute, that doubt is to be resolved in favor of joint owner David Laase. Here, some initial doubt with respect to the application of section 169A.63 exists because nowhere does the statute provide that the innocent owner defense is not available to a non-offending joint owner such as David Laase."
The majority countered that it was the job of the legislature, not the courts, to limit the applicability of a law.
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and one more supreme court fails the people.
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"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."
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