indago

I wrote this on the ACLU message board a few years back:
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The Supreme Court of the United States has legitimized the taking, by the State of Michigan, property co-owned by an innocent party without compensation to that party. Mrs. Bennis co-owned an automobile, an eleven year old Pontiac sedan, with her husband, who drove the car to work. Unknown to Mrs. Bennis, Mr. Bennis used the car one evening to engage the services of a prostitute; and unknown to Mr. Bennis, the scene was being surveilled by the Detroit police under complaint by citizens that prostitution in the area had become a "public nuisance". Mr. Bennis was arrested, and the vehicle seized and sold, under the State forfeiture laws, as the "vessel" used in the commission of a crime. Mrs. Bennis contested the seizure and sale, declaring that she had a property interest in the car; she did not know that the vehicle would be used by her husband in such a manner; that she was being unduly punished for the crime of her husband.

Michigan Supreme Court Justice Potter, delivering the opinion of the Court in the case of People v Hagadorn, stated: "The right of search and seizure did not exist at early common law, but crept into the law by imperceptible practice." Mr. Justice Joseph Bradley, in an opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, declared: "It may be that it is the obnoxious thing in its mildest and least repulsive form; but illegitimate and unconstitutional practices get their first footing in that way, namely, by silent approaches and slight deviations from legal modes of procedure. This can only be obviated by adhering to the rule that constitutional provisions for the security of person and property should be liberally construed. A close and literal construction deprives them of half their efficacy, and leads to gradual depreciation of the right, as if it consisted more in sound than in substance. It is the duty of courts to be watchful for the constitutional rights of the citizen, and against any stealthy encroachments thereon."

It is axiomatic that the innocent should not be punished. The Supreme Court of the United States, in upholding this seizure and forfeiture without compensation to an innocent co-owner, used, as an example of the power of seizure and sale under forfeiture laws, the Admiralty and Maritime laws of seizure and forfeiture of a sea-going vessel and its contraband. I had often found humor in the pleadings of some that the United States government, and State government, was directing its inland operations in Admiralty; and that the fringe on the flag in the United States courts, and many of the State courts, indicated that it was an Admiralty flag. Although the fringe on the flag of the United States does indicate Admiralty, and the federal courts do have Admiralty Jurisdiction over matters in Admiralty, I had always scoffed at the idea that the US government, or the State, would bring the Admiralty jurisdiction inland; until now.

Bringing Admiralty Jurisdiction inland was one of the complaints of the colonists against the British, who used the Writs of Assistance as a pretense for their right of Search and Seizure. The States Militia are growing stronger; and considering opinions like the latest from the Supreme Court, their presence is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Alexander Hamilton declared, in the Federalist No. 28: "If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government..." This is why we have Article Two of the Bill of Rights.
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