Supreme Court Nails Local Cops For Stealing Stuff

The Notorious RBG wrote Wednesday's U.S. Supreme Court
decision restricting civil forfeiture. 

I've complained before in this here blog thingy about something called "civil forfeiture."

It's been increasingly popular among some local law enforcement agencies across the country. It's basically "legal" theft.

Though as of Wednesday, it wasn't so legal anymore. The U.S. Supreme Court decided unanimiously that the Constitution's ban on excessive fines applies to individual states as well. That makes total sense to me and should be obvious.

Nonetheless, if you can get the most conservative and the most liberal Supreme Court justices to agree on something, that probably means they want to get rid of something that's terribly wrong.

There's no doubt about it. Civil forfeiture is indeed wrong.

Civil forfeiture essentially occurs outside the court system. It started as a pretty good idea: Civil forfeiture targeted large criminal enterprises by siphoning their money and supplies and resources away. No money supply and the cartel or whatever shrivels.

But then, many police departments discovered forfeiture was a way to boost their budgets. They would seize money and goods from people they arrested, which might be OK if the people involved were actually convicted of a crime and the amount of stuff taken was in line what the fines and such would have been anyway.

However, local law enforcement in some jurisdictions got into the habit of seizing cash, cars, real estate and other property from people who were not convicted of a crime, or in many cases, not even charged with a criminal offense. Then, these law enforcement agencies would make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for people to get their property and cash back.

It's gotten so bad that some police departments have taken to randomly pulling over people with out of state license plates over for trumped up traffic violations. The police would then take any cash that was in the vehicle and that's it. To me, that's theft. To these corrupt police department, they called it "law enforcement."

Yeah, right.

A lot of people besides the nine members of the Supreme Court are saying good riddance to civil forfeiture, although I'm sure it wil continue in some form as crafty law enforcement agencies find loopholes around the ruling.

Again, forfeiture opposition makes strange bedfellows. I mean, the ACLU and the conservative Cato Institute are against civil forfeiture. If you can get those two groups to agree, that's something.

There are countless horror stories out there about civil forfeiture. One of them was the case the Supreme Court decided on Wednesday, Timbs v. Indiana. Police confiscated Tyson Timbs' $40,000 Land Rover after he was caught selling $400 worth of heroin.

Nobody questioned the fact that Timbs needed to bear consequences for his crime.  But Timbs had purchased the Land Rover legally: He used a life insurance settlement from his father's estate.

As the Huffington Post describes the case, Indiana law says people convicted of crimes like Timbs' should pay no more than $10,000 in fines. The Land Rover the cops seized was worth four times that.

One Indiana judge said the seizing the car was disproportionate to the crime. But Indiana's highest court overruled that lower court judge, saying the U.S. Supreme Court has never said that the Eighth Amendment's ban on excessive fines applies to states as well as the federal government.

So, the U.S. Supreme Court had to state the obvious today, in a ruling written by the Notorious RBG, Ruth Bader Ginsburg: That the Constitution - not just parts of it, but all of it, applies to the states.

The Supremes also based their decision in large part on the 14th Amendment, which says "no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law."

Well, again, duh!

I guess Supreme Court watchers could see this decision coming since November, when the Supremes had oral arguments in the case. Justic Neil Gorsuch scoffed at Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher, who was arguing that it how the 8th and 14th amendment had supposedly never been tested this way. "Here we are in 2018 still litigating incorporation of the Bill of Rights... Come on, General," Gorsuch said.

Indeed!

Even before Wednesday's Supreme Court decision, states had been feeling the heat and beginning to at least consider cracking down on civil forfeiture.  Frankly, I think the only people who liked this grifting was corrupt so-called law enforcement agencies.

In South Carolina, the Greenville News recently published the results of a two-year investigation it conducted with other news organizations regarding civil forfeiture in that state. The Greenville News reported that South Carolina police collected $17 million in forfeiture money and property between 2014 and 2016.

In almost a fifth of those South Carolina seizures, people whose property was taken by police were never even charged with a crime, never mind convicted. One South Carolina example that Reason cited was of an elderly woman whose house was nearly taken away by the cops because a few small-time drug deals were conducted on her property.

The woman had nothing to do with the drug deals, and any time she became aware of somebody dealing drugs on or near her property, she tried to shoo them away. (Which is brave of an old lady. You never know what these drug dealers can do.)

The Greenville news investigation results were so odious that the conservate law-and-order South Carolina legislature began considering a bill that would require a criminal conviction before any property could be seized from someone.

That legislative effort might have something to do with something that Jarrod Bruder realizes now that he shouldn't have said out loud, but it is what everybody assumes.

Bruder is the Executive Director of the South Carolina Sheriff's Association.  As the Greenville News reported: 

"(Bruder) said without the incentive of profit from civil forfeiture, officers probably wouldn't pursue drug dealers and their cash as hard as they do now. If police don't get to keep the money from forfeiture, 'what is the incentive to go out and make a special effort?' Bruder said. 'What is the incentive for interdiction.'"

Um, maybe police incentive to enforce laws is because it's their job? Wild suggestion, I know.

Reason said three states had already passed similar laws and 29 states had passed some sort of civil forfeiture reform, so you know this was getting pretty unpopular.  Still law enforcement is still  resisting the trend, and many of them will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to comply.

New Mexico passed a law last year in which civil forfeiture could only take place if there is a criminal conviction. Incredibly, some New Mexico cities ignored the law, saying the municipalites could opt in to the law if they wished, but didn't have to.

Nope. New Mexico courts said, again, being a version of Captain Obvious, that a law was a law and everybody had to obey it.

In Oakland, California, the FBI cracked down on a crooked landlord who was illegally trying to evict residents so he could make a lot more money on rent. So far, so good. But then, says KQUED, U.S. Marshalls seized the property.

They now want to evict the residents so they can have an empty building that would sell for a huge profit in the Bay Area's tight housing market. Who cares if they make people homeless if there's profit to be made, right?

The residents, and Oakland, and California officials are fighting this.

All this means that the Supreme Court ruling was a victory, but local, state and federal jurisdictions better keep an eye on rogue law enforcement agencies out there.  They're supposed to enforce the law, but some of them are stealing just as boldly as a guy with a gun holding up a liquor store.

Weird Alabama Lawyer Sues Supreme Court Over Gay Marriage; He Sufffers 'Mental Anguish'

Alabama attorney Austin Burdick says he's so
"traumatized" by gay marriage that hes suing
the five Supreme Court justices who favor it.  

I must confess I sometimes get upset by the way the United States Supreme Court rules.

For instance, I didn't like the Citizen United decision, which really opened up the doors more and more for money in politics.

Yes, it angered me, but, like most rational people, I got over it. I'll just keep voting for politicians who don't like Citizens United and who are trying to find ways to enact laws that get around it.

Other decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court I really like. Last year came the Obergfell decision, which granted the right of gay people across the United States to marry.

As a married gay man in Vermont married to an awesome guy, I LOVED that decision.

But I get it that some people don't, and will be voting for politicians who will try to find ways to make gay marriage illegal again. I don't agree with these voters, but hell, vote away. It's your right.

There are a few grandstanders though who apparently are so traumatized by the gay marriage decision that they are suing the U.S Supreme Court over the decision.

Well, at least one guy is, according to AL.com, an Alabama news organization.

Austin Burdick an Alabama attorney, says he's so traumatized that he's suing the five justices who voted in favor of gay marriage for $6 million.

That's a lot of trauma! It must really hurt to see gay people marry and be happy.

For one thing, Burdock said the decision violates the 5th Amendment, which preserves the right of people to not self incrimidate. I'm not sure why the 5th Amendment is involved in this case, since nobody is accusing Burdock of a crime.

Stupidity, maybe but not a crime. Stupidiy IS legal, after all.

According to AL.com, Burdick is also invoking the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Burdick, in his lawsuit says:

"The 14th Amendment, which states that 'no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive a person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,'  has been rewritten by the five members of the court.

Again, I'm not following him here. I'm not sure how gay marriage is depriving Burdick of property, because no gay couple I know wants his stuff. Nor do any gay couples that I know of want to suppress his liberties. Burdick can still go to church, hate gay people if he chooses, hate gay marriage if he feels that way, and just go about his life.

But, maybe I shoudn't be so harsh. Some people are traumatized by the strangest things. Maybe I should sue Mother Nature because the weather became too harsh for me to work outdoors yesterday so I didn't get the things done that I wanted to do.

Oh, the TRAUMA!!

I wish Burdick all the best with his strange lawsuit, and I hope he's not too traumatized when he loses.

Death And Love And Marriage And Grace

This political cartoon is becoming iconic
after last week's news  

Last week was a rare moment in which grace managed to overpower, however briefly, the crudeness that is the usual way things seem to go nowadays.

These moments of grace were ironically born of that crudeness.

The grace partly had its roots in the terrible racial murder of nine people gathered in a Charleston, South Carolina church for Bible study.

The grace came after years of hate and misguided "morality" lectures aimed at gay people, some of whom just wanted to marry each other. The U.S. Supreme Court said Friday that in our nation at least, these gay people had the right to marry.

The grace was visible in the majority opinion written by Justice Anthony Kennedy:

"No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater thatn once they were.

The White House Friday evening. 

As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage.

Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of the civilization's oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants that right."

By far the leading trending hashtag on Twitter was #LoveWins. For once, love DID win.  

There was something dignified, graceful in all those raucous celebrations in the moments after the Supreme Court announced its decision. Rainbow colors are fun, and they were everywhere Friday. Rainbow lights even bathed the White House, as President Obama celebrated the decision.

Obama had his well-reported graceful moment Friday - even singing "Amazing Grace" - in a scene that had nothing to do with gay marriage.

The President was eulogizing the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, gunned down with eight others in the Charleston church by a young man drowning in racial rage.

Said Obama, describing the actions of the killer and the hand of God:

President Obama reminded us about grace as
he delivered a eulogy in Charleston, South
Carolina Friday. He even sang "Amazing Grace"
to emphasize his point.  

"Blinded by hatred the alleged killer would not see the grace surrounding Reverend Pinckney and that Bible study group, the light of love that shown as they opened the church doors and invited a stranger to join in their prayer circle.

The alleged killer could have never anticipated the way the families of the fallen would reside when they saw him in court in the midst of unspeakable grief with words of forgiveness. 

He couldn't imagine that. He's given us the chance where we've been lost to find our best selves. We may not have earned this grace with our rancor and complacency and short-sightednees and fear of each other, but we got it all the same. He gave it to us anyway. He's once more given us grace."

We live in a world of Internet trolls insulting everyone in their path. We live in a world of blowhards on the cable news shows all screaming over each other and talking nonsense. We live in a world in which politicians, our so-called leaders, stir up divisions, hate, their own political fortunes at the expense of the common good. We live in a world in which activists preach hate, and encourage it, just  so they can line their pockets with the money given to them by gullible donors.  

Sometimes it seemed like the world was completely overrun with this dark scenario that I just described.

Sure enough, by the time I woke up Saturday morning, it was back to the usual awfulness in the world. A few dozen tourists had been killed by an attacker at a Tunisian hotel.  They're still searching for an escaped killer in the Adirondack wilderness. The blowhards were back on cable news. The Internet trolls ranted unimpeded.

However, the wonderful, graceful moments so many people show on Friday proved once again that good will is not dead. In the darkness of our media, political and social landscape, there are bright, inviting pockets of light.

Friday proved that.

It's time to embrace that light. With grace and love. #LoveWins.

SCOTUSBlog Gleefully Trolls The Trolls.

An on line site that reports on the Supreme Court is getting a lot of hate today. Because people are too clueless to distinguish between the Supreme Court and SCOTUSblog, which is the news site.

I'm sure many people in social media will never
get it, but SCOTUSblog is NOT part of the U.S.
Supreme Court.  

A quick, and I mean very quick, glance at their profile reveals that SCOTUS blog, or @SCOTUSblog on Twitter, is a site that offers news and analysis of what the US. Supreme Court is up to.

They're the go-to place if you want to know the ins and outs of what the High Court is doing and what their rulings mean for you and me.

But I guess social media is the land in which everybody likes to yell but nobody knows who they're yelling at.

On Twitter, people have been firing away at SCOTUSblog, yelling and screaming at them for the "ruling" they issued today saying privately held businesses like Hobby Lobby can withhold insurance coverage for contraceptives, based on their religious faith.

Of course, it was the Supreme Court that made the ruling, not SCOTUSblog, and as far as I know the Supreme Court doesn't keep a blog. But if you have to yell at somebody, might as well yell at someone who just reported on the decision, but otherwise had nothing to do with it.

What's wrong with these people? Yeah, I know there are similar sounding names on social media like Twitter, or people pretend they are someone or something they are not, but really.

So, the fine reporters at SCOTUSblog, who are only trying to help us understand what the Supreme Court did, are an outfit that "sided with the crazies" and treat women like second class citizens.

I bet the people who work at SCOTUS blog wish they had the kind of power the Supreme Court does.

At least SCOTUSblog is having fun with peoples' stupidity. Responding to someone who Tweeted: "You disgust me," SCOTUSblog responded, "But you complete us."

Someone else asked SCOTUSblog: "When will you start honoring the constitution." SCOTUSblog responded. "When you start reading our description."

Touche!!

Now, social media is alive with the correctors, the media outlets and such (like me!) that are trying to give people a clue. REPEAT!, they're saying. SCOTUSblog is NOT part of the Supreme Court.  wise up, doofuses!

But the yellers and trolls will have none of it.

Says one person, clueless upset that SCOTUSblog is having fun with the ignorant, and not part of the Supremes: "The passive aggressive way @SCOTUSblog is answering right now is horrible considering the position they just put women in. Not okay."

What's not okay is the people who are continuing with their willful ignorance. It's the American Way!!

On the bright side, this is surely making LOTS of people click on SCOTUSblog to see what all the fuss is about. It can't help the blog's bottom line, no?