It’s one of the most gross injustices allowed in our legal system, but a federal case may make it easier to defend against it. As Glenn says, there should be punishment of officials who engage in this legalized thievery.
[Update in the afternoon]
Here’s a good piece on the subject in The Economist.
Not only does it allow for punishment without conviction, or in some cases without even a criminal charge, it also creates perverse incentives for law enforcement agents. When the police have the option to pursue busts which bring in substantial revenue to fund the police department itself it’s no surprise that the enforcement of the law becomes twisted.
How in the world can police be so blatantly unconstitutional? However, if they’d just waited until he left the house with the money, they could have taken it and he would not have gotten it back. Perverse indeed.
This was Reagan’s big initiative in the “War on Drugs”.
As the Feds and States cut taxes, they sought other sources of income.
The traditional approach to serious criminality has been arrest, followed by the institution of criminal proceedings with a view to conviction and imprisonment. In recent years a confiscation or forfeiture element has been added to the criminal process in many jurisdictions. The US President’s Commission on Organized Crime argued for a broader response than a solely criminal one in 1986:
To be successful, an attack on organized crime in our mainstream economy cannot rely solely on the enforcement of federal criminal laws…The Commission believes that a strategy aimed at the legitimate economic base of organized crime must build upon the recent successes of law enforcement, and must be based upon intervention measures as broad-based as the nature of the threat posed by organized crime. A strategy in this area should also rely upon civil and regulatory measures tailored to the specific problems confronted…[1]