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Title: The DEA seized her father’s life savings at an airport without alleging any crime occurred, lawsuit says
Source:
The Seattle Times
URL Source: https://www.seattletimes.com/nation ... y-crime-occurred-lawsuit-says/
Published: Jan 17, 2020
Author: Justin Jouvenal (The Washington Post)
Post Date: 2020-01-17 10:11:03 by misterwhite
Keywords: None
Views: 10484
Comments: 78
Every dollar Terry Rolin had saved over a lifetime was stacked in a large Tupperware container: $82,373. At 79, he was aging and worried about keeping so much cash on hand, his daughter said, so during one of her visits he asked her to open a joint bank account. Rebecca Brown was catching a flight home from the Pittsburgh airport early the next day and said she didn’t have time to stop at a bank. She confirmed on a government website that it’s legal to carry any amount of cash on a domestic flight and tucked the money in her carry-on. But just minutes before departure in late August, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent met her at the busy gate and questioned her about the cash, which showed up on a security scan. He insisted Brown put Rolin on the phone to confirm her story. Brown said Rolin, who is suffering mental decline, was unable to verify some details. “He just handed me the phone and said, ‘Your stories don’t match,’ ” Brown recalled the agent saying. ” ‘We’re seizing the cash.’ “ Brown said she was never told she or her father were under suspicion of committing any crime and neither has been charged with anything. A search of her bag turned up no drugs or other contraband. Neither she or her father appear to have criminal records that might raise suspicions. Brown and Rolin filed a federal, class-action lawsuit Wednesday against the DEA, Transportation Security Administration and agency officials, claiming the agencies violate the Constitution’s ban on unlawful search and seizures by taking cash from travelers without probable cause. The lawsuit claims the only criteria the DEA has for seizing cash is if it finds amounts greater than $5,000. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Pennsylvania, seeks the return of Rolin’s money and an injunction against the practice. Both the DEA and TSA declined to comment on the lawsuit’s allegations. “We can’t comment on ongoing litigation,” said Katherine Pfaff, a DEA spokeswoman. “As a matter of policy, TSA does not comment on pending litigation,” TSA spokeswoman Jenny Burke wrote in an email. Brown said the loss of the savings has prevented Rolin from getting treatment for painful tooth decay and gum disease and kept the family from fixing up his pick-up truck, which is his only means of transportation. Rolin is living on retirement benefits from a job as a railroad engineer. Brown said her grandparents kept their savings in cash because they lived through the bank runs of the Great Depression, and her father adopted the habit. “I get they are trying to quash drug distribution, but this is a blatant overreach,” Brown said. “This is a working person, a taxpaying citizen of the United States trying to take care of her elderly parent, and they took the money.” Dan Alban, a senior attorney for the Virginia-based Institute for Justice, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Brown and Rolin, said the family’s story is not unique. “This is something that we know is happening all across the United States,” Alban said. “We’ve been contacted by people who have been traveling to buy used cars or buy equipment for their business and had their cash seized.” The DEA made more than 8,850 seizures worth $539 million in 2017, according to the latest agency statistics for a full year. A 2016 USA Today investigation found DEA agents seized at least $209 million in cash from travelers at the nation’s 15 busiest airports over the previous decade. Federal law gives the DEA and other law enforcement agencies power to seize cash and property linked to drug and criminal activity, a process known as civil asset forfeiture. The agencies say it is an important tool to undermine the financial viability of criminal networks, deprive organizations of illicit proceeds and confiscate property like cars and houses that might be used to carry out or harbor crime. But the practice has come under increased scrutiny in recent years. Critics argue local police departments and federal agencies have used asset forfeiture as a cash cow to fatten budgets. In the DEA’s case, the agency feeds seized assets into a Justice Department fund that disburses the money to agencies and victims of crime. A 2017 review by the Justice Department inspector general found only 44 of 100 seizures by the DEA were related to an ongoing investigation or resulted in a new investigation, arrest or prosecution. Most of the seizures occurred at transportation facilities like airports or bus stations. The Supreme Court limited the power of local state agencies to seize property in an important ruling last year. The DEA seized her father’s life savings at an airport without alleging any crime occurred, lawsuit says Brown said she initially encountered issues when going through the TSA security checkpoint at Pittsburgh International Airport on Aug. 26. Brown was flying to Boston, where she lives outside the city. A TSA screener noticed the cash in Brown’s carry-on during a scan and pulled her aside for questioning, Brown said. The screener asked what the money was for, photocopied her ID and travel documents and held her luggage until a Pennsylvania state trooper arrived. The lawsuit claims the TSA exceeded its authority in holding Brown’s bag. Brown said she repeated the explanation that the money was her father’s life savings to the trooper and then retold it to his superior. Finally, she said she was allowed to proceed to the gate, where she was met by the DEA agent. Brown said it was humiliating to be questioned by the agent in front of other travelers at the gate. When he seized the money, she said he put it into a plastic bag and told her someone would be in touch with her. Brown said she stumbled onto her flight in shock as the doors were closing. She didn’t have time to fully explain to her father what had happened before takeoff, and he left seven frantic messages while they were in flight. In October, she received a notice that the DEA planned to permanently seize the cash, citing its authority to make such moves to combat crime. “I was shaking the entire time,” Brown said of the flight. “I was embarrassed. I was afraid.” – – – The Washington Post’s Alice Crites contributed to this report.
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#36. To: nolu chan (#29)
Oh? I mean, that's what she says. But do we know that? Do we know that she didn't fly into Pittsburgh over the weekend to pick up drug money and fly it back to Boston? Clearly her father didn't have a clue.
In the fewest words? Not fair. nolu chan would lose every time.
Ah. But the person is not being charged. The money is.
Some of the explanations are a hoot. I was watching a crime show where the cops found drugs in the perps pants pocket. He said he had just got the pants from Goodwill and the drugs must have already been there.
In any court, empty bullshit loses. Fourth Amendment challenges to asset forfeiture laws have been rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court, as shown by Calero-Toledo. Calero-Toledo v Pearson Yacht Leasing Co, 416 US 663, 676-80 (1974) Appellants challenge the District Court’s holding that the appellee was denied due process of law by the omission from §2512(b), as it incorporates §1722, of provisions for preseizure notice and hearing. They argue that seizure for purposes of forfeiture is one of those “‘extraordinary situations’ that justify postponing notice and opportunity for a hearing.” Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U. S., at 90; see Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., 395 U. S. 337, 339 (1969); Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U. S. 371, 378-379 (1971). We agree.12 In holding that lack of preseizure notice and hearing denied due process, the District. Court relied primarily upon our decision in Fuentes v. Shevin, supra. Fuentes involved the validity of Florida and Pennsylvania replevin statutes permitting creditors to seize goods allegedly wrongfully detained. A writ of replevin could be obtained under the Florida statute upon the creditor’s bare assertion to a. court clerk that he was entitled to the prdperty, and under the Pennsylvania statute, upon filing an affidavit fixing the value of the property, without alleging legal entitlement to the property. Fuentes held that the statutory procedures deprived debtors of their property without due process by failing to provide for hearings “‘at a meaningful time.’” 407 U. S., at 80. Fuentes reaffirmed, however, that, in limited circumstances, immediate seizure of a property interest, without an opportunity for prior hearing, is constitutionally permissible. Such circumstances are those in which Thus, for example, due process is not denied when postponement of notice and hearing is necessary to protect the public from contaminated food, North American Storage Co. v. Chicago, 211 U. S. 306 (1908); from a bank failure, Coffin Bros. & Co. v. Bennett, 277 U. S. 29 (1928); or from misbranded drugs, Ewing v. Mytinger & Casselberry, Inc., 339 U. S. 594 (1950); or to aid the collection of taxes, Phillips v. Commissioner, 283 U. S. 589 (1931); or the war effort, United States v. Pfitsch, 256 U. S. 547 (1921). The considerations that justified postponement of notice and hearing in those cases are present here. First, seizure under the Puerto Rican statutes serves significant governmental purposes: Seizure permits Puerto Rico to assert in rem jurisdiction over the property in order to conduct forfeiture proceedings,13 thereby fostering the public interest in preventing continued illicit use of the property and in enforcing criminal sanctions. Second, preseizure notice and hearing might frustrate the interests served by the statutes, since the property seized — as here, a yacht — will often be of a sort that could be removed to another jurisdiction, destroyed, or concealed, if advance warning of confiscation were given. And finally, unlike the situation in Fuentes, seizure is not initiated by self-interested private parties; rather, Commonwealth officials determine whether seizure is appropriate under the provisions of the Puerto Rican statutes.14 In these circumstances, we hold that this case presents an “extraordinary” situation in which postponement of notice and hearing until after seizure did not deny due process. ___________________ 12 Appellants also argue that the seizure did not result in any injury to appellee that constituted failure of preseizure notice and hearing a denial of due process. This is so, they contend, because the lease gave the lessees exclusive right to possession at the time of the seizure, and therefore appellee's nonpossessory interest was adequately protected by the statutory provisions for a post-seizure hearing. But the lease provides that lessees' failure, inter alia, within 15 days after notice from appellee to pay arrears of rent or use the yacht solely for legal purposes would establish a default entitling appellee to possession. Whether a default had in fact occurred between May 6, 1972, when a lessee was first accused of a narcotics violation, and the date of seizure, July 11, 1972, is not clear from the record, although it is clear that appellee did not attempt to repossess the yacht until October 19, 1972. Since, however, our holding is that preseizure notice and hearing are not required by due process in the context of this forfeiture, we have no occasion to remand for a determination (1) whether the company had an immediate, but as yet unexercised, right to possession on the date of seizure or merely a right to collect rents, together with a reversionary interest, and (2) whether either or both of these property interests would be of sufficient significance to require that the company be given an advance opportunity to contest the seizure. Cf. Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U. S. 67, 86-87 (1972). 13 Cf. Oumbey v. Morgan, 256 U. S. 94 (1921), cited with approval in Fuentes v. Shevin, supra, at 91 n. 23. 14 Fuentes expressly distinguished seizure under a search warrant from seizure under a writ of replevin: "First, a search warrant is generally issued to serve a highly important governmental need — e. g., the apprehension and conviction of criminals — rather than the mere private advantage of a private party in an economic transaction. Second, a search warrant is generally issued in situations demanding prompt action. The danger is all too obvious that a criminal will destroy or hide evidence or fruits of his crime if given any prior notice. Third, the Fourth Amendment guarantees that the State will not issue search warrants merely upon the conclusory application of a private party. It guarantees that the State will not abdicate control over the issuance of warrants and that no warrant will be issued without a prior showing of probable cause." 407 U. S., at 93-94, n. 30. We have no occasion to address the question whether the Fourth Amendment warrant or probable cause requirements are applicable to seizures under the Puerto Rican statutes. 15 No challenge is made to the District Court's determination that the form of postseizure notice satisfied due process requirements. See n. 3, supra. Notice, of course, was required to be "'reasonably calculated' to apprise [the company] of the pendency of the forfeiture proceedings." Robinson v. Hanrahan, 409 U. S. 38, 40 (1972). More recently, challenges have been made citing the Eighth Amendment's Excessive Fines Clause. Timbs v. Indiana, S Ct 17-1091 (20 Feb 2019) slip op.
Fair point. No we do not know that August Terrence Rolin even knew that the money existed, or that it was ever in his possession. As a further point, the instant legal challenge is to the constitutionality of the statute, and not a response to the notice of asset forfeiture attempting to defeat the government's claim to ownership. I don't know whether they filed a response to the notice and lost, or they did not file such response.
Ah. But the person is not being charged. The money is. There is also the fact that a seizure does not presume innocence. A Court proceeds on a presumption of innocence. Law enforcement does not. When a suspected murderer is arrested and evidence seized, they do not presume him to be innocent and just give back all the seized property. Nor does retention depend on conviction. A drug dealer might have 10 kilos of heroin seized pursuant to an illegal search. The Court finds the search illegal, excludes the evidence, and the dealer walks. But he walks without his heroin, which stays. As it was illegal to possess, he had no legal right of ownership to begin with. The heroin is forfeited.
Maybe you're just stating the nature of legal environment, what it is, and not what it should be. I'm pointing out the moral wrong of taking property from people on mere suspicion of a crime without due process, creating a legal and finacial burden upon a presumed innocent person to prove the negative of non-guilt. In no way would I agree that the founder's envisioned civil asset forfeiture as compatible with the 4th Amendment. You are free to suggest the current legal environment of the USA, particularly in regards to taking property without having to prove any criminal wrongdoing, is exactly what they envisioned and intended. If so, go for it. On the other hand, if you are content to be a walking case law library lacking any moral compass by which to morally judge right and wrong, fine. That is something on which we can agree.
Ergo, cash is a controlled substance, just like heroin.
Well, if you exchange heroin for cash, shouldn't that cash be treated just like heroin?
This, however, was a federal seizure.
A bank is robbed of $82,000. The cops thinks Joe did it and they get a search warrant. They find $82,000 under Joe's mattress which he can't explain. But they don't have enough evidence (other than the money) to convict Joe. So you're saying he gets to keep it?
I'm pointing out the moral wrong of taking property from people on mere suspicion of a crime without due process, creating a legal and finacial burden upon a presumed innocent person to prove the negative of non-guilt. In no way would I agree that the founder's envisioned civil asset forfeiture as compatible with the 4th Amendment. You are free to suggest the current legal environment of the USA, particularly in regards to taking property without having to prove any criminal wrongdoing, is exactly what they envisioned and intended. If so, go for it. On the other hand, if you are content to be a walking case law library lacking any moral compass by which to morally judge right and wrong, fine. That is something on which we can agree. If you think that blathering your libertarian anarchist crap as the law is moral, go for it. If you think an accurate recitation of the actual law, as it exists in the real world is immoral, you have a problem. Stating abortion is lawful is to state a fact. It says nothing about whether abortion is moral or immoral. Accurately stating what any law is states nothing about whether it is moral or immoral, just or unjust. If you think reciting your libertarian anarchist crap as actual law, followed by your ritual fallback to your crap being about morality and not law, is moral or honest, well you can just go hump yourself. Also, you should phrase your libertarian anarchist crap differently so that it does not appear to be about laws, courts, the Constitution, the Founders, crime, the presumption of innocence, and things legal and illegal. "This note is legal tender...". Not illegal tender, *legal* tender. Here you meant the note is moral tender, not immoral tender? And here you meant that moral tender is deemed to be all the evidence required of an immoral act. Ergo, possession of some arbitrary amount of immoral tender is, de facto, an immoral act all. by. itself. Here, you spoke of some arbitrary amount to immoral tender being deemed to be invalid until the possessor provides some arbitrary support that deems it not to be immorally gained, (reversing the burden of moral proof) and depriving the person of any presumption of morality. Here you speak of circumvention of the plain meaning of the 4th Amendment to the Morality Charter of the United States. Notably, the 4th Amendment does not prohibit seizures. The 4th Amendment prohibits the issuance of warrants except upon probable cause. Numerous seizures do not contravene the 4th Amendment, including warrantless seizures. Well, as you were discussing morality and not the law, it is obvious that federal court opinions about the actual law are unrelated to your morality blather which I misapprehended as some wack recitation of some imaginary law. Here, you meant that the priests, ministers and rabbis never intended the 4th Amendment to the Morality Charter of the United States to suggest that people would not be secure from government seizure of their moral stature. A lawful seizure effected in accordance with a valid law is not effected on the personal whim of anyone. And you said again that the government will consider having immoral tender to be evidence of an immoral act, so they should cease issuance of immoral tender. They should use moral Bitcoin? Your ritual fallback position when your libertarian anarchist bloviations about law are blown up: But, but, I'm morally superior, and I was talking about morality, not law.
No libertarian anarchist, it's not. Heroin is a substance which is illegal to possess. Simple possession of heroin constitutes a crime. Cash is legal to possess. Simple possession of cash is not a crime. You have no valid legal claim to ownership of heroin because it is illegal to possess. No warrant is ever required for the seizure of per se contraband such as heroin. You have no valid legal claim to ownership of certain cash, even if it is in your possession, if it was obtained through unlawful means. If you rob a bank, valid legal ownership of the cash does not attach to you. Cash may be derivative contraband. Michael E. Herz, Chicago Unbound, University of Chicago, Forfeiture Seizures and the Warrant Requirement, footnote 17, pp. 961-62
Limiting the power to seize would imply the general constitutionality of seizure. However, even the claim that the SCOTUS opinion limited State power specifically to seize property is a bit of a stretch. What it actually did was uphold a general application of the Eighth Amendment Excessive Fines Clause to the States, while explicitly stating it could make no finding with regard to specific application to a civil in rem forfeiture, as that had not been argued in the Indiana court. I believe the article references Timbs v. Indiana S Ct 17-1091 (20 Feb 2019), the opinion to which I linked and cited at the end of my #40. It was an Eighth Amendment case, involving the Excessive Fines Clause. Opinion by Ginsburg for a unanimous court. SCOTUS held that The Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause is an incorporated protection applicable to the States under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. The Indiana Supreme Court had held that the Clause did not apply to the States. SCOTUS held that that would require SCOTUS to overrule Austin, or to hold that the Excessive Fines Clause is not incorporated because its application to civil in rem forfeitures is neither fundamental nor deeply rooted. However, as the application of the Clause specifically to in rem forfeiture cases was not addressed by the Indiana court, re overruling of Austin, SCOTUS found that issue was not properly before the Court. SCOTUS also found that the Excessive Fines Clause was incorporated against the States, but could make no finding if it did, or did not, apply to civil in rem forfeitures. All SCOTUS really settled was that the Excessive Fines Clause applies to the States. SCOTUS left unsettled whether a civil in rem forfeiture is an exception to the general application. Only the general application to a State was argued in Indiana. Thus, for the specific issue of civil in rem forfeiture, such as the civil in rem forfeiture of the Brown-Rolin cash, the Timbs opinion is essentially meaningless. From the Syllabus: (a) The Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause incorporates and renders applicable to the States Bill of Rights protections “fundamental to our scheme of ordered liberty,” or “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.” McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 767 (alterations omitted). If a Bill of Rights protection is incorporated, there is no daylight between the federal and state conduct it prohibits or requires. Pp. 2–3. (b) The prohibition embodied in the Excessive Fines Clause carriesforward protections found in sources from Magna Carta to the English Bill of Rights to state constitutions from the colonial era to the present day. Protection against excessive fines has been a constant shield throughout Anglo-American history for good reason: Such fines undermine other liberties. They can be used, e.g., to retaliate against or chill the speech of political enemies. They can also be employed, not in service of penal purposes, but as a source of revenue. The historical and logical case for concluding that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Excessive Fines Clause is indeed overwhelming. Pp. 3–7. (c) Indiana argues that the Clause does not apply to its use of civil in rem forfeitures, but this Court held in Austin v. United States, 509 U.S. 602, that such forfeitures fall within the Clause’s protection when they are at least partially punitive. Indiana cannot prevail unless the Court overrules Austin or holds that, in light of Austin, the Excessive Fines Clause is not incorporated because its application to civil in rem forfeitures is neither fundamental nor deeply rooted. The first argument, overturning Austin, is not properly before this Court. The Indiana Supreme Court held only that the Excessive Fines Clause did not apply to the States. The court did not address the Clause’s application to civil in rem forfeitures, nor did the State ask it to do so. Timbs thus sought this Court’s review only of the question whether the Excessive Fines Clause is incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment. Indiana attempted to reformulate the question to ask whether the Clause restricted States’ use of civil in rem forfeitures and argued on the merits that Austin was wrongly decided. Respondents’ “right, . . . to restate the questions presented,” however, “does not give them the power to expand [those] questions,” Bray v. Alexandria Women’s Health Clinic, 506 U.S. 263, 279, n. 10 (emphasis deleted), particularly where the proposed reformulation would lead the Court to address a question neither pressed nor passed upon below, cf. Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U.S. 709, 718, n. 7. The second argument, that the Excessive Fines Clause cannot be incorporated if it applies to civil in rem forfeitures, misapprehends the nature of the incorporation inquiry. In considering whether the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates a Bill of Rights protection, this Court asks whether the right guaranteed—not each and every particular application of that right—is fundamental or deeply rooted. To suggest otherwise is inconsistent with the approach taken in cases concerning novel applications of rights already deemed incorporated. See, e.g., Packingham v. North Carolina, 582 U. S. ___, ___. The Excessive Fines Clause is thus incorporated regardless of whether application of the Clause to civil in rem forfeitures is itself fundamental or deeply rooted. Pp. 7–9. 84 N. E. 3d 1179, vacated and remanded.
Thereby limiting states' power.
Okay, I'll make it simple for you Nolu, as you plainly ignored my point. For you, the law IS morality, by definition. You wouldn't give a flying hoot about any innocent person losing their legitimately earned life's savings so long as it can be shown that the courts approved of it. If you were a legal scholar under communist USSR, you would equally have no misgivings about people being sent to Siberian gulags for criticizing Stalin, because that's the law. If you were under Pol Pot's regime, you'd have no qualms about the mass execution of hundreds of thousands of people because Pol Pot found them offensive in whatever way, because he is, after all, the duly appointed and lawful dictator of the land. Had you lived in Nazi Germany, you could have easily served as SS administrator rubber stamping the mass executions of civilians because, well the law is the law. If you were Muslim, you would know every word of the Koran, and I surmise you would have no compunction of being a head chopping member of ISIS, dispensing such judgment because.... the Koran is the law. In sum, you don't even know what real morality is. It does not exist outside of your law book, and if your law book doesn't demonstrate morality, these those at your mercy are SOL. I've noted this before and see it's plainly true. The law is the god you worship. Law books are your religious Bible, and judges in black robes are your high priests, and you don't give a damn about REAL injustice. Hell, you don't even know what that is. You have no capacity, zero, zip nada, to tell moral right from moral wrong. What a perfect fit you'd be for the role of Inspector Javert in the Les Miserables story -- a character, however fictional when Victor Hugo wrote story, who equally worshiped the law and had absolutely no perception of morality. For you, as long as some court, somewhere, in some jurisdiction, follows the rules of whatever government, no moral wrong can possibly be done, by definition. It could be jail time, amputation, beheading, burning at the stake, whatever, of people who have never harmed anyone, and you'd be fine with it. Courts, laws and regulations can never possibly carry out any misjustice, no matter what the obvious circumstances are on its face. A family loses $86,000 of their legitimately earned money? Time to celebrate! Another job well done by someone on federal paycheck because a family didn't follow the rules exactly right. Maybe. How you ever managed to legitimize the treason of the founders against the lawful and legitimate ruler of the colonies -- the king of England, that set the stage for the current (illegitimate?) federal government, I'll never know. You are a blind loon, and a totally worthless member of any free society, and you need help. Badly.
But they don't have enough evidence (other than the money) to convict Joe. So you're saying he gets to keep it? Apples and oranges. Your example shows the police had a specific crime with which to suspect the $82k was tied to. In that case, fine. It should be seized until the relationship of the 82k and the crime can be established, one way or the other. In the case of this family, no such specific crime is known to exist to which the money could be associated. Instead (and as you already know but will conveniently fail to acknowledge) the possession of amounts greater than an arbitrary amount, $5k in this case, is by itself considered evidence of a crime, even absent any claim by law enforcement that the money was tied to any known criminal act. Possessing heroin is a crime. Possessing $86k in cash in this case was considered evidence of a crime. But evidence that is not proof, and upon seizure, due process is considered to be complete as far as the state goes. Any further actions to be returned the money requires legal action and related expenses which are substantial, by the person. He is then presumed guilty and left to prove his innocence in order tore acquire money that was taken from him. It is a loss of property without due process.
I've noted this before and see it's plainly true. The law is the god you worship. Law books are your religious Bible, and judges in black robes are your high priests, and you don't give a damn about REAL injustice. Hell, you don't even know what that is. Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen. I think you're being a bit hard on nolu. I don't see him standing up FOR any of the laws he writes about. I see him doing something else completely. We are on a board full of moralists - folks who get into high moral dudgeon about things they don't like. Most folks here are Protestants, and take a "Sola Scriptura" approach not just to religion, but to the Constitution as well. Now, Sola Scripturalists are in the lifelong mental habit of believing that whatever they PERSONALLY read the Bible to say, if they really believe it, then THAT is what the Bible means. There is no longer any authority on earth that can punish them for disagreement, for being wrong. But when they apply the same logic to the Constitution and the laws, they speak the same way, as though THEIR own personal interpretation of what the Constitution means IS the law and IS the Constitution. And because they revere the Constitution as being the legal equivalent of the Bible, they hold it - which is to say, their interpretation of it - above all other statements of the law, and consider it immoral to disagree with them. Trouble is, whereas with the Bible the Reformation brought the Protestant Church out from the supreme final authority of what the Bible MEANS, there has been no "Reformation" of our legal system. The Supreme Court IS the "Pope and Curia" of our Constitution. Our Constitution and legal system are an old "Catholic" system, with a final supreme authority that cannot be challenged, as opposed to a "Protestant" one, where everybody gets to decide what the Constitution means on its own. Now, a lot of people don't LIKE what the Constitution is said to mean by the Supreme Court, so they bellyache about it, loudly, including on these threads. Nolu is not saying that they are morally wrong for objecting to the Supreme Court's interpretation. He does not say that the law should not be changed, or even that people should obey evil Nasi-stlyle laws. All that he is doing, as I see it, is firmly, with supporting documentation, refuting the assertion that what the Supreme Court says about the Constitution is not "the Law"> It IS the law. One can say that the law is IMMORAL, and that one things that the Supreme Court got it wrong. One cannot truly say is that because the Supreme Court "got it wrong" (in one's own opinion), that their "wrongness" is not the law, that the "real" law is however one interprets the Constitution. That is not true. The Constitution means what the Supreme Court says it means. THAT is the law. One can say they got it wrong, but one CANNOT say that the law they state is INVALID. It is not. It is valid, and it will be enforced. Nolu does this over and over, precisely because people assert that their read of the Constitution IS THE LAW. IT IS NOT. That's what I read his point is. This is a board full of Protestants in a Catholic legal world. They can rage against it, call it immoral, say that the law is wrong - that's fine. Claiming that it isn't the law because there's a Constitutional law ABOVE the Supreme Court is false. As Nolu points out - for better or for worse, what the Supreme Court says the law is, is what the law is. Their opinion on the matter is final...unless they change their mind or the Constitution is amended.
We Protestants are in the lifelong SPIRITUAL habit of believing what we read the Bible to say. This truth is found in 1John 2:27...But the anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. The same applies to the Constitution where it says that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed...we simple minded Americans can readily understand this God given right. We know what freedom is... Will you be happy when the Bloomberg Supreme Court determines that forums like Liberty's Flame is hate speech?
You're giving money constitutional rights it doesn't have. If they can link the money to the crime, HE would be arrested. They're simply arresting the money. If he (or anyone) can show the legal origin of the money they can claim it. Statistically, 92% can't.
He is not arrested and doesn't have to prove anything to anyone. If he wants to reacquire that money, he simply has to demonstrate how he legally obtained it. Then the money, with interest, will be returned and his legal expenses paid for.
Are you completely incapable of distinguishing between factual analysis and emotional desires? Thera are a great many Supreme Court decisions with which I morally disagree. That does not in any way mean that I don't recognize that, in our system, the Supreme Court is the final authority on what the law is. It's definitional. One can disagree with the law, one can say that the law is wrong, one can say that the Supreme Court should have interpreted the Constitution otherwise. What one cannot rightly saw is that what the Supreme Court says the law is, is the law. It is BY DEFINITION. Religious people do not have a special, separate right to interpret the Constitution which is superior in authority than the Supreme Court, as far as deciding what the law is. So, do I want a Bloomburg court ruling LF a hate site? No. That would be absurd. But if they DO, then it is, as defined by the law. Maybe that law should be defied, broken, ignored. But to do so still is breaking the law. I'm fine with breaking the law where morality demands it. But I am too honest to pretend that breaking bad laws is not lawbreaking. It is. I just don't particularly care that it's lawbreaking. Other folks seem to desperately want to believe that they never break the law because they, in effect, ARE the law, the final arbiters of the law. Unless those people are Supreme Court justices, every one of them is wrong.
Nolu is free to clarify his personal opinion on the morality of the case above where a family has had $86,000 seized. Would he say that if the money was indeed rightly and legally earned that their losing it was a bad thing, a morally unjust thing? Just about everyone would, but I can pretty much predict Nolu will not, even in advance of him responding. I have speculated on a prior post the precise possibility that Nolu was simply stating what the law is, independent of whether the law was right or wrong morally. His response was to mock, as you can see for yourself. Apparently morality has no place in law and it is apparently ludicrous for anyone to think the law was in any way related to morality. Ergo, I fully stand by my characterization of Nolu. Had he been born into another country, in whatever time and place where the contemporary rules and laws called for punishment and execution for actions we consider fully protected as natural God-given rights in the USA, he would callously sign off on whatever punishment is called for, mocking anyone for suggesting people have God-given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And he'd do that under whatever system of government was in place, whether it be fascist, dictatorship or theocratic. He would be citing whatever religious or tyranical rules in play as though they were dictates of a divine. If morality was the color orange, Nolu Chan would be color blind. If he saw a 5 minute video of a hostile encounter between 2 people, he would be unable to articulate an opinion of the moral standing of the 2 parties based on the information presented. If there was a way to measure one's sense of morality as an IQ, his score would be zero. He is free to attempt to prove me wrong. But he won't. He will instead, just like Inspector Javert, insist that the law is the law and anyone disagreeing with it is a fool.
*I'm* giving money Constituitonal rights? This is why I normally have you on bozo. YOU are the one suggesting money can be sued and arrested as though it were an individual. If any property at all can be "arrested", it means that no one has any property rights at all. Your house can be arrested, your food can be arrested, your money and even your clothes can be arrested, rendering the entire 4th amendment completely null and void. How about arresting the air you're breathing? Pulleeese. Your mentality is an insult to the human race. You adequately demonstrate how it is some people can come to believe the earth is flat. You mean don't, not can't. The legal system is so far out of the grasp of ordinary people that people simply give up on it. They don't know here to turn, they find out they have to pay more money to a lawyer, and even then may never get it back again. In the case of property, as has been pointed out, they are also informed that if they lose their case, they may be billed for the fed's legal expenses. People lose confidence that the legal system actually works and they move on. I know you're thrilled to claim such cases are American justice in action and believe that no one has ever lost honest and legally earned money and property to civil asset forfeiture, but... take my advice and trade that delusion for flat earth. You'll be so much better off.
You have no point, other tanh to be your asshole self. A clear demonstration how how full of shit you are. Morality can never depend on what the law says. No rational person (which excludes you) would state that because abortion is legal, it is therefore moral. No rational person (which excludes you) would state that selling booze was moral before the 18th Amendment, was immoral between the 18th and the 21st, and became moral again after the 21st. You have only demonstrated that you are an asshole, making the argument of an amoral, lunatic anarchist. Preach asshole, preach. You are the one who actually was involved with the Save-a-Patriot Foundation (SAPF) scam in which an unlawful tax evasion scheme was sold, along with a for fee plan that promised representation by one of the scam artists at Save-a-Patriot Foundation. You did not find moral repugnancy in being involved with the legal and financial problems caused to idiots who believed the bullshit and stopped paying income tax. You apparently see nothing immoral about being a bloodsucking vampire, as long as it turned a buck. I guess you are still peeved that the feds shot down the illegal operation, sent the bosses to prison, and permanently enjoined selling the bogus un-tax crap. And then there was the man Living Without A Number (LWAN) bullshit story. What was more moral, selling bogus tax advice, or selling subsequent administrative advice, or the fictional tales about living without a number? Is the one that makes the most money also the most moral? Had you lived in Nazi Germany, you could have easily served as SS administrator rubber stamping the mass executions of civilians because, well the law is the law. If you were Muslim, you would know every word of the Koran, and I surmise you would have no compunction of being a head chopping member of ISIS, dispensing such judgment because.... the Koran is the law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law You win the Fizbin award yet again for your invocation of Hitler. Unfortunately, those who paid for the SAPF bullshit about taxes lost their money or got sent to prison. Advising people about how to evade taxes was moral? The consequences were meaningless? It is all the government's fault because the tax is immoral? How you ever managed to legitimize the treason of the founders against the lawful and legitimate ruler of the colonies -- the king of England, that set the stage for the current (illegitimate?) federal government, I'll never know. You were there is 1787, standing up for the Framers and making sure they did the right thing. That was shortly after you fled to South America and got ahold of moral magic mushrooms so you could take an exploratory trip to the 18th century. Perhaps you should give up selling your sense of higher morality. Pursuant to Godwin's law, you have lost the debate.
God did not give you the right to keep and bear arms. English common law defined the right and gave it to the colonists. The Constitution was written using the terms of English common law. The Second Amendment did not say that no limits can exist on the the keeping and bearing of arms, it said that the right, as it then existed, shall not be infringed. What that connotes depends on what "the right" was defined as; what is it that cannot be infringed. The U.S. Supreme Court has not accepted the edicts of wacko dingbats on the internet that includes the right to keep any weapon, or that there can be no regulations or restrictions. The right which existed in the colonies came from the English common law. The Framers saw no need to explain to themselves what that right to keep and bear arms was. It had been in the colonies since before they were born. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/blackstone_bk1ch1.asp Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England Book the First - Chapter the First: Of the Absolute Rights of Individuals (1765) It has never meant a right to carry any and all weapons for any purpose. It does not mean that today. http://laws.findlaw.com/us/000/07-290.html Certiorari to The United States Court Of Appeals for the District Of Columbia Circuit No. 07-290.Argued March 18, 2008--Decided June 26, 2008 District of Columbia law bans handgun possession by making it a crime to carry an unregistered firearm and prohibiting the registration of handguns; provides separately that no person may carry an unlicensed handgun, but authorizes the police chief to issue 1-year licenses; and requires residents to keep lawfully owned firearms unloaded and dissembled or bound by a trigger lock or similar device. Respondent Heller, a D. C. special policeman, applied to register a handgun he wished to keep at home, but the District refused. He filed this suit seeking, on Second Amendment grounds, to enjoin the city from enforcing the bar on handgun registration, the licensing requirement insofar as it prohibits carrying an unlicensed firearm in the home, and the trigger-lock requirement insofar as it prohibits the use of functional firearms in the home. The District Court dismissed the suit, but the D. C. Circuit reversed, holding that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess firearms and that the city's total ban on handguns, as well as its requirement that firearms in the home be kept nonfunctional even when necessary for self-defense, violated that right. Held: 1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Pp. 2-53. (a) The Amendment's prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause's text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms. Pp. 2-22. (b) The prefatory clause comports with the Court's interpretation of the operative clause. The "militia" comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens' militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens' militia would be preserved. Pp. 22-28. (c) The Court's interpretation is confirmed by analogous arms-bearing rights in state constitutions that preceded and immediately followed the Second Amendment. Pp. 28-30. (d) The Second Amendment's drafting history, while of dubious interpretive worth, reveals three state Second Amendment proposals that unequivocally referred to an individual right to bear arms. Pp. 30-32. (e) Interpretation of the Second Amendment by scholars, courts and legislators, from immediately after its ratification through the late 19th century also supports the Court's conclusion. Pp. 32-47. (f) None of the Court's precedents forecloses the Court's interpretation. Neither United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 553, nor Presser v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252, 264-265, refutes the individual-rights interpretation. United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174, does not limit the right to keep and bear arms to militia purposes, but rather limits the type of weapon to which the right applies to those used by the militia, i.e., those in common use for lawful purposes. Pp. 47-54. 2. Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court's opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller's holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those "in common use at the time" finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons. Pp. 54-56. 3. The handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement (as applied to self-defense) violate the Second Amendment. The District's total ban on handgun possession in the home amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of "arms" that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense. Under any of the standards of scrutiny the Court has applied to enumerated constitutional rights, this prohibition—in the place where the importance of the lawful defense of self, family, and property is most acute—would fail constitutional muster. Similarly, the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional. Because Heller conceded at oral argument that the D. C. licensing law is permissible if it is not enforced arbitrarily and capriciously, the Court assumes that a license will satisfy his prayer for relief and does not address the licensing requirement. Assuming he is not disqualified from exercising Second Amendment rights, the District must permit Heller to register his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in the home. Pp. 56-64. 478 F. 3d 370, affirmed. Scalia, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Breyer, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Stevens, Souter, and Ginsburg, JJ., joined. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, et al., PETITIONERS On Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals [June 26, 2008] Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court.
No blockhead, it can be seized. Property with no lawful owner is claimed by the government as government property. If a claimaint appears to contest ownership, the trial is characterized as an action to perfect the government's title. The government bears the initial burden of demonstrating the existence of probable cause for the seizure and forfeiture.
Moron, I stated no personal opinion of the morality of the case above. There is nothing to clarify except that you are just full of shit deliberately being an asshole.
I'll give you my own answer on it: I do not have enough facts to judge the case.
Says the heathen who believes life evolved from water and rocks. Neither does it say that there are limits...Jefferson and God said I could have a mini-gun if I want one. Looks like the stupid Brits tossed out their own law. Now, over in England you, nolu chan, would be in prison for hate speech.
Please note my "if" condition, converting the case to a hypothetical. Please also note Nolu's response. In my prediction, was I right or was I right? He is incapable of issuing a response related to the morality of the government taking money from innocent people. See how he also cites a web page about using Hitler in arguments in his response to me. The pattern is clear: He is mentally incapable of formulating his own opinions about things. He must always reference the work of others.
Correct. Only those which have a reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia. (United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174)
Correct. Only those which have a reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia. (United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174) Horseshit repeated endlessly is still horseshit. You may cite Miller as in agreement with Heller. Any of your misbegotten fanciful interpretations of Miller are non-starters as being in conflict with Heller. Any holding of constitutional interpretation in Miller which actually conflicted with Heller would be struck down by Heller. To cite Miller to interpret the Constitution in a fashion in conflict with Heller is an act of futility and a waste of time. District of Columbia v. Heller 554 U.S. 570 (2008) at 621-28: Nothing so clearly demonstrates the weakness of JUSTICE STEVENS' case. Miller did not hold that and cannot possibly be read to have held that. The judgment in the case upheld against a Second Amendment challenge two men's federal indictment for transporting an unregistered short-barreled [622] shotgun in interstate commerce, in violation of the National Firearms Act, 48 Stat. 1236. It is entirely clear that the Court's basis for saying that the Second Amendment did not apply was not that the defendants were "bear[ing] arms" not "for . . . military purposes" but for "nonmilitary use," post, at 637. Rather, it was that the type of weapon at issue was not eligible for Second Amendment protection: "In the absence of any evidence tending to show that the possession or use of a [short-barreled shotgun] at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument." 307 U. S., at 178 (emphasis added). "Certainly," the Court continued, "it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense." Ibid. Beyond that, the opinion provided no explanation of the content of the right. This holding is not only consistent with, but positively suggests, that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to keep and bear arms (though only arms that "have some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia"). Had the Court believed that the Second Amendment protects only those serving in the militia, it would have been odd to examine the character of the weapon rather than simply note that the two crooks were not militiamen. JUSTICE STEVENS can say again and again that Miller did not "turn on the difference between muskets and sawed-off shotguns; it turned, rather, on the basic difference between the military and nonmilitary use and possession of guns," post, at 677, but the words of the opinion prove otherwise. The most JUSTICE STEVENS can plausibly claim for Miller is that it declined to decide the nature of the Second Amendment right, despite the Solicitor General's argument (made in the alternative) that the right was collective, see Brief for United States, O. T. 1938, [623] No. 696, pp. 4-5. Miller stands only for the proposition that the Second Amendment right, whatever its nature, extends only to certain types of weapons. It is particularly wrongheaded to read Miller for more than what it said, because the case did not even purport to be a thorough examination of the Second Amendment. JUSTICE STEVENS claims, post, at 676-677, that the opinion reached its conclusion "[a]fter reviewing many of the same sources that are discussed at greater length by the Court today." Not many, which was not entirely the Court's fault. The defendants made no appearance in the case, neither filing a brief nor appearing at oral argument; the Court heard from no one but the Government (reason enough, one would think, not to make that case the beginning and the end of this Court's consideration of the Second Amendment). See Frye, The Peculiar Story of United States v. Miller, 3N. Y. U. J. L. & Liberty 48, 65-68 (2008). The Government's brief spent two pages discussing English legal sources, concluding "that at least the carrying of weapons without lawful occasion or excuse was always a crime" and that (because of the class-based restrictions and the prohibition on terrorizing people with dangerous or unusual weapons) "the early English law did not guarantee an unrestricted right to bear arms." Brief for United States, O. T. 1938, No. 696, at 9-11. It then went on to rely primarily on the discussion of the English right to bear arms in Aymette v. State, 21 Tenn. 154, for the proposition that the only uses of arms protected by the Second Amendment are those that relate to the militia, not self-defense. See Brief for United States, O. T. 1938, No. 696, at 12-18. The final section of the brief recognized that "some courts have said that the right to bear arms includes the right of the individual to have them for the protection of his person and property," and launched an alternative argument that "weapons which are commonly used by criminals," such as sawed-off shotguns, are not protected. See id., at 18-21. The Government's Miller brief thus provided [624] scant discussion of the history of the Second Amendment—and the Court was presented with no counterdiscussion. As for the text of the Court's opinion itself, that discusses none of the history of the Second Amendment. It assumes from the prologue that the Amendment was designed to preserve the militia, 307 U. S., at 178 (which we do not dispute), and then reviews some historical materials dealing with the nature of the militia, and in particular with the nature of the arms their members were expected to possess, id., at 178-182. Not a word (not a word) about the history of the Second Amendment. This is the mighty rock upon which the dissent rests its case. We may as well consider at this point (for we will have to consider eventually) what types of weapons Miller permits. Read in isolation, Miller's phrase "part of ordinary military equipment" could mean that only those weapons useful in warfare are protected. That would be a startling reading of the opinion, since it would mean that the National Firearms Act's restrictions on machineguns (not challenged in Miller) might be unconstitutional, machineguns being useful in warfare in 1939. We think that Miller's "ordinary military equipment" language must be read in tandem with what comes after: "[O]rdinarily when called for [militia] service [able-bodied] men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time." 307 U. S., at 179. The traditional militia was formed from a pool of men bringing arms "in common use at the time" for lawful purposes like self-defense. "In the colonial [625] and revolutionary war era, [small-arms] weapons used by militiamen and weapons used in defense of person and home were one and the same." State v. Kessler, 289 Ore. 359, 368, 614 P. 2d 94, 98 (1980) (citing G. Neumann, Swords and Blades of the American Revolution 6-15, 252-254 (1973)). Indeed, that is precisely the way in which the Second Amendment's operative clause furthers the purpose announced in its preface. We therefore read Miller to say only that the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as short-barreled shotguns. That accords with the historical understanding of the scope of the right, see Part III, infra. 25 We conclude that nothing in our precedents forecloses our adoption of the original understanding of the Second Amendment. [...] [626] III Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. See, e.g., Sheldon, in 5 Blume 346; Rawle 123; Pomeroy 152-153; Abbott 333. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. See, e.g., State v. Chandler, 5 La. Ann., at 489-490; Nunn v. State, 1 Ga., at 251; see generally 2 Kent *340, n. 2; The American Students' Blackstone 84, n. 11 (G. Chase ed. 1884). Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws impos- [627] ing conditions and qualfications on the commercial sale of arms. We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those "in common use at the time." 307 U. S., at 179. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of "dangerous and unusual weapons." See 4 Blackstone 148-149 (1769); 3 B. Wilson, Works of the Honourable James Wilson 79 (1804); J. Dunlap, The New York Justice 8 (1815); C. Humphreys, A Compendium of the Common Law in Force in Kentucky 482 (1822); 1 W. Russell, A Treatise on Crimes and Indictable Misdemeanors 271-272 (1831); H. Stephen, Summary of the Criminal Law 48 (1840); E. Lewis, An Abridgment of the Criminal Law of the United States 64 (1847); F. Wharton, A Treatise on the Criminal Law of the United States 726 (1852). See also State v. Langford, 10 N. C. 381, 383-384 (1824); O'Neill v. State, 16 Ala. 65, 67 (1849); English v. State, 35 Tex. 473, 476 (1871); State v. Lanier, 71 N. C. 288, 289 (1874). It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service—M-16 rifles and the like—may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment's ratiication was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large. Indeed, it may be true that no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks. But the fact that modern developments have limited the degree of it between the prefatory clause [628] and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right.
Ignorance is bliss.
Except when it isn't...
Of course, this is predicated upon bullshit as I said nothing about the morality of the case, and therefore have nothing to clarify. Perhaps you could clarify your personal opinion advocating for having sex with goats. Of course, I did not cite a web page about Hitler, I cited a page about Godwin's Law, which holds that the first to cite Hitler is guilty of reductio ad Hitlerum and automatically loses the argument. I note you failed to ping me to your nonsense. A former advocate for the SAPF tax evasion scam, and the pay insurance scam to have a tax felon represent one at an administrative tax hearing, wants to pontificate about his moral superiority whenever his legal argument gets shown for the crap that it is. Speaking about taking money from innocent people, (or not so innocent, or just gullible people) note how you run from tax scammer background. http://www2.libertysflame.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=36978&Disp=247#C247 SAPF has both won and lost cases against the US government in federal court. Most notably winning a case after a highly publicized federal armed raid which seized everything from the fellowship. The government was subsequently ordered by the court in that case to return everything (literally truckloads) taken from the fellowship at it's own expense. The mythical, supposed grand victory would be the court decision I quoted from at #223 to which Whiny Little Snot was responding. A check for $634 plus interest does not make a truckload of anything. Perhaps it adds up to another SAPF pantsload. This is the Court finding of what the Court returned to SAPF, the complete list. Items seized included $44,115 of U.S. currency and various numismatic coins. Uncle Sam kept those. Save-a-Patriot Fellowship (SAPF) declares victory. As for SAPF and the "principled honest people" at SAPF, paying for their amateur representation meant going from hot water to being submerged in a sea of shit. https://judicialmisconduct.us/drupal/sites/default/files/2018-02/Sussman%3DIdiotLegalArguments.pdf Idiot Legal Arguments: A Casebook for Dealing with Extremist Legal Arguments Part Eight By Bernard J. Sussman, JD, MLS, CP [excerpt] http://tpgurus.wikidot.com/john-kotmair Save-a-Patriot Fellowship (www.save-a-patriot.org), which is the main vehicle by which John B. Kotmair has marketed his materials. (Both Kotmair and Save-a-Patriot have been enjoined from continuing to promote his tax schemes, so this web site should change if Kotmair complies with the injunction.) Court Actions Kotmair filed income tax "returns" for 1974, 1975, and 1976 which contained only his name, address, Social Security number, and employment status, and to which he attached printed materials making various assertions, such as that the paper money of the United states was not legal currency, that the information called for in the return forms was a violation of his rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, that he was entitled to a trial by jury, that the federal government was improperly spending the taxpayers' money, etc. He was eventually indicted and convicted of willfully failing to file tax returns for the years 1975 and 1976. United States v. John B. Kotmair Jr., No. 1:1980cr00462 (U.S.D.C. Md.). Kotmair (inmate # 18066-037) was released from federal prison on January 24, 1984. The IRS later assessed deficiencies for the years 1975 and 1976 and the Tax Court affirmed the deficiencies, along with penalties for "intentional disregard of rules and regulations," the court finding that Kotmair was "collaterally estopped" from denying that his failure to pay and file tax returns was anything other than willful due to his criminal conviction. Kotmair v. Commissioner, 86 T.C. 1253, 1261 (1986) (penalties for fraud not imposed). After the IRS levied upon various property at the office of Save-A-Patriot Fellowship (SAP) to satisfy taxes owed by Kotmair, SAP (through Kotmair) sued and was able to recover $634 back as property of SAP and not Kotmair. Save-A-Patriot Fellowship v. United States, 962 F.Supp. 695 (D. Md. 1996). Kotmair and Save-a-Patriot have been permanently enjoined from promoting their anti-tax schemes and ordered to turn over lists of customers to the government. United States v. John B. Kotmair, Jr. et al., No. 1:05-cv-01297-WMN (D. Md. Nov. 29, 2006; Feb. 7, 2007)., aff'd 234 Fed. Appx. 65, 2007 TNT 146-49, No. 07-1156 (4th Cir. 7/26/2007), cert. den. No. 07-1145 (4/14/2008). Students/Disciples/Associates On the appeal to the 4th Circuit, Save-a-Patriot Fellowship was represented by George B. Harp, who also represented Tommy Cryer. Kotmair has attempted to represent members of the "Save-a-Patriot Fellowship" before the Internal Revenue Service, and his efforts have been 100% ineffective. For example, in Wesley Sherwood v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2005-268, No. 21913-04L (11/21/2005), Kotmair obtained a power of attorney to represent Mr. Sherwood and sent letters and documents to the IRS that the Tax Court described as "tax protester rhetoric" and "frivolous arguments. The IRS assessed penalties for frivolous returns and tax deficiencies for the years at issue, and filed a notice of tax lien, all of which was upheld by the Tax Court. Kotmair also wrote letters to the IRS on behalf of the taxpayer in Emil P. Tolotti Jr. v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2002-86, 2002 TNT 63-9, No. 3011-01L (4/1/2002), and Barry L. Moore v. Commissioner T.C. Memo. 2001-305, 2001 TNT 229-9, No. 11675-00L (11/27/2001), and was similarly unsuccessful in each case. Kotmair's son has also been convicted of willful failure to file tax returns. United States v. Edward L. Kotmair, 143 F. Supp.2d 532 (U.S.D.C. E.D.N.C.), aff'd 87 AFTR2d Par. 2001-817, 2001 TNT 78-76, No. 00-4139 (4th Cir. 4/19/2001). Edward Kotmair served time in federal prison (prisoner # 33337-037) and was released from prison on December 27, 2000. I do not take lectures on morality from someone who aided and defends such societal leeches as "principled honest people." They visited much misery on people in order to turn a buck, until the government shut them down. Preach your moral superiority to someone else.
I most emphatically do not. Heller is an abomination, a gross distortion of the second amendment, and contrary to all previous second amendment rulings.
I agree. Miller said nothing about ownership, use or possession. Simply the type of weapon protected.
Not a real "law" now is it? More of a rule. But you cite it as if it's legally binding. You're a real piece of work.
Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen.
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Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestI would note that Rebecca Brown was not the owner of the money. The money belonged to Terry Rolins, her father.
#37. To: Pinguinite (#35)
In any debate, the person who can present their argument concisely and clearly, in the fewest words, wins.
#38. To: Pinguinite (#32)
Essentially depriving the person of any presumption of innocence.
#39. To: nolu chan (#31)
I did notice that the article was filed in humor. It seemed appropriate enough.
#40. To: Pinguinite (#35)
In any debate, the person who can present their argument concisely and clearly, in the fewest words, wins.
II
“the seizure has been directly necessary to secure an important governmental or general public interest. Second, there has been a special need for very prompt action. Third, the State has kept strict control over its monopoly of legitimate force: the person initiating the seizure has been a government official responsible for determining, under the standards of a narrowly drawn statute, that it was necessary and justified in the particular instance.” Id., at 91.
#41. To: misterwhite (#36)
I mean, that's what she says. But do we know that?
#42. To: misterwhite (#38)
Essentially depriving the person of any presumption of innocence.
#43. To: nolu chan (#40)
#44. To: nolu chan (#42)
Nor does retention depend on conviction. A drug dealer might have 10 kilos of heroin seized pursuant to an illegal search. The Court finds the search illegal, excludes the evidence, and the dealer walks. But he walks without his heroin, which stays. As it was illegal to possess, he had no legal right of ownership to begin with. The heroin is forfeited.
#45. To: Pinguinite (#44)
Ergo, cash is a controlled substance, just like heroin.
#46. To: All (#0)
The Supreme Court limited the power of local state agencies to seize property in an important ruling last year.
#47. To: Pinguinite (#43)
#48. To: Pinguinite (#43)
Maybe you're just stating the nature of legal environment, what it is, and not what it should be.
What does every Federal Reserve Note have printed on it?
In which the possession of legal tender is deemed to be all the evidence required of a crime. Ergo, possession of some arbitrary amount of cash is, de facto considered a crime all. by. itself.
Based solely on the fact that a person possesses some arbitrary amount of cash, at which point the acquiring of said cash is deemed to be invalid until the possessor provides some arbitrary support that deems it validly gained. Essentially depriving the person of any presumption of innocence.
This absolutely is a circumvention of the plain meaning of the 4th amendment.
And before you start citing court cases, I'll say I don't give a freak about any federal court opinions (yes, opinions) that say taking away people's property without proving a crime was committed is okay and part of what the founder's intended when they added the 4th amendment to the Constitution. It's plainly not.
The founders certainly never intended with the 4th to suggest that people could be secure in their effects but that the gov could seize those effects anyway on the personal whim of one of their employees.
I'll say again, if the gov will consider having cash to be evidence of a crime, then its issuance should be ceased.
#49. To: Pinguinite (#44)
Ergo, cash is a controlled substance, just like heroin.
A distinction must be drawn between per se contraband and derivative contraband. Derivative contraband—for example, a car or money used criminally—is contraband only by virtue of its illegal use. There is nothing criminal in its possession as such. Per se contraband—for example, a narcotic substance—is contraband by definition; no property rights can exist therein, and its very possession is criminal. One 1958 Plymouth Sedan v. United States, 380 U.S. 693, 699 (1965); United States v. Farrell, 606 F.2d 1341, 1344 (D.C. Cir. 1979). Forfeiture statutes do not forfeit per se contraband; they affect only property that otherwise would belong to its nominal owner—that is, derivative contraband. No warrant is necessary for the seizure of per se contraband because its possessor, by definition, has no protected interest therein. There is a strong public policy against leaving such contraband in private possession. Those cases requiring a warrant for forfeiture seizures are careful not to extend that requirement to per se contraband. See Melendez v. Shultz, 356 F. Supp. 1205, 1210 (D. Mass.), appeal dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, 486 F.2d 1032 (1st Cir. 1973). See also United States v. One 1975 Pontiac Lemans, 621 F.2d 444, 454 n.8 (lst Cir. 1980) (Coffin, C.J., dissenting).
#50. To: misterwhite (#46)
[Thread article] The Supreme Court limited the power of local state agencies to seize property in an important ruling last year.
Held: The Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause is an incorporated protection applicable to the States under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. Pp. 2–9.
#51. To: nolu chan (#50)
What it actually did was uphold a general application of the Eighth Amendment Excessive Fines Clause to the States,
#52. To: nolu chan (#48)
#53. To: misterwhite (#47)
A bank is robbed of $82,000. The cops thinks Joe did it and they get a search warrant. They find $82,000 under Joe's mattress which he can't explain.
#54. To: Pinguinite (#52)
In sum, you don't even know what real morality is. It does not exist outside of your law book, and if your law book doesn't demonstrate morality, these those at your mercy are SOL.
The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning.
Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.
#55. To: Pinguinite (#52)
#56. To: Vicomte13 (#55)
Now, Sola Scripturalists are in the lifelong mental habit of believing that whatever they PERSONALLY read the Bible to say, if they really believe it, then THAT is what the Bible means. There is no longer any authority on earth that can punish them for disagreement, for being wrong.
Now, a lot of people don't LIKE what the Constitution is said to mean by the Supreme Court, so they bellyache about it, loudly, including on these threads.
#57. To: Pinguinite (#53)
It should be seized until the relationship of the 82k and the crime can be established, one way or the other.
#58. To: Pinguinite (#53)
He is then presumed guilty and left to prove his innocence in order tore acquire money that was taken from him.
#59. To: watchman (#56)
Will you be happy when the Bloomberg Supreme Court determines that forums like Liberty's Flame is hate speech?
#60. To: Vicomte13 (#55)
#61. To: misterwhite (#57)
You're giving money constitutional rights it doesn't have. If they can link the money to the crime, HE would be arrested. They're simply arresting the money.
If he (or anyone) can show the legal origin of the money they can claim it. Statistically, 92% can't.
#62. To: Pinguinite (#52)
Okay, I'll make it simple for you Nolu, as you plainly ignored my point.
For you, the law IS morality, by definition.
You wouldn't give a flying hoot about any innocent person losing their legitimately earned life's savings so long as it can be shown that the courts approved of it.
If you were a legal scholar under communist USSR, you would equally have no misgivings about people being sent to Siberian gulags for criticizing Stalin, because that's the law. If you were under Pol Pot's regime, you'd have no qualms about the mass execution of hundreds of thousands of people because Pol Pot found them offensive in whatever way, because he is, after all, the duly appointed and lawful dictator of the land.
Godwin's law (or Godwin's rule of Hitler analogies) is an Internet adage asserting that "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1";] that is, if an online discussion (regardless of topic or scope) goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Adolf Hitler or his deeds, the point at which effectively the discussion or thread often ends. Promulgated by the American attorney and author Mike Godwin in 1990, Godwin's law originally referred specifically to Usenet newsgroup discussions. It is now applied to any threaded online discussion, such as Internet forums, chat rooms, and comment threads, as well as to speeches, articles, and other rhetoric where reductio ad Hitlerum occurs.
In sum, you don't even know what real morality is. It does not exist outside of your law book, and if your law book doesn't demonstrate morality, these those at your mercy are SOL. I've noted this before and see it's plainly true. The law is the god you worship. Law books are your religious Bible, and judges in black robes are your high priests, and you don't give a damn about REAL injustice. Hell, you don't even know what that is. You have no capacity, zero, zip nada, to tell moral right from moral wrong. What a perfect fit you'd be for the role of Inspector Javert in the Les Miserables story -- a character, however fictional when Victor Hugo wrote story, who equally worshiped the law and had absolutely no perception of morality.
There are many corollaries to Godwin's law, some considered more canonical (by being adopted by Godwin himself, than others. For example, there is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that, when a Hitler comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever made the comparison loses whatever debate is in progress. This principle is itself frequently referred to as Godwin's law.
#63. To: watchman, Vicomte13 (#56)
The same applies to the Constitution where it says that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed...we simple minded Americans can readily understand this God given right. We know what freedom is...
5. THE fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defence, suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law. Which is also declared by the same statute 1 W. & M. ft. 2. c. 2. and is indeed a public allowance, under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA et al. v. HELLER
v.
DICK ANTHONY HELLER
for the District Of Columbia Circuit
#64. To: Pinguinite, misterwhite (#61)
YOU are the one suggesting money can be sued and arrested as though it were an individual.
#65. To: Pinguinite, Vicomte13 (#60)
Nolu is free to clarify his personal opinion on the morality of the case above where a family has had $86,000 seized.
#66. To: Pinguinite (#60)
Nolu is free to clarify his personal opinion on the morality of the case above where a family has had $86,000 seized. Would he say that if the money was indeed rightly and legally earned that their losing it was a bad thing, a morally unjust thing? Just about everyone would, but I can pretty much predict Nolu will not, even in advance of him responding.
#67. To: nolu chan (#63)
(Edited)
God did not give you the right to keep and bear arms.
The Second Amendment did not say that no limits can exist
English common law defined the right
#68. To: Vicomte13 (#66)
I'll give you my own answer on it: I do not have enough facts to judge the case.
#69. To: nolu chan (#63)
The U.S. Supreme Court has not accepted the edicts of wacko dingbats on the internet that includes the right to keep any weapon,
#70. To: misterwhite (#69)
The U.S. Supreme Court has not accepted the edicts of wacko dingbats on the internet that includes the right to keep any weapon,
JUSTICE STEVENS places overwhelming reliance upon this Court's decision in Miller, 307 U. S. 174. "[H]undreds of judges," we are told, "have relied on the view of the Amendment we endorsed there," post, at 638, and "[e]ven if the textual and historical arguments on both sides of the issue were evenly balanced, respect for the well-settled views of all of our predecessors on this Court, and for the rule of law itself . . . would prevent most jurists from endorsing such a dramatic upheaval in the law," post, at 639. And what is, according to JUSTICE STEVENS, the holding of Miller that demands such obeisance? That the Second Amendment "protects the right to keep and bear arms for certain military purposes, but that it does not curtail the Legislature's power to regulate the nonmilitary use and ownership of weapons." Post, at 637.
#71. To: watchman (#67)
#72. To: nolu chan (#71)
Ignorance is bliss.
They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. Eph. 4:18
#73. To: Pinguinite, Vicomte13 (#60)
Please note my "if" condition, converting the case to a hypothetical.
[Whiny little snot] Nolu is free to clarify his personal opinion on the morality of the case above where a family has had $86,000 seized. Would he say that if the money was indeed rightly and legally earned that their losing it was a bad thing, a morally unjust thing? Just about everyone would, but I can pretty much predict Nolu will not, even in advance of him responding.
See how he also cites a web page about using Hitler in arguments in his response to me. The pattern is clear: He is mentally incapable of formulating his own opinions about things. He must always reference the work of others.
Please also note Nolu's response. In my prediction, was I right or was I right? He is incapable of issuing a response related to the morality of the government taking money from innocent people.
#247. To: nolu chan (#223) [excerpt]
SAPF is made up of principled honest people. The founder, John Kotmair, was a police officer who quit the force after witnessing widespread corruption in trusted offices and on the force. I understand he was convicted some years later of willful failure to file income tax returns and received a 2 year sentence for doing so. He went to jail and returned from it completely defiant, upon his release founding SAPF in an attempt to bring light to injustice.
the Court finds that the $384 of cash, the $210 of money orders and $40 of Susan B. Anthony Dollars found at the Office were, when found, property of the SAP Fellowship which had not yet been mingled with Kotmair's personal assets.
"Save-a-Patriot" (John B. Kotmair) In re Angstadt (Bankr. ED Penn unpub 8/17/94) ("we have come to understand that ‘patriot’ may be a buzz-word for ‘tax protester’."); Kotmair v. CIR (6/19/86) 86 TC 1253; (awareness by perp that founder Kotmair had been convicted of tax evasion serves to negate good faith defense) US v. Crosson (ED Penn unpub 12/20/95); ("Save-a-Patriot" organization cited for contempt of court for its interference with a bankruptcy court proceeding) In re Weatherley (ED Penn unpub 7/15/93); (organization forbidden to accept money for its amateur advice to a litigant in bankruptcy court) In re Weatherley (Bankr. ED Penn 1994) 169 Bankr.Rptr 555, 25 Bankr.Ct.Dec 1427; (in perhaps its only court victory, the organization described itself as a church, and claimed to possess a vial of holy oil from the Temple in Jerusalem, to perform weddings, (allegedly) subsidize incarcerated members who have "resisted and delayed the tyrants at every step through the criminal investigation and all other agency and court proceedings", sell tax-dodge publications as holy scriptures, and (generously) support Kotmair as their cleric, etc.) Save-a-Patriot Fellowship v. US (D Md 1996) 962 F.Supp 695; Kotmair refused give testimony voluntarily for one of his followers who was prosecuted for multiple tax evasion. US v. D.D. Murphy (7th Cir unpub 6/10/99);
Books, Web Sites, Videos, and Organizations
#74. To: nolu chan (#70)
You may cite Miller as in agreement with Heller.
#75. To: nolu chan (#70)
Miller stands only for the proposition that the Second Amendment right, whatever its nature, extends only to certain types of weapons. It is particularly wrongheaded to read Miller for more than what it said,
#76. To: nolu chan (#73)
Of course, I did not cite a web page about Hitler, I cited a page about Godwin's Law
The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning.
Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.
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