
What life is like after police ransack your house, then the charges are dropped - llamataboot
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/30/what-life-is-like-after-police-ransack-your-house-and-take-every-belonging-then-the-charges-are-dropped/?hpid=hp_no-name_wonk-potraid635p_1%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
======
1QAm1
Try dealing with any of these "mandatory XYZ" crimes. In Colorado, for
instance, when couples fight and the police are called, someone goes to jail,
a mandatory order of protection is issued, you lose the ability to collect
anything that you own in person (you must go through "mutual friends"), and if
you live with your girlfriend/wife/fiance, you've also just lost the right to
go to your own house.

So, having a fight that triggers a call to the police (even a verbal one, or
slamming a door) will result in the XY going to jail for the night, paying for
it, losing their house and most of their belongings, losing their job, being
arrested (which is never expunged, even if innocent), and being homeless while
you get a new job, house, clothes, etc.

Even if you're acquitted (I was completely acquitted of the lowest charge
possible, which is a 3rd degree misdemeanor), it's not like your things
magically show up, you still went to jail and lost your job, and the state
doesn't care at all. The records should be expunged, the money that I paid to
stay in jail ($35) should be refunded, and I should be given a police escort
to force her to relinquish my things (thousands of dollars of things, photos,
etc).

The system in CO is just a race to call the cops. Whoever goes first, wins.
Slamming a door will immediately tag you as a "Domestic Abuser" and any guns
(and ammo) must be kept at a friend's for the duration of the trial (which
takes 6 months).

I won, and it certainly doesn't feel like "winning". :(

~~~
spacemanmatt
In TX, I called the cops on my (insane, belligerent, beating down my front
door) ex and all she had to do was lie to get me arrested. The police are
dumber than rocks and I had to wage a credible threat to prosecute my lying ex
for perjury and false statements to police to get my case dropped.

~~~
yarou
That sounds horrible. But it's not as bad as SF, where the SFPD shoots first
and asks questions later.

Edit: why the downvotes? I can provide an innumerable amount of
sources.[0][1][2]

[0] [http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2015/12/police-shot-and-
ki...](http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2015/12/police-shot-and-killed-man-
san-francisco-week-heres-what-you-should-know)

[1]
[https://www.aclunc.org/sites/default/files/A%20Department%20...](https://www.aclunc.org/sites/default/files/A%20Department%20in%20Denial%20-%20The%20San%20Francisco%20Police%20Department%27s%20Failure%20to%20Address%20Racial%20Profiling.pdf)

[2] [http://www.zdnet.com/article/debian-linux-founder-ian-
murdoc...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/debian-linux-founder-ian-murdock-dies-
at-42-cause-unknown/)

I get that it's easy to bury your head in the sand when it comes to these
things, but there is a major league problem with the police here in SF. They
are accountable to nobody and continue to harass and intimidate everyone, not
just minorities.

~~~
LordKano
_I get that it 's easy to bury your head in the sand when it comes to these
things, but there is a major league problem with the police here in SF. They
are accountable to nobody and continue to harass and intimidate everyone, not
just minorities._

A lot of people don't understand this.

It starts off with minorities because, being minorities, they don't have the
political clout to do anything about it.

The downtown decision makers don't care if some black or brown kid gets his
head split open for not moving fast enough when the police ordered him to
leave.

They don't care until it's someone that is important to them. When it's John Q
MiddleClassSuburbanWhiteTeen who gets arrested for a made up offense, it's too
late to fix the problem. At that point, the machinations are already in place
to abuse everyone.

What they do to the minorities, they'll eventually do to you.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
First they came for the Mexicans, and I did not speak up, for I am not
Mexican.

Then they came for the tech bros.

------
kbenson
> Shattuck says her marriage and birth certificates haven't been returned, and
> since the Task Force does not itemize seized documents in its paperwork, it
> has no record of taking them in the first place.

Maybe this provides a clue for how to curb civil forfeiture in a way that
skirts the arguments for it. Make all government agencies that seize property
responsible for very clearly logging and indicating where it was found, the
condition it was in (photographically and by description), and to store it
appropriately so it will not be damaged or deteriorate beyond what would be
considered normal.

If there's a cost to seizing property, and it's not a situation of "grab
everything and throw it into a box until later when we can have a fire-sale",
then that might help this type of egregious abuse.

That's not to say there aren't other abuses of it where this wouldn't help
much (cash seizure, for example), or that we don't need comprehensive, well
thought out reform in this area, but it might be a simple, uncontroversial
measure that could immediately help in some cases.

~~~
rootusrootus
I'd rather a simpler solution. You can't accuse non-living property of a
crime, you can only seize assets as part of a normal criminal proceeding. And
under no circumstances can the proceeds from a seizure be given to anybody in
the decision-making chain.

~~~
kbenson
> You can't accuse non-living property of a crime, you can only seize assets
> as part of a normal criminal proceeding.

Well, this is the heart of civil forfeiture, and without it there isn't any.
Civil forfeiture is also how they confiscate contraband, or anything that is
itself illegal to own. I imagine without CF law enforcement would be forced to
charge you with a crime to remove illegal property from you. This might be
problematic in the case of guns, illegal substances, explosives, etc. I'm not
sure about requiring a 16 year old to be charged with a crime for a police
officer to take him beer away, so I understand this argument to some degree.
It's a case of police discretion being warped into something it wasn't
intended to be.

> And under no circumstances can the proceeds from a seizure be given to
> anybody in the decision-making chain.

This is common sense, but is wrapped up on the idea of using CF to help fund
police departments because the public doesn't want to. Personally, I would
like to see the money go towards treatment and counseling for people with
problems with drugs, addiction, criminal records and mental illnesses, and
community building and outreach programs.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> Civil forfeiture is also how they confiscate contraband, or anything that is
> itself illegal to own.

If something is illegal to own, then there should be no difficulties charging
the owner with a crime.

> I imagine without CF law enforcement would be forced to charge you with a
> crime to remove illegal property from you.

Exactly.

> I'm not sure about requiring a 16 year old to be charged with a crime for a
> police officer to take him beer away

Just like an officer can choose not to write up a ticket, they can tell a
first-time offender "Throw away the beer right now and I'll let your parents
deal with this; otherwise I'll have to charge you." That doesn't require civil
forfeiture.

~~~
kbenson
> If something is illegal to own, then there should be no difficulties
> charging the owner with a crime.

Do we want the law to be this inflexible? It sounds good initially, but I
would rather the starving man have the bread he stole gently taken by the
police and returned to the owner, and sent on his way (hopefully with some
help), than to be arrested. Without civil forfeiture, this turn of events
would require the police to either arrest the starving man, or break the law
themselves to take the bread. CF is a way for the police to use their
discretion to right situations, and to prevent additional harm to victims
(such as preventing property from being destroyed, used or spent after the
criminal is apprehended but before conviction).

What about the case of stolen property, and the misuse of hiding of it prior
to conviction but after arrest? It does the victim little good if the property
stolen is disposed of or hidden after arrest.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for massive reform for the law in these cases, I
just think there are cases where it's useful, and careful consideration should
be given as to whether we need to keep some portion of it intact, or remove it
altogether, and the consequences of that choice.

 _Edit: Okay, ignore the stolen bread and kid with beer examples. They aren 't
well thought out, and are distracting from the other examples and and points,
which I think deserve attention. I'm only leaving it here because I'm loathe
to remove something people are responding to, even if it reflects poorly on
me._ :/

~~~
swyman
> Without civil forfeiture, this turn of events would require the police to
> either arrest the starving man, or break the law themselves to take the
> bread.

Or tell him he'd be arrested if he didn't hand over the bread...

------
cubano
I can tell you whats it like for personal experience.

It beyond sucks, and should be something police truly fear doing due to
lawsuit exposure.

I was arrested on a completely bogus felony "destruction of evidence" charge
about a decade ago while driving my car though a "bad part" of town (think how
discriminatory _that_ is at face value, btw) by a totally crooked cop who
eventually was thrown off the force for illegal activities.

I was arrested and would have been held for _months_ in jail if I didn't have
the resources to bond out, which cost somewhere around $400 to do.

I lost a really great job a few days later as my small town publishes all
arrests in the newspaper and my boss or his boss saw my name in it I'm sure.

The first thing I told my PD was "under no circumstances was I going to take a
plea in this case!" and explained that I have always pled when guilty in the
past.

I could tell he understood my resolve. In the end, the cop was thrown off the
force and one day I showed up to court ready to battle and he told "great
news...you've been null-processed and its over."

I didn't know to feel ecstatic or furious over what had happened. I still
don't.

~~~
a_small_island
>explained that I have always pled when guilty in the past.

What were you convicted of before this incident? Were they related in any way?

~~~
cubano
Really? What difference does that make?

Oh it's ok for a totally crooked cop to charge me with a _completely bogus_
felony, cost me 100's if not 1000's of dollars, and destroy my job because I
had proir weed and MDMA charges from a decade earlier?

Well ok I guess if that's how you feel about things.

~~~
LordKano
There are kinds of corruption and abuse. I believe that he's looking to gauge
which kind happened here.

For example, if you have past convictions for drug possession and the
corruption in this case was that the officer saw you, knew your history, just
assumed you were guilty and refused to back down when he realized that you
were clean. Alternately, you were driving along and (From your account name,
I'm going to assume that you're brown) he sees a brown guy driving through a
"bad area" and decides to make a bust, regardless of your guilt or innocence.

Both are misconduct. Both are wrong but I believe that the other poster was
just trying to get a mental image.

------
rm_-rf_slash
There is so much about this case that is so fucked up I don't even know where
to begin, but I believe there is one simple reform we could all agree on:

Police have an obligation to fully return, restore, and compensate citizens
who have been inconvenienced, had their assets seized, and their property
damaged, by the investigation and cleared of wrongdoing by the PD, had charges
dropped, or found not guilty by a jury of their peers.

No more asset forfeiture to line cops' pockets, no more Baghdad raids for
families that pose no immediate risk to anyone, no more citizens and families
financially ruined to pay for the costs of the PDs mistakes.

When my brother was in middle school someone stole his phone. The right kid
was arrested and the cops took the phone into evidence. My brother is 19 now.
We could never get the phone back.

------
JoshTriplett
See also
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/28/the-f...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/28/the-
feds-have-resumed-a-controversial-program-that-lets-cops-take-stuff-and-keep-
it/) , and in particular the graph:
[https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2016/03/...](https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2016/03/Screen-
Shot-2016-03-28-at-3.06.30-PM.png)

~~~
llamataboot
That graph is always shocking to me. Not only in terms of the terrible irony
in having the police steal more than the people they are protecting us from
but because asset forfeiture has quintupled in just 10 years.

~~~
maxerickson
It's partly a gimmick, it includes huge fines related to the Madoff case and
huge fines paid by Toyota (neither of which are particularly gross examples of
law enforcement excess).

[http://www.thecrimereport.org/news/crime-and-justice-
news/20...](http://www.thecrimereport.org/news/crime-and-justice-
news/2015-11-civil-asset-forfeiture-report)

~~~
cmdrfred
> A Justice Department spokesman pointed out that big cases, like the $1.7
> billion Bernie Madoff judgment and a $1.2 billion case associated with
> Toyota, have led to large deposits to forfeiture funds in a single year. The
> total figures above show the size of the funds after deposits and
> expenditures are accounted for. "In a given year, one or two high-dollar
> cases may produce unusually large amounts of money—with a portion going back
> to victims—thereby telling a noisy story of year-to-year activity levels,"
> the report found. The numbers reported today represent a more stable and
> accurate account of forfeiture activity, the institute says. "Even without
> those major cases, the overall trend is still upward,"

------
refurb
_Technically, Shattuck 's dispensary should not have been approved by the town
planning commission, because the law does not provide for selling marijuana in
dispensaries_

This is a great lesson for everyone. I grew up assuming that people _in
charge_ of regulations and laws would know them. They could tell you what's
legal and what's not.

After interactions with different gov't agencies and law enforcement, I've
come to realize that's not true at all. I would be _shocked_ if even 10% of
the people in charge of enforcing laws have even read the laws themselves.

Don't be surprised if a police officer arrests you for something completely
legal or if a gov't agency tells you can/can't do something even though the
opposite is true.

It's pretty disheartening when the people chosen to enforce a law aren't even
informed enough to do it correctly. It's not that hard to get up to speed.

~~~
talmand
It's the theory that if you write enough laws then everybody is a criminal.
Then the authorities can just pick and choose who they wish to prosecute. This
an example of that, so many laws on the books that the people in charge of
them have no idea what the laws on the books are.

There have been stories recently of police arresting someone for a legal act
because the officer thought it was illegal. If I remember correctly a lawsuit
was started in one of these cases and it determined the officer's ignorance of
the law was not a suitable reason for the lawsuit. Or something to that point.

~~~
jseliger
_It 's the theory that if you write enough laws then everybody is a criminal_

That's already true, as pointed out in _Three Felonies a Day_ :
[http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-
Innocent/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-
Innocent/dp/1594035229). Everyone is already a criminal if someone wants to
look carefully enough.

~~~
justratsinacoat
>Everyone is already a criminal if someone wants to look carefully enough

This is a pretty good quote. It reminded me of two more:

"Honest men have nothing to fear from the police" (said, presumably, by the
prolific Anonymous), and

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I
will find something in them which will hang him" (said, presumably, by
Cardinal Richelieu but possibly by the Roman philosopher Quintilian)

------
jimrandomh
This is a common way of bypassing the courts. US police departments have
gradually ratcheted up the amount of punishment they can inflict on people
without court consent, with a combination of civil forfeiture, pre-trial
detainment and destruction of property. They get away with it because the
courts have neither the will nor the resources to push back effectively. The
practical result has been a loss of faith in the US criminal justice system,
which is a threat to the innocent, not a defender of it.

------
BEEdwards
"They got an anonymous tip"

Why did they even need that, the couple called them up told them they planned
to sell mary jane and the hours they planned to do it, "Come on down, check it
out", yet the police still needed to contrive an anonymous tip for some
reason.

~~~
unabridged
The problem is they only talked to the cops. They should have talked to the
people with the real power, the prosecutors. Rich people hire a lawyer who
knows the prosecutors, and have them get assurances (possibly in writing)
before doing anything close to illegal.

------
johnrob
As far as I can tell, law enforcement is not penalized for executing a search
warrant that doesn't pan out. Same goes for the courts that approve them,
often ignoring a lack of true probable cause and/or being misled by the agents
who write these warrants. This is a very bad incentive for all involved that
creates innocent victims and hoards of wasted time.

~~~
rtkwe
I wouldn't really call this a warrant that didn't pan out. They were breaking
the law and if they hadn't been working with the local government all this
time the Shattuck's would probably be in jail.

------
zrail
Civil forfeiture is terrifying. I haven't even done anything wrong and I'm
terrified that someone might accuse me, and then the police come in and take
and/or smash all of my stuff and/or confiscate my bank accounts and
investments.

~~~
talmand
What do you mean your terrified that someone might accuse you? It doesn't even
take that much. Get pulled over for no real reason on the interstate with a
few hundred bucks in the car and it's "drug money".

~~~
talmand
Here's a mature community that didn't needlessly point out my "your" vs
"you're" flub.

------
dsjoerg
One way to do something about this: [https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-
reform/reforming-po...](https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-
reform/reforming-police-practices/asset-forfeiture-abuse)

------
aporetics
For all the reasonable concerns about government overreach & abuse of power,
(and without getting into the principles underwriting their power, i.e., that
they work for us) government incompetence it just as compelling to me as a
reason for strong checks and legal constraints. One agency saddled up for war
while another gave its blessing? Eyeroll.

------
ommunist
Aren't protocols of seized items signed by witnesses? Or US Police is just a
bunch of gangsters?

~~~
jessaustin
You must live in a more civilized locale. Most USA police in fact are fairly
decent human beings. The system is set up to encourage them to act as
gangsters, which many of them do. It was set up that way by a different group
of gangsters. Does this not make much sense? That's intentional; voters don't
understand it either.

------
protomyth
The only thing I can see as a viable target of asset forfeiture is illegal
items (e.g. the drugs themselves). Any other asset that the government wants
to seize needs to follow a criminal conviction and a separate trial on the
asset itself. This funding our police through stealing (see Philadelphia) is
beyond wrong.

I also believe that no money from fines should go to the police department. It
should end up in the state's (not the city, etc.) general fund. That will end
the incentive to be a bunch of buccaneers.

~~~
logfromblammo
It would actually be better if it ended up in a segregated budget category
that could not be used to fund policing or courts, and which could not be
conditionally reduced based on the amount of funding provided via forfeiture.

If you stick it in the general fund, it is just one spending bill away from
ending up in police coffers anyway.

~~~
protomyth
Yeah, probably, but I figure moving it up to the state general fund from the
city / county is a good start.

------
stegosaurus
Most of these cases strike me as being quite worrying with regard to 'just
following orders'.

A police officer must, must have discretion. The individual, the team, that
steps into a home must be able to decide whether taking items is the best
course of action and be free to do so without coercion.

Otherwise, you have robots acting on instructions from higher ups. That's not
a reasonable model for society.

------
c3534l
I think there should be limits on the police's ability to take people's stuff.
Maybe add something to the constitution that something along the lines of:

> ...nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just
> compensation.

That way, the police can't just seize your stuff without considering the
damages that inflicts on a person.

------
gumby
>They worked to ensure every last detail was in full compliance with the law
as they understood it

They were lucky. Aereo did the same, specifically falling court rulings and
the law and their efforts were successfully held in court to be clear
demonstration of an attempt to break the law!

What a world.

