"Surrender your cash & no investigation" is pretty plainly an extra-legal demand -- a civil asset forfeiture process was the threat in that discussion! The officer's preferred option was that the money was seized without any investigation, without any process at all, via the victim "voluntarily" surrendering it.
I don't care who was planning to pocket the money, specifically. The end beneficiary is not the primary problem in this clusterfuck. The fact that officers and departments, generally, can benefit from arbitrary harassment of citizens is the main problem. The final disposition of the stolen money is secondary.
> "Surrender your cash & no investigation" is pretty plainly an extra-legal demand
No. Your big assumption here is that that seize wouldn't have also been done under Asset Forfeiture rules. It was used as a threat to try to get a suspect to confess to a crime.
Remember that officers can lie during interrogations.
> I don't care who was planning to pocket the money, specifically.
Well that's what makes it legal or not. If the officer pocketed it, then it's illegal. If the gov't did it using the law of asset forfeiture, then it's literally LEGAL.
The threatened "investigation" in was the civil asset forfeiture procedure. They were asking him to voluntarily surrender the money, or else they would initiate civil asset forfeiture. In other words, law enforcement officers offered the victim a choice between plans A and B.
Plan A was the extra-legal course: give us your money, and we'll forget we ever had this discussion. This was the officer's preferred outcome. Free money, minimum paperwork.
Plan B was what actually happened: the civil asset forfeiture process. The victim refused to sign the papers, so everything goes to court, and then the government has to come up with something, at least a notional reason, to take the money.
However you read the laws around civil asset forfeiture, I am pretty sure that "plan A" was not an intended part of the picture.
No, it was used as a form of intimidation. I.e. give me the money or else I'm going to use the power of the state to systematically go through your life and fuck with you and people you know via an investigation
>then it's literally LEGAL
Who cares if it's legal or not? it's an extremely immoral and unjust way to handle law enforcement. The fact that it's legal is a blemish on the legal system that undermines the respect people should have for it.
Correct - which is a common tactic in law enforcement. That is why people are advised to shut up until they speak to their lawyer.
> Who cares if it's legal or not?
The people above describing it incorrectly as illegal.
> a blemish on the legal system
No. It would be a blemish on the legislators who wrote the law, and those who voted for them. The legal system enforces laws - it is not meant to judge ethics.
I don't care who was planning to pocket the money, specifically. The end beneficiary is not the primary problem in this clusterfuck. The fact that officers and departments, generally, can benefit from arbitrary harassment of citizens is the main problem. The final disposition of the stolen money is secondary.