Police Can Use a Legal Gray Area to Rob Anyone of Their Belongings (2016) | Hacker News Reader

Police Can Use a Legal Gray Area to Rob Anyone of Their Belongings (2016)

theatlantic.com

88 pointsbcaa7f3a8bbc13 comments

Note to readers: This is not civil forfeiture.

> There are two avenues available to the government for seizing items that were used to commit a crime, or cash that was made unlawfully. If a person is convicted of a crime, the government can use a legal tool called criminal forfeiture that allows it to confiscate property that was involved. Civil forfeiture, on the other hand, does not require a criminal charge—only a suspicion that a piece of property was involved in a crime, or that it was obtained illegally.

> But neither of those legal processes were used against Clavasquin, his coplaintiffs, and the estimated “hundreds if not thousands” of others just in New York City that they represent in the lawsuit. Instead, they got caught in legal limbo: When their property was classified as evidence after their arrest, slow-moving bureaucracy and red tape turned what should be a routine transaction—getting back personal property after the state no longer has any use for it—into a near-impossibility.

> [...] Even if a person is arrested but isn’t charged with a crime, his or her possessions can be seized. (In certain cases, police can even seize property without arresting its owner.) But the lack of criminal charges don’t make recovery any easier. In fact, in Washington and New York, it lands individuals in another gray area that can be even more difficult to navigate than the maze of red tape that follows the end of criminal proceedings.

Apparently, in addition to the much controversial civil forfeiture (which largely allows the police to confiscate things arbitrarily in a Stop-and-Seize scheme without charges or warrants [0]), the police can also keep your things confiscated without a charge by classifying it as "evidence"...

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8280889

And they should need to fix that, so that if the police confiscate your thing without your consent, then the police shall be arrested for theft. (The other police will need to arrest them. And if they refuse, then you have to take it back by yourself.)

As a practical matter, would the items stolen by the original police then need to be taken into evidence by the second set of police, to support the charge of theft against the first set of police?

Of course, that is a valid point. But maybe photographs will do in this case?

Then they should do in the first case.

The whole "need to keep the evidence until the case is closed" thing is a sham.

If a crime scene can be released back to the owner before a case is closed, so can evidence.

Making it difficult is just another case of the process being part of the punishment.

If police can't confiscate any evidence without your consent, how would they collect evidence before it's destroyed? Sure, destroying evidence is a crime, but how can the police prove that it was criminal evidence at all?

Police: Your honor, when we stopped him, the suspect had 5 years of financial books showing his money laundering in the back of his car. We told him to bring it to court.

Suspect: Naaa, that was my daughter's homework, and it accidentally blew out my car window when I was driving home. Sorry about the litter, I deserve that $500 littering fine.

So you think search warrants should be illegal? If police find someone holding a gun next to a dead body, they shouldn't be able to take that gun if the suspect refuses?

Police must be able to confiscate evidence related to an ongoing case. They just need to give it back after the case closes.

My home was once burgled and the thief made of with an ipad (among other things). We tracked it down using preyproject.com and with the help of the cops, retrieved it from someone who had bought it from someone on the street.

Had I gotten it back then there'd have been very little harm done. However, the cops held it as evidence for so long that by the time I got it back it had gone obsolete.

The justice system ended up doing me more harm than the thief did (and they never did catch him). I don't live in the US.

This exact thing happened to me. The thief stole my bicycle out of the front hallway, and an RC helicopter from a kitchen shelf. The bike was recovered when a friend of mine recognized it in town, but enlisting the police to retreive it safely (instead of just stealing it back) resulted in the loss of the bike for several more weeks; had I not made an impassioned plea there's no telling how long they would have held it.

The police recovered the RC helicopter in a seperate raid some time later; I was called in to the station to identify it, and then I didn't see the helicopter for another year.

What if the police needed to pay/provide compensation to keep and hold evidence after say 90 days unless owner waves it?

The federal lawsuit against the City of New York mentioned in the Atlantic article was settled in 2018, with the City and the Bronx district attorney’s office agreeing to reforms related to the return of property taken from arrestees.

Press release: https://www.bronxdefenders.org/the-bronx-defenders-secures-s...

Settlement agreement (PDF): https://www.bronxdefenders.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Co...

Being police is not a privilege, but an obligation of responsibility. This includes reform where such provides better service to the public. Neglecting this is being of disservice.

"Rob" is the wrong word. It's more like vandalism, since items in evidence are not enjoyed by anyone.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com