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Bandits with Badges
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Bandits with Badges
By Jessi Winchester, Author of From Bordello to Ballot Box
"Whenever legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience."
- - John Locke, 1690
Society has no problem with law enforcement fighting crime or even confiscating property used in a criminal enterprise but, as with any law, the good intent for which the law was created, has been immensely abused to the point that innocent citizens are losing everything they ever worked for without even being charged or convicted of a crime. Clearly, states need to pass laws to safeguard the rights of the innocent from zealot law enforcement agencies run amuck from the smell of greed.
An agency that was once designed to "protect and serve" has now become a very lucrative business of profit. And not just from the drug lords for whom the seizure law was originally intended. A majority of today's innocent victims are every day people who can't afford the costly legal battles involved in recovering their property, which was stolen from them by agents of their own government without benefit of due process.
Forfeiture laws were passed in the 1980s to fight drug traffickers. In the early 1990s, they were fine-tuned to expand and include many other non-drug situations. Since then, the law enforcement and legal communities have figured a way to circumvent the U.S. Constitution - specifically, the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. Now they simply take the property to civil court where Administrative Law places the burden of proof on the victim rather than take a potential suspect to criminal court where Constitutional Law prevails and it is incumbent upon law enforcement to prove there actually was a crime. By going to civil court where the Constitution does not apply, cops can simply keep the booty without even charging a citizen with a crime - let alone convicting them.
Since confiscation occurs under a civil procedure separate from the criminal law process, it is now easier for the government to seize property than to convict a person of a crime. This out-of-control policy has finally caused a few states such as Nevada, Oregon, Utah, New Mexico and Missouri to modify their statutes to place the burden of proof where it was originally intended - on the government - and to clearly implement due process. Oregon and Utah even took the issue to the voters and passed a state constitutional amendment to that effect. Currently, Colorado intends to place the same issue before the legislature and if the lawmakers don't pass the requested changes, they plan on taking the issue directly to the voters. Citizens are finally waking up and realizing the Fourth and Fifth Amendments have been trampled by law enforcement for government's greedy gain and are demanding the protection promised them under the U.S. Constitution.
Requiring that a property owner be convicted of a crime prior to forfeiture is not only the right thing to do . . . it is our birthright as citizens. The sooner the rest of the states join those who have already spoken up for liberty, the stronger individual liberty will be for each American and the sooner we can put a stop to "bandits with badges."
Copyright @ Jessi Winchester 2002, All Rights Reserved
Column written for LibertyForAll Internet Magazine, April, 2002
Winchester was raised on a cattle and crop ranch in Iowa. Besides working full-time for Hollywood executives and doing some part-time motorcycle stunt work, Jessi has also worked in the legal bordellos, competed in a Mrs. Nevada pageant, produced an industry calendar, held annual Bordello Balls for charity, was the subject of an infamous larger-than-life painting by renown artist John Hunt, ran for political office, and has now become a published author. Jessi Winchester remains an advocate for the every day citizen and an outspoken voice for individual liberties as defined under the U.S. Constitution.
"Childhood on a cattle ranch in Middle America led to adulthood on a very different type of *ranch* in Nevada," so says Jessi Winchester in her recently released book.
Jessi's autobiography, From Bordello To Ballot Box, was released by BainBridgeBooks of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in November, 2000. The book goes behind the mysterious closed doors of Nevada's legal brothels to look at the ladies who choose to work in the industry and the clients who visit them. It also chronicles the author's personal experiences as a political candidate, provides a revealing look at the private faces of political personalities and explores how ruthless and unseen power mongers control and predetermine political choices. Her journey documents the strength of the human spirit in overcoming prejudice and double standards in an effort to simply be treated as a human being.
http://www.libertyforall.net/2002/archive/bandits-with-badges.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By Jessi Winchester, Author of From Bordello to Ballot Box
"Whenever legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience."
- - John Locke, 1690
Society has no problem with law enforcement fighting crime or even confiscating property used in a criminal enterprise but, as with any law, the good intent for which the law was created, has been immensely abused to the point that innocent citizens are losing everything they ever worked for without even being charged or convicted of a crime. Clearly, states need to pass laws to safeguard the rights of the innocent from zealot law enforcement agencies run amuck from the smell of greed.
An agency that was once designed to "protect and serve" has now become a very lucrative business of profit. And not just from the drug lords for whom the seizure law was originally intended. A majority of today's innocent victims are every day people who can't afford the costly legal battles involved in recovering their property, which was stolen from them by agents of their own government without benefit of due process.
Forfeiture laws were passed in the 1980s to fight drug traffickers. In the early 1990s, they were fine-tuned to expand and include many other non-drug situations. Since then, the law enforcement and legal communities have figured a way to circumvent the U.S. Constitution - specifically, the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. Now they simply take the property to civil court where Administrative Law places the burden of proof on the victim rather than take a potential suspect to criminal court where Constitutional Law prevails and it is incumbent upon law enforcement to prove there actually was a crime. By going to civil court where the Constitution does not apply, cops can simply keep the booty without even charging a citizen with a crime - let alone convicting them.
Since confiscation occurs under a civil procedure separate from the criminal law process, it is now easier for the government to seize property than to convict a person of a crime. This out-of-control policy has finally caused a few states such as Nevada, Oregon, Utah, New Mexico and Missouri to modify their statutes to place the burden of proof where it was originally intended - on the government - and to clearly implement due process. Oregon and Utah even took the issue to the voters and passed a state constitutional amendment to that effect. Currently, Colorado intends to place the same issue before the legislature and if the lawmakers don't pass the requested changes, they plan on taking the issue directly to the voters. Citizens are finally waking up and realizing the Fourth and Fifth Amendments have been trampled by law enforcement for government's greedy gain and are demanding the protection promised them under the U.S. Constitution.
Requiring that a property owner be convicted of a crime prior to forfeiture is not only the right thing to do . . . it is our birthright as citizens. The sooner the rest of the states join those who have already spoken up for liberty, the stronger individual liberty will be for each American and the sooner we can put a stop to "bandits with badges."
Copyright @ Jessi Winchester 2002, All Rights Reserved
Column written for LibertyForAll Internet Magazine, April, 2002
Winchester was raised on a cattle and crop ranch in Iowa. Besides working full-time for Hollywood executives and doing some part-time motorcycle stunt work, Jessi has also worked in the legal bordellos, competed in a Mrs. Nevada pageant, produced an industry calendar, held annual Bordello Balls for charity, was the subject of an infamous larger-than-life painting by renown artist John Hunt, ran for political office, and has now become a published author. Jessi Winchester remains an advocate for the every day citizen and an outspoken voice for individual liberties as defined under the U.S. Constitution.
"Childhood on a cattle ranch in Middle America led to adulthood on a very different type of *ranch* in Nevada," so says Jessi Winchester in her recently released book.
Jessi's autobiography, From Bordello To Ballot Box, was released by BainBridgeBooks of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in November, 2000. The book goes behind the mysterious closed doors of Nevada's legal brothels to look at the ladies who choose to work in the industry and the clients who visit them. It also chronicles the author's personal experiences as a political candidate, provides a revealing look at the private faces of political personalities and explores how ruthless and unseen power mongers control and predetermine political choices. Her journey documents the strength of the human spirit in overcoming prejudice and double standards in an effort to simply be treated as a human being.
http://www.libertyforall.net/2002/archive/bandits-with-badges.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
I am happy to say that my State is going to a restricted version of seizure/forfeiture in which property can NOT be forfeited until a conviction is obtained. Believe it or not Law Enforcement has plenty of tools to fight crime and we don't need to take any rights away from anyone to accomplish our mission. The only guideline necessary for us is the Constitution (US and State).
This is a step in the right direction.
Lt
"We become what we habitually do. If we act rightly, we become upright men. If we habitually act wrongly, or weakly, we become weak and corrupt" - *ARISTOTLE*
**Like Grandad used to say--"It'll feel better when it quits hurtin"