Originally Posted By: Susan
It started when Clinton was president, and he got the blame. But I don't know if it was a distortion of the Court-Orderless Search & Seizure Law, localized police corruption or something else. It was rampant 10-15 years ago, but I haven't heard much about it lately. Here's how it went (supposedly)

Was just reading up a bit on this. Actually, it was under Clinton's watch that the Federal law was reformed to address civil asset forfeiture abuse. According to this site:

Quote:
On April 25, 2000, President Clinton signed into law The Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 (HR 1658), Pub. L. No. 106-185, 106th Cong. (2000), changing the face of federal civil forfeiture for the first time since the First Continental Congress. The Act is a major step toward reforming the federal forfeiture system and applies to all forfeiture proceedings commenced on or after August 23, 2000.


Apparently that's why you don't hear much about these outrageous forfeiture cases anymore. I remember watching the TV show Miami Vice back in the day, and Crockett and Tubbs would drive around in the Ferrari and the Scarab speedboat--courtesy of forfeiture laws. To be fair, we don't know if seized in criminal or civil forfeiture suits but I think the show was reflecting what was going on in the real world at the time in terms of the police keeping the flashiest stuff for themselves.

Among the changes is that the government must show evidence that the assets are subject to forfeiture before taking possesion of the assets, and also doing away with the "cost bond" (usually a 10% non-refundable bond to the court just to fight to get your assets back). It's still a pain to fight in court, but at least the odds are not as lopsided as before towards the government.