Every member of the Supreme Court got this one right today...

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-rules-indiana-seizure-convicts-land-rover/story?id=61187893

Making thieves  out of our law enforcement officers was one of the few reasons I voted for Bill Clinton over George Bush in 1992. It's one of the main reasons I became a Democrat. Bush started this crappy program and it was his idea. Law enforcement has stolen millions of dollars from private citizens since then.
It's taken nearly 30 years for the court to finally say that seizing personal property even with a conviction is going too far with the punishment process. A lot of innocent people have had their property seized from these laws, parents of drug dealers have lost their homes to seizure by the police, whether they knew a crime was being done inside their houses or not.
There was a case in California while Bush was in office in which a man visited a prostitute and drove his wife's car to the brothel. He was arrested.  The wife never got her car back.
I hope this vote will stop that crap from ever happening again.

bigdog wrote:https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-rules-indiana-seizure-convicts-land-rover/story?id=61187893

Making thieves  out of our law enforcement officers was one of the few reasons I voted for Bill Clinton over George Bush in 1992. It's one of the main reasons I became a Democrat. Bush started this crappy program and it was his idea. Law enforcement has stolen millions of dollars from private citizens since then.
It's taken nearly 30 years for the court to finally say that seizing personal property even with a conviction is going too far with the punishment process. A lot of innocent people have had their property seized from these laws, parents of drug dealers have lost their homes to seizure by the police, whether they knew a crime was being done inside their houses or not.
There was a case in California while Bush was in office in which a man visited a prostitute and drove his wife's car to the brothel. He was arrested.  The wife never got her car back.
I hope this vote will stop that crap from ever happening again.

That sounds like a questionable ruling by the judge. Maybe the car wasn't in her name. I have no problem with civil asset forfeiture post facto, just not ipso facto. But the one who commits the crime should bear the burden, not family members or friends unless they were involved in the dirty deeds. There are other statutes that allow forfeiture to occur after a conviction, and they should suffice to cover the ground without states and municipalities trying to pad their budgets with what amounts to theft.

Here's an opinion:

Opinion analysis: Eighth Amendment’s ban on excessive fines applies to the states

https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/02/opinion-analysis-eighth-amendments-ban-on-excessive-fines-applies-to-the-states/#more-279586

I guess we disagree on this one, because I have a problem with the state seizing private property, regardless of whether there has been a conviction or not.  I hate to use the words "slippery slope," but that's what these laws were from the very beginning.  They also make law enforcement a "for profit" business, since the proceeds from these seizures go to law enforcement and not back to the victims of the crimes that the proceeds may have been gained from.
One result, I think, is that drug law enforcement has taken huge precedence over violent crime, simply because the police are more likely to see property seizures from one crime rather than from the other.
That's not what a police officer should have on his mind when he's out in his cruiser, but look at how expensive some of the police cruisers have become. Some of them are converted from drug dealers cars into cop cars.
I'm not saying that if a drug dealer has 6 K in cash on him and is arrested by a policeman that he should be allowed to keep the money. Those are obviously proceeds of a crime. But they should not be put  into any law enforcement funds. Those funds should go back directly into the state treasury to help lower taxes, or for some charitable program to help the citizens in the community where the crimes were committed.