Civil forfeiture is theft plain and simple.
I’ve never understood how civil asset forfeiture is constitutional. It seems like a 4th amendment violation.
Can someone point me to the judicial decisions that lead to this being legal?
It IS 4th amendment violation, period. It just that we’re suffering from the repercussion of the fundamental problem with Common Law (USA and UK) vs Civil Law (Rest of Europe except UK.)
Reference on this. And scroll down and you’ll see a row saying "Constitution: Always (For Civil Law) and Not Always (For Common Law.)
In a court of law, they make it a legal-game-scenario where constitutional rights aren’t automatically applied to you and you have to explicitly invoked it at the right time. That kind of crap is asinine and why I think we need an overhaul politically.
I know they can seize other things than money but I always make a point to carry very little cash whenever I travel.
In the article they stated one of the drivers did that, so they brought in a “drug dog” that of course signaled at the car so they took that as cause to search. I bet that dog just signals at every car it sees
At least in the US, the police found that the chances that a drug dog actually finds drugs is about 50/50. Which are not odds they like when it means they have to get a warrant, do the minimum amount of explaining to a judge, and do their job for once. So they found it was easier to train drug dogs to respond to signals and jump at a car on small signals or command. That way they jump on the cops suspicion and their 50% turns to 100%. If they find drugs then great, the dog let them bypass the warrantt and true due process. If not, then you have no recourse for action. Drug sniffing dogs for your local middle of nowhere PD are a joke.
