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this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2024
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The police department gets it. If you want your money back it's the seized money vs the state in a court, not you personally vs the state, the money itself vs the state.
But like... What does the department do with it? Do they just give it to indevual cops? If it's money does it become part of their budget?
Also, the case is "your money" vs " the state"? How the fuck does that work? This shit is so confusing 😅
John Oliver did a great segment on civil forfeiture.
My god he looks so young in this video.
Thank you!!
John aged a bit like Obama.
Hope I do as well.
These laws, like so many, were initially put into place to punish drug dealers. But like most laws geared towards the War on Drugs™ the cops realized they could use it against anyone and gleefully have ever since. It's not just money, they'll seize a person's home even if the homeowner had no idea their child or guest had drugs there.
Yup, in most states, it's anything the money COULD have been used on, and it's on you to prove the money was not used towards that item. You paid for new brakes on your car while gainfully employed, but you were also selling weed? Some part of that money WAS from drug sales - your car is now ours.
:(((
Goes into the budget is my understanding. It becomes departmental funds.
Very very poorly for the individual because your intent cannot be factored into the case. The money itself has to be proven innocent from criminal activity. It's essentially designed to be as hard as possible for the individual to get their money back. I am not a lawyer and I am pulling this from memory so i could be wildly off base with this.
If Wikipedia is accurate, it varies a bit by state, but it seems like your memory is accurate for many of them.