Forfeiture Laws

[Lancy]

Hello,

When the gestapo raids homes and help themselves to peoples possessions, can they (would they) take a leased car?  It's obviously owned by the lessor and therefore has no established equity.

[Lancy]

WOW!

[shishka]

From personal experience yes they do. I don't think they can keep it however, it would have to be returned to the leasing company. In my case I paid $2000 in cash to the cops and they returned it.

[Lancy]

As bad as that sounds, it still seems less risky to lease.  No equity to swallow up.

[trichcycler]

HA !!

 

ha, rented house, rentacenter furnishings, leased car.........cant touch this...

[+washtenaut]

I do not have a leased car and have never read the contract for one.

 

So, if your car is taken by the police.....why don't you just owe the leasing company for the value of the vehicle when you fail to return it?  It seems it would be treated like the theft of an uninsured vehicle.  Is that incorrect?

[+washtenaut]

Check out the Weediquette thread here.  Last night they premiered an episode on Michigan's rise in cannabis arrests.  They point to the asset forfeiture abuses here as the chief cause.

 

If you have a login to your TV provider, you can watch the episode on demand at viceland.com.  The episodes seem to make their way to youtube in a couple of weeks.

[Dalbert]

Check out the Weediquette thread here.  Last night they premiered an episode on Michigan's rise in cannabis arrests.  They point to the asset forfeiture abuses here as the chief cause.

 

If you have a login to your TV provider, you can watch the episode on demand at viceland.com.  The episodes seem to make their way to youtube in a couple of weeks.

 

I had this episode on my DVR and it was rather shocking. Legal armed robbery. Almost too incredible to believe, if it wasn't happening so often. Where's the outrage?

[+washtenaut]

Asset forfeiture was always a slippery slope type of issue and we have slid pretty far down that slope.  Initially the public accepted this police tactic because, we rationalized anyway, that it was being used to punish drug kingpins.  Many of these drug lords were beating the system by accumulating massive wealth, doing 2-3 years in prison for their drug crimes, and then emerging as wealthy men, set for life.  It felt just to take their assets even if based on shaky reasoning.

 

Fast forward to today where, at the slope bottom, police are abusing this tactic for their own benefit.  It is yet another example where our laws assume that the 'good guys' will always act justly.  As often as that assumption proves foolhardy, we do it time and time again. 

 

The police rationalize the usage of these laws today as the way to keep the police officers safe and on the job.  After all, how can they keep us safe if their department can't afford the overtime pay or even the existing payroll?

 

Lots of citizens are outraged but what are you going to do when heavily armed men kick your door down, hold your family at gunpoint, and take your possessions?  Fight them?  Call the police? 

[phaquetoo]

I do not have a leased car and have never read the contract for one.

 

So, if your car is taken by the police.....why don't you just owe the leasing company for the value of the vehicle when you fail to return it?  It seems it would be treated like the theft of an uninsured vehicle.  Is that incorrect?

You have to put down for a lack of better words a bond on your forfeitured property and go to court to get it back, I was told it would be a waiste of my money and time to do this so leo got a mini van from me oh prob 20 yrs ago, I still owed the bank on it, I listened to my attny, I didnt try to get it back and had to pay off the loan, mean while my old mini van was being used by the narco squad!

 

It is never easy to fight city hall, some win, I couldnt realy afford the bond, but I could afford the monthly payments to the bank, so I was stuck paying the bank untill the vehicle was paid off, lesson learned? not sure lol!

 

Peace