I wonder how long it will be until highway robbers like this start having their necks stretched by good law abiding citizens?

As I’ve stated before on this blog, that is where this ends. Either the cops clean their own house, or it ends in violence against the police.

As I really, REALLY don’t want the latter (not just for the violence itself, but also for the long-term social damage that does), I hope greatly that members of law enforcement will clean up their act, even if only for self-preservation.

I wonder how long it will be until highway robbers like this start having their necks stretched by good law abiding citizens?

Indeed. I wish people would realize that while it is the Court’s job to recognize unconstitutional legislation as such, the court has no authority to claim as legitimate legislation which is in fact unconstitutional. Any such ruling the court might make is itself illegitimate, and it is the duty of the citizenry to regard it as such.

I’d state that somewhat differently. The court has repeatedly failed to enforce the plain language of the constitution when it comes to these highway robbery statutes, just as they failed in the Wickard and Kelo cases. What this demonstrates is that depending on a royalist institution to secure our rights is nothing but wishful thinking.

-jcr

-jcr

Life’s too short for this shit and the world’s too big. I’ve made up my mind to emigrate. I don’t even know where but as soon as I can save some money I’m going to go find someplace that hopefully is a freer country to live in.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/scotus-dog-sniffing-case/

People mostly don’t enjoy getting shot, and who are you going to call to finish the detainment, anyway? Typically, your only option is another officer from the same LE organization, and who are they going to believe, you or their “brother officer”?

They are the system. You cannot use the same system against them. (And lest you think I’m gleeful about this at all, I assure you, I write these words in utter despair.)

Hey, now, that’s not fair. To the Mob, I mean. When you pay off the Mafia, they actually leave you alone.

Yes, the S. Ct. has affirmed the constitutionality of asset forfetiure laws.

In Bennis v. Michigan, 516 U.S. 442 (1996), the Supreme Court held that Michigan’s asset forfeiture statute was constitutional even though it lacked an innocent spouse provision.

Briefly, husband and wife jointly owned an old car worth about $1,000 as their sole means of transportation. Husband gets busted with a prostitute in the car. State confiscates the car under the asset forfeiture law. Wife, who was on the title to the vehicle and did not know, let alone approve her husband using to pick up a hooker, challenged the forfeiture. The Supreme Court said this is all fine because the forfeiture is a civil action directed at the instrumentality or profits of certain crimes, not at the owner of the property. Thus, no Due Process violation.

In Alexander v. United States, 509 U.S. 544 (1993), the feds prosecuted the owner of a chain of adult video and bookstores under the RICO statute. the jury found that 4 magazines and 3 videos, out of the thousands of titles sold, met the legal definition of obscenie materials and thus qualified as RICO predicates. Based on these convictions, the feds confiscated every personal and business asset the defendant owned. They sold his personal property and business fixtures at yard sale prices, sold his real property by quitclaim deed, and burned all of his stock of magazines videos, sex toys, etc. All told, the feds destroyed almost $10 million of inventory that had never been demonstrated to violate the obscenity laws, and disposed of personal and business assets worth more than $10 million that were never proven to be the proceeds from the sale of materials that violated the obscenity laws.

The Supreme Court held that there was no need to limit forfeiture to property that could reasonably be traced ot the commission or proceeds of a crime.

Yeah, the Supreme Court’s asset forfeiture jurisprudence sucks farts out of bus seats.

Pretty much sums it up.

The only law enforcement exemption to statutes covering armed robbery is the one that involves a search & seizure warrant. By definition, a uniformed officer making traffic stops will be armed, and courts have held in the past that simple possession of a firearm during a robbery, even if the victim never sees the gun, changes unarmed robbery to armed robbery.

There have been hundreds if not thousands of incidents over the years where compliance with one law leads directly to violating another. A good example is being ordered to disperse by a cop, when the only way to comply is to jaywalk. Or, when open carrying a handgun, in a place that requires a permit to conceal, being ordered by an officer to cover it up (disobeying an order is usually a crime).

So there’s laws on the books that allow police to seize money if it is being used for or results from a criminal act? There’s laws against seizing money while armed (or unarmed) too. Depending on the state, citizen’s arrest of a uniformed officer may be legal, and resisting a citizen’s arrest usually falls under the same statutes as resisting a police officer’s arrest.

So, what I’m wondering is, why don’t we see more citizen’s arrests of officers for armed robbery?

All of that being said, I am a firm opponent of these laws for any number of reasons, and my few encounters with them in federal court were extremely frustrating. There were judges who would always approve, and those who took a very dim view of the seizures, but none who seemed downright philosophically opposed to them