CIVIL FORFEITURE In the United States, non-conviction based ("NCB") Forfeiture is known as "civil forfeiture." This legal procedure might be brought whenever preceding or after criminal accusations are recorded, or regardless of the possibility that criminal allegations are never documented. It is an activity recorded in court against a property, not against a man. Once the U.S. Lawyer's Office gets a referral from a seizing organization of a seized resource case, that office has 90 days to either document a civil legal case or incorporate the seized resource in a criminal arraignment and name it for criminal Forfeiture. 18 U.S.C. § 983. On the off chance that a civil case is not documented within those 90 days, the CAFRA "capital punishment" …show more content…
al (2015), Criminal forfeiture needs at least a criminal determination for a conviction to provide for a lawful provision in depriving people of their possessions. By comparison, civil forfeiture provides for law enforcers to take possessions from people with no real criminal convictions yet or without even charges of any crime; thus, making it without effort for the government to get property and harder for civilians to oppose. From the years 1997 to 2013 it was found that only 13 percent from the Department of Justice forfeitures were criminal in nature and 87 percent were civil forfeitures. Within the civil forfeitures, 88 percent of which, have taken place administratively wherein forfeitures ensue inevitably when an owner fails to challenge the forfeiture in court for any other reason at all, even for the reason of missing the deadline to file a claim or not affording a lawyer for the trial. The forfeited property is mainly assumed to be from a guilty owner without an unbiased arbiter in as much as the form of a judge in determining whether it should be permanently withheld from the …show more content…
To keep away from an ethical irregularity in the legitimate framework, the rules ought to be composed so that the civil forfeiture discipline for a demonstration does not surpass the criminal discipline for a similar demonstration. Swinging to infringement of the guideline of relative assurances, there are two conceivable arrangements: bring down the reality of civil forfeiture's results, or raise the level of civil forfeiture's procedural insurances (Rainbolt & Reif, 1997). To bring down the reality of civil forfeitures, one could restrain the estimation of continues and facilitators which might be looked for in civil forfeiture. Since the procedural securities in civil forfeiture cases are lower than standard civil strategy and on the grounds that civil forfeiture regularly conveys an indistinguishable shame from a criminal conviction, to take care of the proportionality of techniques issue, civil forfeiture non-disgrace results would need to be low without a doubt. All things considered, civil forfeiture would at no time in the future be much use against operations like the Cali cocaine cartel. Along these lines, we should raise the level of civil forfeiture procedural insurances when continues or facilitators are included (Rainbolt & Reif,
Winship was convicted on a preponderance of evidence of stealing one-hundred and twelve dollars from a lavatory locker. The sentencing for Winship’s delinquent act was six years in a reformative setting. While the family court judge felt the level of proof needed to prove guilt was a preponderance of evidence, the supreme court felt higher level of proof was crucial. The United S...
From a trial strategy point of view, you always start with the piece(s) of evidence you believe are most damaging to the client's case and work backwards looking for an exploitable flaw in the search and seizure procedure that would make that or those item(s) inadmissible. The further back in the series of events you can argue a fatal flaw, the more likely that the evidence and any additional materials which flowed from that particular item of evidence will be excluded. This is the practical analysis of all the times we see or hear of law enforcement arguing that there was some technical item which drew their attention and suspicion and justifies their hunch that criminal activity is afoot.
As see and discussed last week, the film Presunto Culpable translated to Presumed Guilty presented its viewers the harsh reality of the criminal justice system in Mexico as compared to the system used in the United States. The title itself captures the difficulty with this system. There the defendant is automatically presumed to be guilty at the moment of custody, and that presumption affects the way crimes are investigated and criminal charges are adjudicated. This affects the style of police investigation as see in the documentary, making them care less as long as they produce someone to give the charge too. Here it does not need to be supported by a legit evidence test of the evidence gathered by the police such as forensics, eye-witness
Table 2 shows that stakeholders are interested in whether civil forfeiture laws stay the same, whether citizens will obtain increased protections, or whether law enforcement’s civil forfeiture reports will become more transparent.
According to McCaw (2011), civil forfeiture has multiple benefits. One benefit of civil forfeiture is that it does not need a conviction to render a punishment (McCaw, 2011, p. 196). It allows the government to provide a lesser punishment when a criminal conviction is too harsh. For instance, if a juvenile is distributing pictures of underage classmates a prosecutor could decide to forfeit the cell phone instead of charging the juvenile with distribution of child pornography (McCaw, 2011, p. 198). This means that civil forfeitures can act as an alternative to incarceration. Specifically, it can increase revenue for the government through forfeiture funds without the cost of sending someone to prison (McCaw, 2011, p. 198). McCaw (2011) stated
According to the United States constitution, The Exclusionary Rule is a law that prohibits the use of illegally obtained evidences in a criminal trial. For example “Boyd v US 1886” “An act to amend the customs revenue laws,” &c., “which section authorizes a court of the United States, in revenue cases, on motion of the government attorney, to require the defendant or claimant to produce in court his private books, invoice and papers, or else the allegations of the attorney to be taken as confessed: Held, to be unconstitutional and void a applied to suits for penalties or to establish a forfeiture of the party’s goods, as being repugnant to the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution.(116 US 616 Scotus)” The main purpose of this rule was to ensure police do not conduct an excessive amount of unlawful searches in order to obtain evidence for a case. It was an important rule that was put into effect in the early 1900s to protect individual’s rights to a fair trial.
M. (2002). Forfeiture. In J. Dressler (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice (2nd ed., Vol. 2, pp. 714-719). New York: Macmillan Reference USA. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com.bethelu.idm.oclc.org/ps/i.do?p=GVRL&sw=w&u=tel_a_bethelc&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CCX3403000126&asid=aed93538c57de2bcd07ea576034cc631
Williams, Frank P. and Marilyn D. McShane, Criminal Theory: Selected Classic Readings. 2nd ed. Cincinnati, Ohio: Anderson Publishing Company, 1998.
For instance, any financial crime can leave individuals without shelter, money, or any reasonable quality of life due to the white collar offense. Therefore, white collar crime may not involve force, they still may affect people physically. As a matter of fact, white collar crime may result in a greater impact than street crimes. Nevertheless, we continue to operate on a dichotomy of beliefs regarding violent and non-violent crimes. In this paper, we will explore white collar crime as a non-violent crime. Those crimes under discussion are blackmail, bribery, embezzlement, and forgery. In addition, we will discuss violent crimes such as first degree, second degree, and manslaughter (Verstein,
Valuables taken during a burglary can be replaced easily, but someone’s identity and livelihood cannot be given back. Most white collar criminals only seem to get a slap on the wrist, or maybe even probation. Someone that burglarizes or robs someone can get five to thirty years depending on whether a weapon was involved.... ... middle of paper ... ... Henning, P. (2013, February 25).
The purpose of this paper is to take a look and at what exactly police corruption is and how officers engage in this. This is the involvement of a law enforcement officer in anything related to the activity of a drug. After explaining and defining drug-related police corruption the next step was to see how often it occurs in law enforcement agencies. Looking at cases that have occured in the past is one way to see where and why this corrosion has occurred. additionally by also looking at data that was published on drug-related police corruption, we are able to see how often it has occured. lastly this paper will give what the solution to this major issue. The solution is paying police more so they do not have to look to make more money in
United States in the use of criminal asset forfeiture in federal proceedings. Tony Honeycutt owned a hardware store in Tennessee. Honeycutt’s hardware store was receiving $270,000 profits from water filters that were sold in connection to the manufacturing of methamphetamines. His brother and accomplice, Terry Honeycutt were both convicted. Tony Honeycutt paid $200,000 and Terry was to pay the remaining $70,000. Terry Honeycutt argued he has no stake in his brother’s business and shouldn’t be held liable. The case was sent to the Supreme Court when a circuit court reversed that ruling and stated the Honeycutt’s were “jointly and severally liable” (Kessler). This case became an example of forfeiture abuse. Steven L. Kessler’s, SCOTUS Limits Criminal Forfeiture in 'Honeycutt', explains the decision that The Supreme Court… “held that joint and several liability doesn’t apply to criminal forfeiture. Only assets obtained directly or indirectly by a defendant are subject to forfeiture”. Concluding that the government can’t overreach in asset
Lee Dionne, (2008). Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology: Let the Punishment Fit the Crime, vol. 99. Retrieved from: 3dhttp://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7318&context=jclc.
Laws serve several purposes in the criminal justice system. The main purpose of criminal law is to protect, serve, and limit human actions and to help guide human conduct. Also, laws provide penalties and punishment against those who are guilty of committing crimes against property or persons. In the modern world, there are three choices in dealing with criminals’ namely criminal punishment, private action and executive control. Although both private action and executive control are advantageous in terms of costs and speed, they present big dangers that discourage their use unless in exceptional situations. The second purpose of criminal law is to punish the offender. Punishing the offender is the most important purpose of criminal law since by doing so; it discourages him from committing crime again while making him or her pay for their crimes. Retribution does not mean inflicting physical punishment by incarceration only, but it also may include things like rehabilitation and financial retribution among other things. The last purpose of criminal law is to protect the community from criminals. Criminal law acts as the means through which the society protects itself from those who are harmful or dangerous to it. This is achieved through sentences meant to act as a way of deterring the offender from repeating the same crime in the future.
In order to adequately carry out a thorough investigation of the gang involved, proper surveillance must be used in order to gather sufficient evidence to ensure conviction. In order to secure convictions and investigate and prevent the spread of the suspected consignments the gang’s movements and communications must be monitored by means of surveillance.