>...On his drive from Texas to California, a Nevada Highway Patrol officer engineered a reason to pull him over, saying that he passed too closely to a tanker truck. The officer who pulled Stephen over complimented his driving but nevertheless prolonged the stop and asked a series of questions about Stephen’s life and travels. Stephen told the officer that his life savings was in the trunk. Another group of officers arrived, and Stephen gave them permission to search his car. They found a backpack with Stephen’s money, just where he said it would be, along with receipts showing all his bank withdrawals. After a debate amongst the officers, which was recorded on body camera footage, they decided to seize his life savings.
Well they must really believe they have a strong case then, right?
>...So Stephen teamed up with the Institute for Justice to get his money back. It was only after IJ brought a lawsuit against the DEA to return Stephen’s money, and his story garnered national press attention, that the federal government agreed to return his money. In fact, they did so just a day after he filed his lawsuit, showing that they had no basis to hold it.
Nope, I guess they knew they didn't have a case. To recap: They engineer a fake reason for a traffic stop treating cars as a potential lottery ticket with a big payoff. They take the money even though they know they shouldn't. They circumvent Nevada law by handing the money to the DEA so they could get a kickback, hoping he won't be able to now afford a lawyer since they took his life savings. The minute he shows he has a powerful legal team looking into the case, they hand back the money.
https://ij.org/case/nevada-civil-forfeiture/
>For civil asset forfeiture the whole premise is that you can't prove the money is your's.
Also, one has to wonder why the basic principle of the state having to prove guilt needs to be upended with civil asset forfeiture. If you are alleged to have murdered someone you are assumed innocent, but for civil asset forfeiture you are assumed guilty?
This is civil vs criminal law. In civil cases you do not have the right to an attorney and hearing can be ex parte. The burden of proof is only more likely than not. So you have one-sided cases with no representation for the asset. These same lack of protections are being exploited for things like red flag laws, proposed abortion laws, etc. It's the same sloppy paradigm - too much work to do things under criminal law due to pesky rights, so just move it to the civil side.
