Now constitutional rights organization fights to have precedent fixed
A federal appeals court has been asked to review a ruling by a three-judge panel that allowed a police department to confiscate the car of an innocent citizen and and keep it for three years without compensation.
A brief filed by the Rutherford Institute to 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals argues the victim, Stephen Nichols, was targeted by a “policing for profit” scheme carried out by local authorities across the nation.
“These ‘policing for profit’ asset forfeiture schemes are just a new, twisted form of guilt by association. Only it’s not the citizenry being accused of wrongdoing, just their money,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of the institute.
“What this adds up to is a paradigm in which Americans no longer have to be guilty to be stripped of their property, rights and liberties. All you have to be is in possession of something the government wants. Motorists have been particularly vulnerable to this modern-day form of highway robbery.”
Democrats control the Michigan judicial, state house and senate, elected law enforcement, large city governments and education, so this is not surprising. Think of the Detroit area as the ugly cousin of San Francisco.