PROOF GOES POOF

Police Can Seize Cash, Property Without Charges or
Convictions

When Robin Chatterjee was pulled over for having a missing licence
plate, police claimed they smelled marijuana in his car.

They searched the car and found $29,000 in cash and a few items
commonly used for growing marijuana. The police recognized they did
not have evidence to charge him with any crime. Instead, they
confiscated the items, along with the $29,000.

Shockingly, this happened in Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada
recently ruled such forfeitures do not violate the Charter of Rights
and Freedoms.

If the police just "think" property in your possession may have come
from criminal activity, it can be legally confiscated.

Ontario's Civil Remedies Act "does not require an allegation or proof
that a particular person committed a particular crime," the court
wrote. This is an extraordinary grant of police power and the
potential for abuse or misuse is extreme.

Many readers have no problem with the notion of police powers being
exercised against criminals. But Chatterjee was never even charged
with a crime, let alone convicted of one. This did not matter to the
court, which wrote the trial judge "could have accepted wholeheartedly
(Chatterjee's) claim that he was entirely innocent of any involvement
with marijuana cultivation, yet still ordered forfeiture."

That is a remarkable statement. What happened to proof beyond a
reasonable doubt? What ever happened to the principle that "the
punishment must fit the crime?"

Chatterjee may have been a suspicious character. After all, it is
rather unusual to travel with tools typically used for growing
marijuana plus $29,000 in cash. But it is not illegal.

Receipt, Please

Imagine the police pull your car over for a broken tail light or come
to your house because you are waking your neighbours. Will you need to
provide a receipt to justify any unusual or expensive possessions the
police notice that you have?

And if you can't, should you lose your things, even with no criminal
conviction?

I think it violates the principle of proof beyond a reasonable doubt
to confiscate alleged proceeds of crime without any criminal charge.
In a free and democratic society, we should not have to explain
ourselves to the police any time we are pulled over.

In my view, if the police do not have grounds to arrest you, you
should be free to go, and to take your property without having to
prove it is lawfully yours.

The unfortunate trend, however, is our society's interest in personal
privacy continues to degrade, coming close to the point of no return.

Since 2004, six other provinces have joined Ontario by enacting civil
forfeiture laws. B.C., has confiscated more than $5 million since its
law came into effect in 2006. B.C.'s Civil Forfeiture Office (BCCFO)
is funded by proceeds of confiscated goods, and the office became
entirely self-funded 18 months ahead of schedule.

This should be nothing to be proud of, but the BCCFO gleefully boasts
it is "an exercise in efficiency" and it's "business model" is
premised on "ease of access for law enforcement personnel."

It scares the hell out of me that a government forfeiture office sees
itself as a business. Confiscating goods and money without sufficient
proof of criminal conduct should not be undertaken so cavalierly.

U.S.-Style Abuses

Such programs are likely, if not certain, to suffer from the exact
same sorts of abuses that have occurred in the U.S., where it is not
uncommon to hear of forfeited goods going missing or forfeited cars
winding up in the hands of law enforcement personnel.

The state took Chatterjee's money and other items because the cops
smelled marijuana in his car. I am left to wonder what they would have
confiscated had Chatterjee actually had drugs on him. Maybe his kidney?