美国国家公共电台 NPR Defining What's Excessive In Police Property Seizures Remains Tricky

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Police can seize someone's property - cash or cars - even if they just suspect it's associated with a crime. And the property owner may not even be charged with anything. The practice is allowed under a powerful tool called civil asset forfeiture¹. It was revived in the 1980s. Activists² on both the right and the left say forfeiture is routinely abused. And in February, the Supreme³ Court gave them a win. So far, though, there's little sign the ruling is preventing police from taking people's stuff. Here's NPR's Martin Kaste.

MARTIN KASTE, BYLINE⁴: When Tyson Timbs was caught selling about $200 worth of heroin⁵, he pleaded guilty and served six months of home detention⁶, followed by probation⁷. He accepted that. What he didn't accept was that the police also seized his Land Rover.

TYSON TIMBS: I want my truck back. I've always wanted it back.

KASTE: He bought the $42,000 vehicle with insurance money. But the police kept it on the theory that he'd used it to transport small amounts of heroin.

TIMBS: I didn't feel like it was right. I wanted to try and do something about something because I thought it was kind of ridiculous that they could take my vehicle like that so easily.

KASTE: He fought the case for years, right up to the Supreme Court. And during oral arguments last fall, the justices seemed to agree that something is out of whack⁸ with forfeitures⁹. Here's Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

SONIA SOTOMAYOR: Many of them seem grossly disproportionate to the crimes being charged.

KASTE: And Timbs won the case unanimously. But the ruling itself was pretty narrow. It simply says that the Eighth Amendment's protection against excessive fines applies to the states too. And the states already had that protection in their constitutions, says Lisa Soronen.

LISA SORONEN: So presumably, the case will have no real impact at all.

KASTE: Soronen's executive director of the State and Local Legal Center, which took Indiana's side in this case. Sure, she says, the court has now made it crystal clear that excessive fines are unconstitutional. But what's still not clear is what that means.

SORONEN: Timbs v. Indiana is like the skeleton. So now we know there's bones in the closet, right? But there's no meat on the bones. And the meat will be when the Supreme Court defines what excessive is. We're just not there yet.

KASTE: She expects this process will take years, just as it took the court years to define excessive force. But others think Timbs may have a quicker effect. In Georgia, a lawyer named Matthew Cavedon says it strengthened his hand when he challenged the county's seizure¹⁰ of his client's moped.

MATTHEW CAVEDON: This was actually his main mode of transportation.

KASTE: He was negotiating with the prosecutor¹¹ over the moped around the time that the Timbs case was decided¹².

CAVEDON: Being able to bring in a part of the Bill of Rights and say that that prohibited this seizure, that mattered a lot.

KASTE: But the prosecutor denies that Timbs made the difference. Hall County assistant district attorney Wanda Vance says she gave the moped back because it simply wasn't worth her time anymore.

WANDA VANCE: I personally had spent, as a prosecutor, days working on this one asset forfeiture. So it just got to be - to where we made kind of a decision that it wasn't in the interest of justice anymore for us to continue.

KASTE: And that's an important detail here. It costs money for both sides to contest a forfeiture. This is civil law, so you don't get a free lawyer. And a lot of people just end up abandoning their stuff to the state. That means fewer forfeitures get challenged and fewer cases get to the high courts that might help to define what excessive means. Wesley Hottot is the lawyer on the Timbs case. He's with the libertarian-leaning Institute for Justice. He says Timbs could take this case all the way to the Supreme Court only because the institute was willing to cover the cost - three-quarters of a million dollars is his guess.

WESLEY HOTTOT: It's hard for the law to develop in a way that favors property owners when the amount in controversy¹³ is going to be so much less than what it costs to litigate.

KASTE: Instead of waiting for the courts, he wants lawmakers to step in. And some of them are. In the Minnesota legislature this year, Representative John Lesch says the Timbs ruling has lent moral support to a bill limiting forfeiture, though he says some lawmakers in both parties are still hesitant to cross law enforcement.

JOHN LESCH: I got an email from a Democratic senator forwarded to me just the other day. And then it was copied by his local sheriff. He said, if my local sheriff is against this, there's no way this bill is getting my vote.

KASTE: Law enforcement says it needs civil asset forfeiture, especially to confiscate¹⁴ drug money when the traffickers can't be found and prosecuted¹⁵. Dakota County Sheriff Tim Leslie says the bill in the Minnesota legislature would make it harder for him to disrupt the growing meth networks in his region. But he also acknowledges the political importance of high-profile cases such as Timbs.

TIM LESLIE: Those outrageous¹⁶ examples, we have to face those. But we just don't want the pendulum¹⁷ to swing too far. We want to still have some tools for the outrageous things that we see.

KASTE: As to Tyson Timbs, whether he ever gets his truck back is still undecided. The Supreme Court left that decision to the courts in Indiana.

Martin Kaste, NPR News.

1 forfeiture   

n.（名誉等）丧失

参考例句：

• Both face maximum forfeitures of about $1.2 million.双方都面临最高120万美元左右的罚金。
• If he should break his day,what should I gain by the exaction of the forfeiture?如果他到期不还我从这罚金中又能得到什么好处？

2 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 heroin   

n.海洛因

参考例句：

• Customs have made their biggest ever seizure of heroin.海关查获了有史以来最大的一批海洛因。
• Heroin has been smuggled out by sea.海洛因已从海上偷运出境。

6 detention   

n.滞留，停留；拘留，扣留；(教育)留下

参考例句：

• He was kept in detention by the police.他被警察扣留了。
• He was in detention in connection with the bribery affair.他因与贿赂事件有牵连而被拘留了。

7 probation   

n.缓刑(期)，(以观后效的)察看；试用(期)

参考例句：

• The judge did not jail the young man,but put him on probation for a year.法官没有把那个年轻人关进监狱，而且将他缓刑察看一年。
• His salary was raised by 800 yuan after his probation.试用期满以后，他的工资增加了800元。

8 whack   

v.敲击，重打，瓜分；n.重击，重打，尝试，一份

参考例句：

• After years of dieting,Carol's metabolism was completely out of whack.经过数年的节食，卡罗尔的新陈代谢完全紊乱了。
• He gave me a whack on the back to wake me up.他为把我弄醒，在我背上猛拍一下。

9 forfeitures   

n.（财产等的）没收，（权利、名誉等的）丧失( forfeiture的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Both face maximum forfeitures of about $1.2 million. 双方都面临最高120万美元左右的罚金。 来自辞典例句
• These statutes often make the contracts void andthe parties involved to various penalties and forfeitures. 这些法规通常导致合同无效，并且给予涉案当事人各种处罚或者没收财物。 来自互联网

10 seizure   

n.没收；占有；抵押

参考例句：

• The seizure of contraband is made by customs.那些走私品是被海关没收的。
• The courts ordered the seizure of all her property.法院下令查封她所有的财产。

11 prosecutor   

n.起诉人；检察官，公诉人

参考例句：

• The defender argued down the prosecutor at the court.辩护人在法庭上驳倒了起诉人。
• The prosecutor would tear your testimony to pieces.检查官会把你的证言驳得体无完肤。

12 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

13 controversy   

n.争论，辩论，争吵

参考例句：

• That is a fact beyond controversy.那是一个无可争论的事实。
• We ran the risk of becoming the butt of every controversy.我们要冒使自己在所有的纷争中都成为众矢之的的风险。

14 confiscate   

v.没收(私人财产)，把…充公

参考例句：

• The police have the right to confiscate any forbidden objects they find.如发现违禁货物，警方有权查扣。
• Did the teacher confiscate your toy?老师没收你的玩具了吗？

15 prosecuted   

a.被起诉的

参考例句：

• The editors are being prosecuted for obscenity. 编辑因刊载污秽文字而被起诉。
• The company was prosecuted for breaching the Health and Safety Act. 这家公司被控违反《卫生安全条例》。

16 outrageous   

adj.无理的，令人不能容忍的

参考例句：

• Her outrageous behaviour at the party offended everyone.她在聚会上的无礼行为触怒了每一个人。
• Charges for local telephone calls are particularly outrageous.本地电话资费贵得出奇。

17 pendulum   

n.摆，钟摆

参考例句：

• The pendulum swung slowly to and fro.钟摆在慢慢地来回摆动。
• He accidentally found that the desk clock did not swing its pendulum.他无意中发现座钟不摇摆了。