Same psycho freedom stealing prosecutor also had to grovel to the courts a few days ago that her office arrested the wrong guy in a high profile gang case because he kind of looked like who they were after. Innocent guy enjoyed almost a month in prison and legal bills<p><a href="http://reason.com/24-7/2013/01/30/carmen-ortiz-blew-a-gang-arrest-by-nabbi" rel="nofollow">http://reason.com/24-7/2013/01/30/carmen-ortiz-blew-a-gang-a...</a>
I thought that case sounded familiar, the WSJ had a very good article back in 2011 on it and asset forfeiture: <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204450804576623404141904000.html" rel="nofollow">http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020445080457662...</a><p>This story is more than one about a rogue prosecutor, "the government is overstepping its bounds in a practice that has swelled in the past decade to encompass some 400 federal statutes, covering crimes from drug trafficking to racketeering to halibut poaching."<p>If you don't read the article, take a look at this infographic: <a href="http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-BD015_FORFEI_G_20111017183008.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-BD015_FORFEI_G_...</a><p>In NY and CO, asset forfeitures have increased 1,000% since 2003. Think there might be a problem here?
I wouldn't have any problem with the government going after what is basically a drug den, but the article says "Law enforcement officials cited 15 incidents over a similar number of years"... That's one incident a year.<p>If I owned ANY hotel, particularly in a bad part of town, I'd be rather proud that the police only came out to visit once a year. That's simply a business where some things are out of your control.
So the lesson here is that if a federal prosecutor wants to take something, like your house or a $1,000,000 hotel you own free-and-clear, then even if their case is SO weak that they will go on to lose on nearly every point, it will still take you about $500,000 of legal bills to defend yourself, and that's BEFORE the appeals, plus some of his lawyers were free.
So I have an interesting proposal. Carmen Ortiz is the US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. We get all kinds of stories about her along this vein, but really she's the only US Attorney we're giving this much scrutiny for. I propose we randomly select three other US Attorneys and subject them to the same scrutiny, illustrating whether it's just that Carmen Ortiz is an awful human being, or whether it's the entire system that's broken.
Not if I should laugh or cry.<p>It's nice that government overreach is (potentially) punished.
On the other hand it's an embarrassment for the entire legal system that defending against such overreach costs upwards of $500k.
Institute for Justice (who represented the Motel Caswell) posted a wrap-up of the case. <a href="http://www.ij.org/massachusetts-civil-forfeiture-release-1-24-2013" rel="nofollow">http://www.ij.org/massachusetts-civil-forfeiture-release-1-2...</a>