Minnesota’s property forfeiture laws – which allowed law enforcement to confiscate property they believed was involved in crimes even before anyone was convicted – started out under the Carlson Administration – during America’s last major round of drug hysteria, in the early-mid ’90s, when the national murder rate spiked over the crack trade and Minnesota was reeling from the early-decade carnage in Minneapolis where, driven by gangs, the murder rate briefly spiked to some fairly astronomical levels.
If the police grab your property – car, house, whatever – you have to file suit to get it back, proving that your property didn’t in fact commit a crime or some such other legalistic buncombe.
And for all of Jesse Ventura’s libertarian palaver, his administration never addressed the issue. And if anyone pulled Jesse Ventura’s strings, it was Dean Barkley, moderate-DFLer turned “Independence Party” guru and Jesse Ventura’s main advisor and for two months, US Senator after Paul Wellstone died (and Ventura passive-aggressively refused to appoint election winner Norm Coleman to fill the period between the election and the swearing-in).
So maybe events have conspired to create another small-l libertarian?
Barkley’s ordeal started in April, he told me. He had lent the vehicle for a day to a relative to haul some tires. That relative was driving the GMC SUV when he got pulled over on Interstate 394, and Golden Valley police charged him with DWI and drug possession. They also seized the vehicle.
When Barkley went down to police headquarters, he was informed that they intended to keep the vehicle permanently under forfeiture laws. Barkley, who’s an attorney, was appalled.
Barkley has one distinct advantage: lawyer friends who will take his case on pro bono. Normally, it would cost about $5,000 to hire a lawyer to fight a forfeiture, making it pointless to do so if your property is worth less than that.
One of his attorneys, Philip Villaume, said the Golden Valley police have not violated any policies by refusing to give up the car so far, but he said he expects that as an innocent owner, Barkley will win it back in court – eventually. How long will that take? About three months, he said.
What’s the old saying? “A Republican is a Democrat that’s been mugged; a Libertarian is a Republican who’s been audited”?
Barkley said he did not think much about forfeiture law in his political days, but he’s thinking about it now. “It goes against every constitutional concept that I studied in law school. If somebody is guilty of something, fine. This way they presume you’re guilty… I think it’s screwy. I think it’s completely backwards.”
Yes, it certainly is.
Barkley just joined the same club as the late Sen. McGovern and former US House Rep. David Bonoir. All three have learned that all those rules and regulations they supported or helped pass (and exempted themselves from) as public officials to ‘help the people’ often have the effect of, in Barkley’s case, violating due process rights.
In McGoverns’ and Bonoirs’ case, their political lives were spent enhancing the power of government ‘to do good’, only to learn as private citizens that all the ‘do-gooder’ legislation they supported serves to strangle innovation and entrepreneurial ambition. (http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140501/POLITICS02/305010047 – 3rd item)
If the Republicans are looking for an item for “Contract With America 2” coming this fall, perhaps they should consider adding a requirement that government and Congress/Legislatures can not exempted from the laws they pass. If this were in effect, minimum wage laws would not exist.
Evidently the coppers are relying on the fact that they jacked Barkley’s rig before the law was changed. They know it’s wrong, but they’re gonna hold on to the loot anyway.
Said it before, I’ll say it again; Most, but not all cops are corrupt, but all cops know cops that are corrupt, and their refusal to stand up for what is right makes them just as guilty.
Mr. Barkley’s situation seems rather odd.
Minnesota state statute 169A (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/?id=169A.63) clearly prohibits the forfeiture of a motor vehicle belonging to someone other than the charged driver, as long as it can be established that the actual owner did not loan the car, knowing that the driver would use the it to engage in illegal activity (drunk driving, DL violations, drugs, etc.). Such prior knowledge is very hard to prove.
Consequently, establishing this should have been disposed-of by the time a talented attorney such as Mr. Villaume took his second sip of morning coffee. Particularly when it involved a well-respected public person such as Mr. Barkley.
While I’m certainly not suggesting that Barkley conspired to distribute drugs with his drunken relative, or happily handed over the keys to his falling-down drunk neighbor, there seems to be more to this situation than what’s told here, at least from a procedural perspective. Those who believe that all cops are thieves should realize that even thieves know an easy target from a no-win proposition.
It is my understanding however, that the suspect’s robes have yet to be retrieved from the cops who cast lots for them at the arrest scene …