{"id":44815,"date":"2014-08-28T08:46:23","date_gmt":"2014-08-28T15:46:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/?p=44815"},"modified":"2014-08-28T08:46:23","modified_gmt":"2014-08-28T15:46:23","slug":"philadelphia-earns-millions-by-seizing-cash-and-homes-from-people-never-charged-with-a-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/?p=44815","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia Earns Millions By Seizing Cash And Homes From People Never Charged With A Crime"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Via: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/instituteforjustice\/2014\/08\/26\/philadelphia-civil-forfeiture-class-action-lawsuit\/\">Forbes<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><em>Chris Sourovelis has never had any trouble with the law or been accused of any crime. But that hasn\u2019t stopped the City of Philadelphia from trying to take his home.<\/p>\n<p>The Sourouvelis family, along with thousands of others in Philadelphia, is living a Kafkaesque nightmare: Their property is considered guilty; they must prove their innocence and the very prosecutors they\u2019re fighting can profit from their misery. Now the Institute for Justice has filed a major class-action lawsuit to end these abuses of power.<\/p>\n<p>Back in March, Chris\u2019s son was caught selling $40 worth of drugs outside of the home. With no previous arrests or a prior record, a court ordered him to attend rehab. But the very day Sourovelis was driving his son to begin treatment, he got a frantic call from his wife. Without any prior notice, police evicted the Sourovelises and seized the house, using a little-known law known as \u201ccivil forfeiture.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Law enforcement barred the family from living in their own home for over a week. The family could only return home if they banned their son from visiting and relinquished some of their constitutional rights. Adding to the cruel irony, their son has already completed rehab, ending his punishment by the city. \u201cIf this can happen to me and my family, it can happen to anybody,\u201d Sourovelis said.<\/p>\n<p>Under civil forfeiture, property owners do not have to be convicted of a crime, or even charged with one, to permanently lose their property. Instead, the government can forfeit a property if it\u2019s found to \u201cfacilitate\u201d a crime, no matter how tenuous the connection. So rather than sue the owner, in civil forfeiture proceedings, the government sues the property itself, leading to surreal case names like Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. The Real Property and Improvements Known as 2544 N. Colorado St.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, thanks to civil forfeiture, the government punishes innocent people for the crimes other people might have committed.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Research Credit: ottilie<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Via: Forbes: Chris Sourovelis has never had any trouble with the law or been accused of any crime. But that hasn\u2019t stopped the City of Philadelphia from trying to take his home. The Sourouvelis family, along with thousands of others in Philadelphia, is living a Kafkaesque nightmare: Their property is considered guilty; they must prove [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,22,8,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collapse","category-dictatorship","category-economy","category-police-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44815"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44816,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44815\/revisions\/44816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}