I think one key issue here is that no justice has happened yet. We cannot be sure whether it was a miscarriage of justice to take the funds until a court hears the case. Maybe it's a miscarriage to return them?
It makes sense they are returned because at this point it should be a default win for the plantiff. But 17% are being kept (unjust) and no one has actually HAD their day in court either (so there is no innocent/guilty party here). Default wins are still wins but they tell us nothing.
I think all of this could be solved by NOT taking 2 years (and counting) to file charges.
> We cannot be sure whether it was a miscarriage of justice to take the funds until a court hears the case.
So it's OK to impose a sentence presumptively, so long as the prosecution will ultimately prevail? Putting aside the practical difficulties in implementing such a policy, it is just about diametrically opposite to the usual concept of due process.
> I think all of this could be solved by NOT taking 2 years (and counting) to file charges.
Response to the manifest injustice of kangaroo courts is largely responsible for that. Civil forfeiture is a sort of back-door kangaroo court, IMHO (or not even that, as there seems to be not even the appearance of due process.)
This isn't about a sentence. It's about who get's to hold the money until we decide who it actually belongs to. There are downsides whatever we decide...
Civil forfeiture clearly has a punitive effect, and is therefore a de facto sentence, prior to conviction and regardless of whether a conviction is ultimately secured. In this case, "while the government can give us our money back, they can’t give us back the life we had before Amazon’s accusations. We had to leave a city and community we loved, sell our home, leave our daughters’ schools – and move away from the place where I built The Riveter, created 100 jobs, and worked with women starting businesses." For families on the edge of poverty, the consequences can be more devastating still.
Just saying "there are downsides whatever we decide" does not even begin to make a case for civil forfeiture - you would need to expand that ellipsis into an actual argument.
So hold on, you and a police office come to your house and find someone inside stealing your TV and some cash. Does the thief get to keep the TV until he is tried? Can he keep and spend the cash since he's still technically innocent?
That's the problem with just taking the extreme "nothing punitive until there's a guilty verdict" approach.
The least bad answer is somewhere in between.
Personally I think 2 years is too long to wait. But that doesn't mean the right amount of time is zero...
Ah, so in your example, the least bad solution is that the thief should be allowed to keep the stolen TV and cash for a certain amount of time - but for how long? And how long should I be allowed to take your TV simply by alleging you stole it from me? Once again, your reply peters out in ellipsis just when it gets to the tricky part.
This is moot, however, being caught in the act is not a valid analogy for the situation we are discussing here, or generally for civil forfeiture as it is practiced in many parts of the US today. You started this thread saying you were very confused about what's going on here, and introducing hypothetical scenarios that do not resemble it is not going to help.
It makes sense they are returned because at this point it should be a default win for the plantiff. But 17% are being kept (unjust) and no one has actually HAD their day in court either (so there is no innocent/guilty party here). Default wins are still wins but they tell us nothing.
I think all of this could be solved by NOT taking 2 years (and counting) to file charges.
C'est la vie.