<story><title>U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/us/politics/civil-asset-forfeiture-supreme-court.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>colmmacc</author><text>As a permanent resident who lives in the US, the idea that basic protections of law should only apply to citizens is terrifying. It&amp;#x27;s not the same outcome at all. Due process is afforded to &amp;quot;persons&amp;quot;.</text></item><item><author>ls612</author><text>That’s not quite right. The Bill of Rights originally only applied to the federal government, until after the civil war when the 14th amendment was passed. Since then the clause in that amendment saying no one can be deprived of life or liberty without due process has been interpreted to mean most of the bill of rights also applies to the states. This ruling said as much for the 8th amendment prohibitions on excessive fines.&lt;p&gt;Thomas just wanted to use a different clause of the 14th amendment to achieve the same outcome.</text></item><item><author>whatshisface</author><text>&amp;gt;&lt;i&gt;Justice Thomas agreed with the result in the case, Timbs v. Indiana, No. 17-1091, but said he would have gotten to the same place by a different route. While the majority relied on the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, Justice Thomas said he would have ruled “the right to be free from excessive fines is one of the ‘privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States’ protected by the 14th Amendment.”&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I was going to comment that the real biggest legal problem with civil forfeiture is how it circumvents due process, but it sounds like that was the actual ruling given by the supreme court. I think the title of the article disagrees with the last paragraph. It was actually Justice Thomas who wanted to rule that it constituted excessive punishment, while the rest of the court ruled that it constituted a breach of due process.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>GeekyBear</author><text>Quite recently, we have had two Presidents claim that non-citizens had no right to challenge their imprisonment by the United States (Bush in Gitmo and Obama on Bagram AFB in the Middle East) who ran smack into a Supreme Court that found their actions unconstitutional.&lt;p&gt;The notion that Constitutional protections cannot apply to non-citizens is simply not true, even when applied to non-citizens being held by the US off of US soil.</text></comment>
<story><title>U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/us/politics/civil-asset-forfeiture-supreme-court.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>colmmacc</author><text>As a permanent resident who lives in the US, the idea that basic protections of law should only apply to citizens is terrifying. It&amp;#x27;s not the same outcome at all. Due process is afforded to &amp;quot;persons&amp;quot;.</text></item><item><author>ls612</author><text>That’s not quite right. The Bill of Rights originally only applied to the federal government, until after the civil war when the 14th amendment was passed. Since then the clause in that amendment saying no one can be deprived of life or liberty without due process has been interpreted to mean most of the bill of rights also applies to the states. This ruling said as much for the 8th amendment prohibitions on excessive fines.&lt;p&gt;Thomas just wanted to use a different clause of the 14th amendment to achieve the same outcome.</text></item><item><author>whatshisface</author><text>&amp;gt;&lt;i&gt;Justice Thomas agreed with the result in the case, Timbs v. Indiana, No. 17-1091, but said he would have gotten to the same place by a different route. While the majority relied on the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, Justice Thomas said he would have ruled “the right to be free from excessive fines is one of the ‘privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States’ protected by the 14th Amendment.”&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I was going to comment that the real biggest legal problem with civil forfeiture is how it circumvents due process, but it sounds like that was the actual ruling given by the supreme court. I think the title of the article disagrees with the last paragraph. It was actually Justice Thomas who wanted to rule that it constituted excessive punishment, while the rest of the court ruled that it constituted a breach of due process.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>eco</author><text>The 14th Amendment&amp;#x27;s Equal Protection Clause (&amp;quot;nor shall any State [...] deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws&amp;quot;) means aliens are afforded the same protections as citizens.</text></comment>