<story><title>Holder limits seized-asset sharing process that split billions with police</title><url>http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/holder-ends-seized-asset-sharing-process-that-split-billions-with-local-state-police/2015/01/16/0e7ca058-99d4-11e4-bcfb-059ec7a93ddc_story.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ingler</author><text>&amp;gt; &amp;quot;Forfeiture has its basis in British admiralty law&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;British admiralty law is the bane of the American legal system:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Next to revenue (taxes) itself, the late extensions of the jurisdiction of the admiralty are our greatest grievance. The American Courts of Admiralty seem to be forming by degrees into a system that is to overturn our Constitution and to deprive us of our best inheritance, the laws of the land. It would be thought in England a dangerous innovation if the trial, of any matter on land was given to the admiralty.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;-- Jackson v. Magnolia, 20 How. 296 315, 342 (U.S. 1852)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>apsec112</author><text>This quote is not originally from 1852; it&amp;#x27;s from Boston in 1769, where the colonists were complaining about the abuses of George III. It has nothing to do with the modern American legal system; the US does not have separate admiralty courts and all maritime cases fall under the jurisdiction of federal district courts.</text></comment>
<story><title>Holder limits seized-asset sharing process that split billions with police</title><url>http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/holder-ends-seized-asset-sharing-process-that-split-billions-with-local-state-police/2015/01/16/0e7ca058-99d4-11e4-bcfb-059ec7a93ddc_story.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ingler</author><text>&amp;gt; &amp;quot;Forfeiture has its basis in British admiralty law&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;British admiralty law is the bane of the American legal system:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Next to revenue (taxes) itself, the late extensions of the jurisdiction of the admiralty are our greatest grievance. The American Courts of Admiralty seem to be forming by degrees into a system that is to overturn our Constitution and to deprive us of our best inheritance, the laws of the land. It would be thought in England a dangerous innovation if the trial, of any matter on land was given to the admiralty.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;-- Jackson v. Magnolia, 20 How. 296 315, 342 (U.S. 1852)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>vinceguidry</author><text>&amp;gt; to deprive us of our best inheritance, the laws of the land&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Laws of the land&amp;quot; refers to English Common Law, and if that&amp;#x27;s what the battle was to save, it&amp;#x27;s already lost. We&amp;#x27;ve already wrecked our own common law system pretty thoroughly with the proliferation of bodies of civil law. Legislators can&amp;#x27;t leave our court systems well-enough alone.</text></comment>