Now what makes people, especially SCOTUS, think a State would give back something they once thought was theirs – PB/TK
SCOTUS Says States Have No Right to Money Taken Based on Overturned Convictions – by Jacob Sullum|
This week the Supreme Court ruled that Colorado has no right to keep fines, fees, court costs, and restitution it extracts from criminal defendants whose convictions are later reversed. By forcing people to prove their innocence before they can get back property that is rightly theirs, the Court said, Colorado has been violating the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of due process. The Institute for Justice, which filed a brief in the case emphasizing that the presumption of innocence is an essential aspect of due process, makes a compelling argument that civil asset forfeiture routinely violates that principle.
The Court’s decision in Nelson v. Colorado, which was joined by seven justices (Clarence Thomas dissented, and Neil Gorsuch joined the Court too recently to participate), came in response to challenges by Shannon Nelson and Louis Madden, who tried to get back money the state took from them based on convictions that were overturned. Nelson, who in 2006 was convicted of two felonies and three misdemeanors based on allegations that she had abused her four children, was sentenced to 20 years in prison and ordered to pay $8,193 in court costs, fees, and restitution, $702 of which was taken from her inmate account before she won a new trial and was acquitted. Madden, who in 2005 was convicted of two felonies based on allegations that he had patronized an underaged prostitute, received an indeterminate prison sentence and was ordered to pay $4,413 in costs, fees, and restitution, $1,978 of which was collected before his convictions were reversed on appeal and the state decided not to prosecute him again.
Continue to reason.com article: http://reason.com/blog/2017/04/21/scotus-says-states-have-no-right-to-mone
