Brandishing a gun to stave off what he thought were criminal intruders, he was shot to death. In fact, Scott was passionately anti-drug. Civil forfeiture has allowed state and federal agencies to line their pockets with loot. Civil forfeiture needs to be seen for what it is, an end run around constitutional protections that begs for abuse. The notion that property can commit crimes is absurd.
Forfeiture can be a valuable weapon in sucking the profits out of a criminal enterprise.
But the fair way to seize these is through something already on the books called criminal forfeiture. This procedure requires a criminal conviction before seizing property, eliminating much of the injustice of civil forfeiture. True, this will eliminate those amusing case names like United States v. One Assortment of 89 Firearms. People who thumb through court reports in search of humor will just have to get their kicks some other way.