Dear Editor,
Normally when I put fingers to keyboard to write something like this it is easy for me. The issue is usually so clear and undeniably obvious that the words flow almost as if by magic. The dump burns for years and everybody says it’s impossible to stop. Then, one day, a judge says, “Stop it or I’ll fine you a zillion dollars a day.” Suddenly, overnight , the impossible problem is solved and the dump doesn’t burn anymore. One can only ask why that solution wasn’t so obvious for the last two years. Obvious question. Obvious letter to the editor pointing out the manifest incompetence and abject stupidity of those in charge. It writes itself.
Not so this time. This is so serious that it makes my stomach hurt to even talk about it and the situation so manifestly evil that it defies imagination that any civilized government can allow it to happen. Yet here we are.
Acknowledging beforehand that I have no access to anything factual concerning the case, this newspaper reports that a certain boat has been seized by the relevant Asset Seizure Team relevant to a certain ongoing criminal investigation. On the face of it, it would be hard to say there is anything wrong with the concept of grabbing the assets of those individuals that have been convicted of a crime and have derived those assets through ill-gotten gains. But that’s not what is apparently happening.
The notion of innocent until proven guilty or the notion of due process is out the window. Is the accused guilty of anything? Who knows? There has been no trial and no conviction nor course of appeals that I am aware of. Just a host of accusations.
Beyond that, now comes a second individual with what he claims is irrefutable evidence that the asset in question is not even the property of the accused. Well, that must be easy to resolve, you might think. All that needs to happen is that there is a court hearing and expert witnesses are called to forensically examine and then testify as to the veracity of the affidavits and the provenance of the documents.
But wait. There is no such court case. There is, apparently, a SECRET hearing during which no defense can be offered. A single judge, IN SECRET hears the case put forth by the prosecution and says, “He’s guilty because I say so,” and no written verdict is issued.
For those of you too young to remember, there was another country like that some years ago. It was called Nazi Germany. It was there that legitimate government and the rule of law were simply abandoned and the notion of an honest and transparent law enforcement and judiciary gave way to one of simple thievery, thuggery and deception. If the government wanted your assets, they just took them and had no explanations or justifications to make to anyone. The trials were secret and were usually held after the fact and were a foregone conclusion because there were few brave enough or even alive to protest.
What is happening here now, IF it is happening as reported, is both remarkably similar and a travesty of human rights by any imaginable standard.
I wrote this all before once in this space when this whole asset seizure thing was put forth. I made the case then that due process where the accused has the God-given right to face his accuser in a public court where a legitimate and compelling case must be made BEFORE any seizure takes place is the basic prerequisite of ANY citizen of a civilized society. I say that again and I stand by that statement and I am appalled that the legal community here has not arisen en mass to haul government before the World Court of Human Rights and set this right.
That’s what happened in Nazi Germany as well. The only people that could do something were too cowardly to act. You would have thought that that particular history lesson would have been well learned by now. Wrong again.
The irony here is that I am a hard-core, right-wing, law-and-order Republican, yet here I am writing like some left-wing, liberal, California Democrat.
The thing is that fundamental Right and Wrong are concepts that need to transcend political expedience. This Asset Seizure scheme, the way it is organized now, is so comprehensively wrong that I am staggered that individuals in the Prosecutor’s Office that have genuine degrees in the Law and are smart and competent professionals would allow themselves to be shamed by allowing this system to exist in its current guise.
If this guy is guilty as you say, and if he has these assets derived from criminal activities, then go to court in public, let the cases be heard and all the witnesses be presented and meet some genuine and objective standard of proof. That’s your job.
You don’t do it alone in front of a friendly judge that you have in your pocket. You also don’t just grab someone’s property and then say, “Better hurry up and prove something before we sell it off to fund some politicians’ cell phones and junkets.”
I implore you. Fix this now. Be honest and be fair. That’s all anyone asks and all anyone deserves. Be as tough as you want, but do it in public with the complete due process that a civilized society demands. Because the way it is right now, you are no better and possibly worse than the criminals that you purport to protect us from. All you are missing are the black hoods and jackboots.
Steven Johnson
