Most Americans would agree it's unfair, that it should even be illegal, to seize the assets of an accused person before the courts have made any determination of his guilt or innocence -- before he's even had a chance to present a defense in court.
Imagine the way "justice" would work, if such practices were widespread. Maybe you've made powerful enemies, with influence over local police or prosecutors. Perhaps such people want you to sell them a piece of real estate, and you've balked. Maybe you offended them with letters to the editor, or maybe they've just got it in for you because you've successfully competed against them in the business world.
Whatever the reason, suddenly you find yourself accused of a crime -- perhaps something really embarrassing but hard to disprove, like groping the neighbors' kids when they came over for that Halloween party, or loaning your financial backing to bookies or drug dealers.
It could even be something as paltry as moving funds between your own bank accounts -- violating some technical "financial reporting" requirement designed to catch tax cheats.
Incensed over being identified in the newspapers as an "accused criminal," you go to hire a good lawyer -- insisting you not only plan to launch an aggressive defense, but that you also intend to sue.
Guess what? Your ATM card doesn't work. Your bank accounts are frozen. You can't even sell your boat or house or car to fund a defense -- they've all been seized, as well. Before you've had any chance to answer the charges in court.
We'd all like to think that can't happen in America. But it does.
Police and prosecutors generally contend they need the peremptory power of "civil asset seizure" to grab the yachts and jewels and cash of highly-mobile drug czars, who might otherwise spirit all the proceeds of their nefarious enterprises off to Brazil or Barbados before more traditional criminal charges can wend their way through the courts.
But no one contends Las Vegas golf course developer Billy Walters is any kind of drug kingpin. And the "highly mobile" asset which police now say they need to seize from him before he has a chance to spirit it away offshore turns out to be ... the Desert Pines Golf Course.
Just in time! Why, Mr. Walters and his seedy associates could have been rolling up the turf and loading potted pine trees into their trucks this very morning, if special prosecutor Ulrich Smith hadn't stepped in in time!
Some sarcasm is intended, of course. What's really going on here is that local police and prosecutors keep trying to prove Mr. Walters and his associates have done something wrong by winning sports bets back east, and then "transporting" the proceeds back to Mr. Walters' Nevada bank accounts.
Since money from those same bank accounts reportedly helped finance the developer's successful east Las Vegas golf course ... presto! Mr. Smith and the prosecutors contend they can seize the property as though it had been built with ill-gotten felony proceeds.
Unfortunately, the prosecutors' track record on this one isn't exactly stellar: District Judge Donald Mosley already dismissed two related, earlier indictments. And the remaining counts of "conspiracy" and "unlawful transportation of a monetary instrument," against Mr. Walters and his computer operator appear to be pretty thin stuff.
But on top of that, Mr. Walters and several business associates had the nerve to file suit in May of 1997 for return of more than $600,000 in cash and property which authorities had seized during their criminal investigation. Can you imagine?
"That's what this thing has been about from day one. It's been about them wanting my money," Mr. Walters said Dec. 7, on hearing of the seizure attempt.
The chances of finding a Las Vegas jury to convict apparently upstanding and successful members of this community for "bookmaking," in a day and age when the local casino sports books are piling on the Christmas lights and advertising special late-night holiday hours at their drive-through betting windows, are not the kind on which I'd risk the Christmas money.
But if the prosecutors really believe they have a case, let them proceed to let justice take its course -- seeking fines or other penalties only (start ital)after(end ital) they've obtained a conviction ... against someone ... for something.
Instead, this attempted "asset seizure" merely serves as a textbook example of how such government intimidation and impoverishment tactics can be abused, and why they should be banned completely.
I hope the courts will quickly agree that there is no need for the authorities to seize the Desert Pines Golf Course. Because it ain't goin' nowhere.
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. His new book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at $24.95 postpaid from Mountain Media, P.O. Box 271122, Las Vegas, Nev. 89127; by dialing 1-800-244-2224; or via web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.
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Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com
"The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it." -- John Hay, 1872
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken
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