Are you familiar with U.S. court case “United States of America v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins”?
John Oliver laid into the questionable law enforcement practice of civil asset forfeiture Sunday night, mocking the outlandish court cases that arise from it, and the dubious police motives it gives rise to.
Police are permitted to seize goods without ever charging the owner of a crime, as long as “the preponderance of the evidence” suggests they are justified in seizing it. Legally, they are taking action against the person’s property, and not the individual—hence court cases like “United States v. Article Consisting of 50,000 Cardboard Boxes More or Less, Each Containing One Pair of Clacker Balls.”
Since police are often permitted to keep most or all of what they seize, Oliver played tapes of police asking, during routine traffic stops, whether the driver has any large amounts of cash in their vehicle.
“I’ll take whatever cash you got in there, and is that a Slurpee in the cup holder? What flavor?” Oliver joked.
One linguistically-challenged cop even tried to pry a bewildered Spanish speaker, asking, to Oliver’s delight: “Tenny mucho mucho deniro in su trucky-trailer?”
Watch the clip below:
