[rdtsc]

> Their argument dealt only with the Sixth Amendment — that while the government can seize untainted assets before trial, it must allow a defendant access to enough of his untainted assets to pay for his own defense.

However, in this case it seems to me the defendant is guilty of defrauding the govt. to the tune of $40M. The possible outcome of the trial would be forcing them to pay back + penalties perhaps. Had this been a trial about something else (murder for ex.) govt might not have fought much to freeze the assets.

EDIT: The problem is of course with the word assets. Are we talking about physical assets? Probalby not. Otherwise say they stole 5 apples from the govt and they also happen to have 10 bananas of their own. Govt comes and take away the apples and bananas. So one can say ok these apples are stolen, only get those back, but should not take the bananas. Now imagine the assets is money (as it probably is in this case). Can a thief steal a bag with $100 bills, change them all to $20 bills and then tell teh govt, don't take my $20 bills, these are not the assets I stole. I only stole $100 bills but those are gone now. It doesn't work that way of course.

[zanny]

Innocent until proven guilty must apply. And it is preposterous to tell a presumed innocent they cannot use their money to defend themselves in court.

If they spend that money and then lose, they are still responsible for the reimbursement. If its not money they will ever make in their lifetime, you can just garnish their income forever. It is magnitudes less injust for those whose money was stolen to never get the full amount back (as long as the responsible is compelled to give all their excess in compensation) than possibly finding the innocent guilty because they could not defend themselves.

But this is symptomatic of the fundamental issue in criminal justice that you need significant wealth to defend yourself. That in and of itself is the greatest injustice here, but making it harder on citizens to defend themselves cannot be the answer.

[tikhonj]

That's not the question here—those $20 bills would still be "tainted". Moreover, the bar to demonstrate that they are tainted is reasonably low, significantly easier than getting a conviction. In this case, though, the persecution agrees that the assets are unrelated. As far as the courts are concerned, that's an established fact.

It's more like if you steal some apples, perhaps eat some of them and then the government freezes your bananas which you got through completely legitimate means unrelated to your (alleged) crime.

[rdtsc]

In the larger scope they are related if they can be converted back to cash. I imagine if assets are family photos or other maybe important items which have no value. But if they have monetary value I can see govt's position in freezing access to them.

[roel_v]

"EDIT: The problem is of course with the word assets. Are we talking about physical assets? Probalby not."

We probably are, otherwise after defrauding Medicare the first thing you should do is buy houses to 'park' your money.