My, What a Shiny Smile You Have

I've never been a big fan of asset forfeiture laws, because I think they've often been misused as a funding device for law enforcement, rather than a punishment to the lawbreaker. Take for instance the laws in some cities which allow the seizing of a suspect's car because he was caught in a prostitution sting. I agree with the city's disgust with prostitution and their desire to stop it, but taking and selling suspect's cars doesn't seem like a punishment that fits the crime, and opens the door to all kinds of abuse by law cash-strapped law enforcement.

Here's another case of asset forfeiture gone amok:

Talk about taking a bite out of crime.

Government lawyers tried to confiscate the gold tooth caps known as "grills" from the mouths of two men facing drug charges, saying the dental work qualified as seizable assets. They had them in a vehicle headed to a dental clinic by the time defense attorneys persuaded a judge to halt the procedure.

"I've been doing this for over 30 years and I have never heard of anything like this," said Richard J. Troberman, a past president of the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "It sounds like Nazi Germany when they were removing the gold teeth from the bodies, but at least then they waited until they were dead."

Prosecutors had a warrant to seize the gold dental work, according to documents and lawyers involved in the case. But they eventually abandoned the effort, saying they mistakenly thought the grills were removable.

I don't agree with the Nazi analogy, since everytime you compare something to the Nazis you weaken your own argument, but certainly somebody got a little over zealous on this one, and I'm glad a judge put a stop to it.