Abuse of Jurisdiction - Prejudicial Application of the Civil Process

If you think child abuse and child neglect are crimes, you're right. They are. If you think victims and witnesses, particularly child victims of abuse, are afforded substantial rights and protections in the criminal process, you're right. They are. If you think people accused of crimes have rights such as the presumption of innocence, the right to a speedy trial, the right to pay no fee to defend their rights, and the right to a jury trial, you're right. They do. If you think the civil process should not be applied prejudicially to deprive those rights, the Supreme Court seems to agree...

U.S. Supreme Court BOYD v. U S, 116 U.S. 616 (1886) "If the government prosecutor elects to waive an indictment, and to file a civil information against the claimants,-that is, civil in form,-can he by this device take from the proceeding its criminal aspect and deprive the claimants of their immunities as citizens, and extort from them a production of their private papers, or, as an alternative, a confession of guilt? This cannot be. The information, though technically a civil proceeding, is in substance and effect a criminal one." "in a case like the present, he is entitled to all the privileges which appertain to a person who is prosecuted for a forfeiture of his property by reason of committing a criminal offense." "I am of opinion that this is a criminal case within the meaning of that clause of the fifth amendment to the contitution of the United States which declares that no person 'shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." "As showing the close relation between the civil and criminal proceedings on the same statute in such cases we may refer to the recent case of Coffey v. U. S., 116 U. S., S. C. ante, 432, in which we decided that an acquittal on a criminal information was a good plea in bar to a civil information for the forfeiture of goods, arising upon the same acts. As, therefore, suits for penalties and forfeitures, incurred by the commission of offenses against the law, are of this quasi criminal nature, we think that they are within the reason of criminal proceedings for all the purposes of the fourth amendment of the constitution,.." "Though the proceeding in question is divested of many of the aggravating incidents of actual search and seizure, yet, as before said, it contains their substance and essence, and effects their substantial purpose. It may be that it is the obnoxious thing in its mildest and least repulsive form; but illegitimate and unconstitutional practices get their first footing in that way, namely, by silent approaches and slight deviations from legal modes of procedure. This can only be obviated by adhering to the rule that constitutional provisions for the security of person and property should be liberally construed. A close and literal construction deprives them of half their efficacy, and leads to gradual depreciation of the right, as if it consisted more in sound than in substance. It is the duty of courts to be watchful for the constitutional rights of the citizen, and against any stealthy encroachments thereon. Their motto should be obsta principiis. We have no doubt that the legislative body is actuated by the same motives; but the vast accumulation of public business brought before it sometimes prevents it, on a first presentation, from noticing objections which become developed by time and the practical application of the objectionable law." "And any compulsory discovery by extorting the party's oath, or compelling the production of his [116 U.S. 616, 632] private books and papers, to convict him of crime, or to forfeit his property, is contrary to the principles of a free government. It is abhorrent to the instincts of an Englishman; it is abhorrent to the instincts of an American. It may suit the purposes of despotic power, but it cannot abide the pure atmosphere of political liberty and personal freedom." "This act abrogated and repealed the most objectionable part of the act of 1867, (which was then in force,) and deprived the government officers of the convenient method afforded by it for getting evidence in suits of forfeiture; and this is probably the reason why the fifth section of the act of 1874 was afterwards passed." "we have to deal with an act which expressly excludes criminal proceedings from its operation, (though embracing civil suits for penalties and forfeitures,) and with an information not technically a criminal proceeding, and neither, therefore, within the literal terms of the fifth amendment to the constitution any more than it is within the literal terms of the fourth. Does this relieve the proceedings or the law from being obnoxious to the prohibitions of either? We think not; we think they are within the spirit of both."