Attainder is the extinction of civil and political rights following conviction of a felony or treason. The important consequences of attainder are forfeiture and corruption of blood. England abolished corruption of blood in 1834 and forfeiture for felony or treason in 1870. Ignorance of History is how Liberty is lost.

The Georgia Legislature passed 117 bills of attainder on March 1, 1778, at the suggestion of the Continental Congress and confiscated the property of political opponents. The acts of 1782 and 1783 increased the list to 281. The other States also passed bills of attainder but none were as voracious as Georgia.

Bishop Stevens noted that: many were unjustly condemned, that many were condemned without the privilege of a hearing, that many were enrolled among the attainted because they resided within certain limits.

The driving force behind these confiscations was not so much punishment for any crimes committed but the need to raise revenue to pay for the Revolutionary War. After the feeding frenzy subsided the framers of the Constitution were careful to include Sections Nine and Ten of Article One in the Constitution to avoid being hoist on their own petard when the political winds shifted again.

The notion of punishment as a business is not new. Both the Witch Trials and the Spanish Inquisition were driven by the profit motive and as a way around civil rights, established by franchise or custom, which the authorities found inconvenient The chief purpose of the Inquisition was to achieve secular aims where the ordinary courts were difficult to move and where the laws and customs were used to place obstacles in the path of government prosecutors.

Confiscation was imposed on the condemned, their heirs and on persons who had purchased the property of a condemned person. The proceeds of confiscation were used to defray the expenses of the Inquisition. Local civil and ecclesiastical authorities were richly rewarded to soothe their consciences. According to canon law a person could be subjected to torture only once but this obstacle was easily overcome by recording subsequent tortures as continuations.

Witnesses for the defense were rare as they were generally added to the list to be tortured simply for defending a person under suspicion. I believe one of our U.S. Attorney Generals recently said that an innocent suspect was a contradiction in terms as an innocent person would not be under suspicion.

The profit motive in the Witch Trials became so outrageous that the Archbishop of Cologne found it necessary to publish an Official Tariff for Torture in 1757 to prevent unsubstantiated and exaggerated claims for extra expenses for services. The Tariff enumerated fifty-five services to be performed for and charged to the victim.

Flogging was a real bargain but there is no information on the proper procedure in the event one enjoyed flagellation. The United States is in the curious quandary of currently trying to legalize public flogging while simultaneously outlawing public flagellation.

Councilor Philip Beck was fined for contempt in 1629 when he disputed the costs incurred in trying and burning his wife as a witch. Even the acquitted were not released until they had paid the bill for their trial and incarceration. One victim, Tituba, acquitted at Salem in 1693 was sold as a slave to recover the costs of her trial.

The noxious weed which Congress has planted in the foul cesspool of the Interstate Commerce Clause is a frost proof cross between the least desirable qualities of the Pottsylvania Creeper and Kudzu. Congress has gone the Bill of Attainder concept one better. They no longer require a felony conviction prior to confiscation.

The court in United States v. Cappetto ruled that RICO's civil penalties were not punitive or designed to get around The Constitutional Problemof due process. However, Deputy Attorney General Kleindienst stated that RICO enabled the government to: intervene in many situations which are not susceptible to proof of a criminal violation.

In other words the government does not like what you may be doing and can not prove that it is illegal but they have the right to confiscate your property under RICO. There is no right to legal council for a RICO defendant and the government can freeze your assets prior to trial and thereby deprive you of the means to obtain defense council. The burden of proof on the government in a RICO trial is very slight. Preponderance of the evidence, mere suspicion, is sufficient to convict in a RICO case.

Both the congressional committees working on RICO and the Justice Department made it quite clear in 1970 that RICO was nothing more nor less than an end run around the constitution. The ruling in Cappetto effectively declared sections nine and ten of article one of the Constitution null and void.

When searching for the Rights of the People the Justices are fortunate if they can spot some Invisible Radiation or an Penumbrae or two but when the Congress produces some Creature from the Black Lagoon of the Interstate Commerce Clause the Justices embrace it like a long lost Brother.

The current rules which allow the police to stop Citizens on the street and seize property and money without Judicial proceedings is Tyranny. Rewarding the police by allowing them to retain their ill gotten loot is corrupting, interferes with crime prevention and puts pressure on the police to produce revenue.

Gary Bergman, an attorney with the state Prosecuting Attorney's Council, explained to Stephen Crawford, Athens Banner Herald March 8, 1993, that the property is deemed to have been tainted, for lack of a better word. Smell Familiar?

Sheriff Taylor of Anderson S.C. praises the confiscation laws, in the same article, for facilitating the bust of an alleged drug dealer. Taylor, who is working on a master's degree in criminal justice asserts that the gentleman was running a kilo of cocaine a month but was apparently not smart enough to catch him at it.

Keep in mind that the first person to enjoy the therapeutic benefits of the stocks at Salem was the carpenter that constructed them. The committee said his bill was criminal.

no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.