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Mark Sherman, Associated Press Published 10:52 a.m. MT April 13, 2021

WASHINGTON Gerardo Serrano ticked off the border crossing agents by taking some photos on his phone. So they took his pickup truck and held onto it for more than two years.

Only after Serrano filed a federal lawsuit did he get back his Ford F-250. Now he wants the Supreme Court to step in and require a prompt court hearing as a matter of constitutional fairness whenever federal officials take someone's property under civil forfeiture law.

The justices could consider his case when they meet privately on Friday.

It's a corner of the larger forfeiture issue, when federal, state or local officials take someone's property, without ever having to prove that it has been used for illicit purposes.

This undated image provided by the Institute for Justice shows Gerardo Serrano outside the Supreme Court building in Washington. CBP agents seized Serrano's Ford F-250 and held it for more than two years.(Photo: APInstitute for Justice via AP)

Since 2000, governments have acquired at least $68.8 billion in forfeited property, according to the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public interest law firm that represents Serrano and tracks seizures. The group says the number "drastically underestimates forfeiture's true scope" because not all states provide data.

Serrano's troubles stemmed from some pictures he took along the way of a long trip from his home in Tyner, Kentucky, to visit relatives, including a dying aunt, in Zaragosa, Mexico. The photo-taking attracted the attention of U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in Eagle Pass, Texas.

More border news: 'Arbitrary' and 'absurd': Uneven enforcement at Texas border prompts migrants to try, try again

When Serrano refused to hand over the password to his phone, the agents went through the 2014 silver pickup truck in great detail. They justified its seizure by saying they found "munitions of war" inside five forgotten bullets, though no gun.

Serrano, 62, initially took a gun, for which he has a permit, but a Mexican cousin warned him not to bring it into Mexico. He ditched the weapon, but forgot about the few bullets the agents eventually found.

A one-time Republican candidate for Congress, Serrano recalled being surprised at his treatment at the border in September 2015.

"I deleted the photos, but I'm not giving you my phone," Serrano said.

Told to park the truck, he said, he complained a bit before one agent reached into the pickup, opened the door, unfastened Serrano's seat belt and yanked him out of the vehicle.

"I got rights, I got constitutional rights and he snaps back at me, 'You don't have no rights here. I'm sick and tired of hearing about your rights.' That took me aback," Serrano said.

He was handcuffed and held for several hours, refusing to unlock the phone or answer any questions. Eventually, he was told he could go, but without his truck.

"I said, 'How am I going to get home?' There's this smirk I can't forget. 'We don't care how you get home,'" Serrano said.

He left the border station on foot, called a relative who lived nearby and hung around the area for several weeks, hoping to reclaim the pickup truck. Serrano finally rented a car and returned home. He continued to make $673 monthly payments on the seized truck.

Borderland: COVID-19 in Mexico: Vaccinations intensify in Jurez; pandemic worsens in Chihuahua City

Serrano might get some support from at least one justice. While an appeals court judge in New York, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote an opinion requiring New York City to hold prompt hearings when police seized cars. "It is this intermediate deprivation, lasting months or sometimes years without any prompt hearing before a neutral fact-finder, that we deem constitutionally infirm," Sotomayor wrote in 2002.

The Supreme Court took up the issue of whether governments must hold a reasonably quick hearing following a seizure once before, in a case from Chicago in 2009. But the court dismissed the case because the seized vehicles all had been returned by the time the case was argued.

In this undated image provided by the Institute for Justice, Gerardo Serrano holds a photo of his pickup that was held by the U.S. government for more than two years after a seizure at the border in Eagle Pass, Texas.(Photo: Institute for Justice via AP)

The Biden administration is urging the court to reject the case, saying there was nothing wrong with the initial seizure of the pickup and arguing that Serrano's claims ended when the vehicle was returned to him.

But Serrano's lawyers contend that the court should confront the issue because otherwise governments will continue to hold property for long periods and return it only to evade a judge's review.

"The rampant due process violations associated with modern civil forfeiture warrant review," they said in a high-court filing.

Serrano did get to see his aunt on the 2015 trip. Cousins drove across the border and took him to her. "When I went back home, three days later they called me and said she died," he said.

Opinion guest column: What can the US government do to respond to the border surge?: Andrew Selee and Andrea Tanco

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Truck seized at Texas border over 'munitions of war,' 5 forgotten bullets - El Paso Times

A New York State oversight agency admonished a judge who presides over East Hampton Town Court and Sag Harbor Village Court for helping a local political candidate, which violates judicial ethics rules.

The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct admonished Justice Lisa Rana on March 18 for engaging in inappropriate political activity by editing essays and letters to the editor authored by David Gruber, who unsuccessfully tried to unseat East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc in 2019.

Rana admitted that she participated in prohibited political activity and prohibited campaign activity when she edited candidate Grubers draft submissions, the commission wrote in its admonishment. Even political activity that is anonymous violates the rules. [Rana] also violated the ethical rules when she provided strategic political advice to candidate Gruber.

Rana, a Republican, was advising Gruber, a Democrat running on the Independence and Libertarian lines against the Democratic incumbent. The East Hampton Star, which received some of the letters along with the East Hampton Independent, first reported on the issue when an editor noticed that the judges name was highlighted in the track changes editing function on the files submitted to the newspapers.

The letter that was sent to the Indy and Star did have the tracking turned off, yes? Rana wrote to Gruber. Otherwise, they will see my name attached to the corrections?? That would be very bad indeed.

Gruber denied sending files showing Rana edited his letters. But when a reporter questioned her about it at the time,, Rana admitted editing the letters and denied that she violated the rules. She later acknowledged to the commission that she knew providing anonymous political advice to a candidate was wrong.

Rana, an attorney for 28 years who grew up in East Hampton, has been a town justice since 2004 and village justice since 2011. Her terms for both posts expire in 2023.

She did not edit any political opinion essays and letters to the editor for any other political candidate and will not do so in the future, the commission wrote. Prohibited political activity is not renderedpermissible by being conducted anonymously. While judges are permitted to engage in political activity on behalf of their own campaigns for judicial office, the ethical rules strictly prohibit a judges direct and indirect engagement in political activity

The commission concluded, We trust that respondent has learned from this experience and in the future will act in strict accordance with her obligation to abide by all the rules governing judicial conduct.

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NY Ethics Board Admonishes East Hampton Town Judge for Helping Political Candidate - Dan's Papers

While the Libertarian Party may be a political afterthought, libertarian ideology is not. Many Republican voters have assimilated libertarian ideas into their understanding of conservatism, so are irked by much of the American rights turn away from free-market orthodoxies and toward economic populism. Although I am sympathetic to this shift toward more family-friendly economic populism, I still believe that libertarianism may offer important insights.

If a new synthesis between conservative and libertarian ideas is to develop, however, it will have to begin with humility, which is where conservative and libertarian political philosophy should overlap in shared recognition of human fallibility and finitude.

Last century, right-leaning intellectuals and writers sought to unite American conservatives and libertarians by asserting the interdependence of liberty and virtue. This fusionism urged conservatives to recognize that virtue could only be fully realized under liberty, and it urged libertarians to acknowledge that liberty was unsustainable without virtue.

Of course, there was a problem: whose virtue, which liberty? The old fusionism required a shared, or at least broadly overlapping, understanding of liberty and virtue.

This commonality diminished over the decades, and the collapse of the Soviet Union abroad, as well as cultural changes at home, have left the two camps with fewer common concerns and priorities than before. A renewed fusionism will require conservatives and libertarians to find a common cause, beginning with a shared humility and awareness of human limitation.

There will still be differences. Conservative humility emphasizes deference toward the tried-and-true of what has worked in the past; libertarian humility emphasizes the propensity for even the most well-meaning plans, and especially government initiatives, to go awry. But each side should be able to recognize the others merit, and a shared appreciation for human limitation can bring admirers of Edmund Burke and of Friedrich Hayek together.

Such an alliance will be weakened, perhaps even broken, by hubris, which tempts each side in its own way. Thus, although I have sympathies in their direction, I fear that many of the rights emerging economic populists and nationalists have forgotten the need for humility.

In projecting the efficacy of their proposed programs for the revitalization of family, the bolstering of the working class, the succor of the poor, and other worthy goals they often appear to ignore the risks of regulatory capture, moral hazard, and similar problems. Effective government is difficult, and even successful programs will have trade-offs and unintended consequences. These dangers are sometimes overemphasized to the point of paralysis, but this is no excuse to err in the opposite direction.

Conservatives know that society is complex, and governing well, or even passably, is difficult; this is why we prefer reform to radical, revolutionary change. Thus, Anglo-American conservatism has emphasized that those who haughtily presume that they will easily bend government and society to their will are likely to fail, perhaps disastrously. Those on the right who are newly willing to deploy government power in the style of the European throne-and-altar right would do well to humbly reflect on their own limits before beginning. Rulers, as well as the ruled, are sinful creatures in need of restraint.

Libertarians, in turn, delight in reminding conservatives of the limits and dangers of government power, but they often indulge in their own forms of hubris. Philosophically, instead of focusing on human limitations, many libertarians rely on rigid and absolute systems that ignore the realities of human nature and life. Conservatives are right to be skeptical of libertarian arguments based on abstract systems of rights derived from an ahistorical, imaginary state of nature or social contract.

We are not, for instance, born as rational, autonomous individuals. Rather, we only attain limited degrees of independence and reason through often-difficult effort and instruction. A political philosophy that presumes a populace of rational, independent individuals without accounting for how such persons are formed is self-sabotaging. As the old fusionism insisted, those who would defend liberty must attend to the preconditions for sustaining liberty virtue, family, faith, and community.

Thus, among the ironies of modern libertarianism is that, although its flagship publication is called Reason, that magazine frequently features articles presuming that reason is the slave of the passions a tool for fulfilling our idiosyncratic desires, rather than what should control them. There and elsewhere, much of todays libertarianism has a propensity toward techno-utopianism and a preoccupation with porn, pot, and prostitution. The prudential case for liberty is replaced by a celebration of juvenile libertinism sex, drugs, and maybe some electronic dance music thrown in for good measure.

This libertine outlook is justified by apparently humble reasoning: who is to judge whether one way of life is better than another? But this relativistic pose proves more than it means to. After all, who then is to say that liberty is better than the alternative?

The assertion that human beings deserve liberty, or have a right to liberty, presumes truths about human beings and what is good for them. These truths cannot then be ignored by a regime that legitimates itself through them. It is arrogant to reject the wisdom of the ages about human flourishing and the life well-lived.

In the end, the libertarian insistence that all shall be well if we just let free minds and free markets do their thing is a mockery of religious belief. It puts man and the market in place of God. It is hard to govern well, but that does not mean the attempt should be forsaken in a drugged haze amidst the glow of streaming webcam sex shows. Such a society has simply embraced another form of tyranny and is content to be enslaved to base desires.

If we are to avoid this, as well as the follies of governmental good intentions gone awry, conservatives and libertarians must both check their pride to work toward a new fusionism. Their common ground begins with humility.

Nathanael Blake is a senior contributor to The Federalist and a postdoctoral fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

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Humility Is Where Conservatives And Libertarians Can Still Find Fusion - The Federalist

Time to reopen AmericaIt has been one year since America shut down because of COVID-19. The closures have devoured our small businesses, resulting in a sharp rise in unemployment. Suicide rates have gone up as well. The problem is, some of our national leaders just don't seem to care anymore. They choose to incite racism as a weapon in order to get what they want. They want to remove our statues by any means necessary while doing absolutely nothing about riots or businesses being destroyed by perpetrators. They want to silence the Americans by erasing or canceling as much of our culture as they can. They want to steal our Second Amendment, our right to bear arms.And the saddest part? We, as Americans, are allowing this to happen. It is time for us to grow some spines and backbones. We need to tell our national leaders how extremely disappointed we are with them. I will not allow them to destroy America or let our U.S. Constitution crumble.Lastly, I want no more masks or social distancing ever again; reopen America now!Joshua DealyCarson CityPlain as dayLetter regarding Republican voter suppression/cheating #14. Never stops.Anyone with half a Trump brain, and paying some attention to life (Appeal columnists perhaps), has seen the non-stop assault by Republican-led state legislatures on the voting rights of Americans. Beyond stunning and appalling, this latest barrage on our civil liberties is the last ditch effort of a minority ideology doing whatever it takes to keep power.Face it folks, being anti-fill in the blank just ain't playing like it used to. So what else is there to do but cheat! Big time!The recent signing of abhorrent voter suppression laws by the governor of Georgia is beyond comprehension. It goes without saying that polling places will be reduced to one per 100,000 voters. Mail ballots/drop boxes will be harder to find than Ted Cruz telling the truth.And finally, as a late-night talk show fella from the past once said, I believe Jack Parr, "I kid you not." It will be against the law to offer food or drink to those Americans waiting in line for hours to vote. I can only imagine that Brian Kemp will reduce unemployment by hiring, monitoring and patrolling the election process.I can see it plain as day.The party of hate, the party of the big lie (Biden won, dudes), the party of insurrection... has gone beyond disgusting.Rick Van AlfenCarson CityBiden created border crisisRegarding Robert Simpsons letter criticizing my recounting of President Trumps accomplishments: Most importantly, Trump had implemented successful measures to control our southern border, starting with the wall. Illegal immigrants were turned away, asylum applicants were fairly treated, and remain in Mexico allowed an orderly process manageable by the Border Patrol and ICE.Now, the exact same libs who were hysterical about kids in cages (an Obama creation) support Bidens political weaponizing of illegal immigration. Coyotes and drug smugglers sexually abuse children on their journey north; mothers are sending their little girls to the border with Plan B pills. The surviving kids who get lucky are vaccinated for COVID, then are dumped onto our military bases while theyre still contagious, putting our soldiers and DOD civilians at risk.The Border Patrol is overwhelmed by sprawling camps with scabies, lice, the flu, COVID, crime, and drugs on a scale never before seen. Kamala Harris, who was appointed to be in charge of this ongoing human tragedy, has yet to visit the border.The Biden administration deliberately created this crisis because their goal is to grant millions of illegal immigrants U.S. citizenship and full voting rights to create a permanent voting Democrat majority.If Simpson thinks this is an improvement over Trumps border policy, in the words of his Uncle Joe, cmon man!Lynn MuzzyMindenLibertarian Party plans to become more visibleLast November, one-third of Douglas County voters surprised the status quo by supporting a Libertarian candidate for commissioner. That's more than any non-Republican candidate has won in this county in decades.Libertarians come from all political persuasions, from extreme liberal to ultra-conservative. What they have in common is the desire to pursue their interests, operate businesses, educate their children, and strive for prosperity without interference from intrusive government regulations.Basically, the party's mantra is "Do what you want as long as you don't hurt anyone." As simple as that sentence is, it seems to be a radical idea in this age when both the GOP and the ever-more-progressive Democratic Party want to control everyone's health care, business activities, and use of private property. Libertarians just want to be left alone and allow you the same freedom.If you're one of those who want an alternative, investigate the Libertarians, either on Facebook or http://www.lpnevada.org. Or come to the next meeting April 23 at 6 p.m. at Cook'd in Minden.Meanwhile, be on the lookout for Libertarians at local events, fairs, farmers' markets, wine walks, anywhere where you can meet and discuss issues with people who want to return America to a time where people said, "it's a free country" rather than "there oughta be a law."Sue CauhapeMinden

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Letters to the Editor for March 31, 2021 | Serving Carson City for over 150 years - Nevada Appeal

Scotland goes to the polls on May 6, in the sixth general election since the Scottish Parliament was reconvened in 1999.

At the last election in 2016, the SNP lost their parliamentary majority, but were able to rule as a minority government, with the help of the pro-independence Scottish Green Party.

Of the unionist parties, the Conservatives overtook Labour into second place, while the Liberal Democrats finished fifth.

No representatives of minor parties were elected to the Holyrood in 2016, but this time Alex Salmonds newly-founded Alba Party is looking to win seats by contesting the regional list elections.

There are 73 constituency seats up for grabs, under a first-past-the-post voting system, and 56 regional list seats, which are filled using the DHondt voting system.

Using the DHondt system, Mr Salmonds party is aiming to create a pro-independence super-majority, as in previous elections the number of constituency seats the SNP has won has limited the number of list MSPs the party has returned.

Meanwhile, from the unionist side of the political spectrum, George Galloways All For Unity Party is also attempting to use tactical voting to maximise the number of pro-union seats, by urging voters to pick pro-union parties like the Conservatives or Labour in the constituency elections, and to select his party in the regional list.

Eight candidates will contest Edinburgh Central, the most marginal of the Lothian seats, where UKIP, the Scottish Libertarian Party and video artist Bonnie Prince Bob, standing as an independent, join the five main parties.

The Scottish Libertarian Party is also standing in Edinburgh Western, the Scottish Family Party is standing in Edinburgh Pentlands and Edinburgh Southern, and the Scottish Freedom Alliance in Edinburgh Northern and Leith.

And a total of 18 parties and one independent are competing for votes on the Lothian list.

Bonnie Prince Bob - Independent

Scott Douglas Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party

Alison Johnstone Scottish Green Party

Maddy Kirkman Scottish Labour Party

Tam Laird Scottish Libertarian Party

Donald Murdo Mackay UK Independence Party (UKIP)

Angus Robertson Scottish National Party (SNP)

Bruce Roy Wilson Scottish Liberal Democrats

Bill Cook Scottish Labour Party

Ash Denham Scottish National Party (SNP)

Graham Hutchison Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party

Jill Reilly Scottish Liberal Democrats

Edinburgh Northern and Leith

Rebecca Bell Scottish Liberal Democrats

Katrina Faccenda Scottish Labour Party

Callum Laidlaw Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party

Ben Macpherson Scottish National Party (SNP)

Jon Pullman Scottish Freedom Alliance

Lorna Slater Scottish Green Party

Lezley Marion Cameron Scottish Labour Party and Scottish Co-operative Party

Fraser John Ashmore Graham Scottish Liberal Democrats

Gordon Lindhurst Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party

Richard Crewe Lucas Scottish Family Party

Gordon MacDonald Scottish National Party (SNP)

Miles Briggs Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party

Philip Holden Scottish Family Party

Daniel Johnson Scottish Labour Party and Scottish Co-operative Party

Catriona Mary Elizabeth MacDonald Scottish National Party (SNP)

Fred Mackintosh Scottish Liberal Democrats

Alex Cole-Hamilton Scottish Liberal Democrats

Daniel Fraser Scottish Libertarian Party

Margaret Arma Graham Scottish Labour Party

Sarah Masson Scottish National Party (SNP)

Sue Webber Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party

Euan Robert Davidson Scottish Liberal Democrats

Craig Hoy Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party

Paul Stewart McLennan Scottish National Party (SNP)

Martin David Whitfield Scottish Labour Party

Midlothian North & Musselburgh

Colin Beattie Scottish National Party (SNP)

Stephen Curran Scottish Labour Party

Charles Christopher Dundas Scottish Liberal Democrats

Iain Whyte Scottish Conservative

Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale

Dominic Ashmole - Scottish Green Party

Michael James Banks - Vanguard Party

Christine Grahame - Scottish National Party (SNP)

Shona Haslam - Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party

AC May - Scottish Liberal Democrats

Katherine Sangster - Scottish Labour Party and Scottish Co-operative Party

Angela Constance Scottish National Party (SNP)

Damian Doran-Timson Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party

Caron Lindsay Scottish Liberal Democrats

Craig Smith Scottish Labour Party

Fiona Hyslop Scottish National Party (SNP)

Charles Kennedy Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party

Sally Pattle Scottish Liberal Democrats

Kirsteen Sullivan Scottish Labour Party and Scottish Co-operative Party

Abolish the Scottish Parliament Party: John Johnson Leckie; David Lindsay Nichol.

Alba Party: Kenneth Wright MacAskill; Alexander Arthur; Christina Mary Hendry; Irshad Ahmed.

All for Unity: Charlotte Morley; Parvinder Singh; Alan Hogg; Andy Macaulay; David Hamilton; Mike Knox; Derek Clark.

Animal Welfare Party: Vivienne Moir; Gavin Ridley.

Communist Party of Britain: Matthew Finlay Waddell.

Freedom Alliance - Integrity, Society, Economy: Jon Pullman; Cara Patricia Wase; Patricia McCann.

Reform UK: Derek Steven Winton; Mev Brown; Iain Murray Morse; Lesley MacDonald.

Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party: Miles Briggs; Sue Webber; Jeremy Balfour; Rebecca Fraser; Malcolm Offord; Scott Douglas; Gordon Lindhurst; Marie-Clair Munro; Graham Hutchison; Iain Whyte; Callum Laidlaw; Charles Kennedy.

Scottish Family Party: Richard Crewe Lucas; Philip Holden; Norman David Colville; Gareth Kirk; Amy Ireland.

Scottish Greens: Alison Johnstone; Lorna Slater; Kate Nevens; Chas Booth; Steve Burgess; Alys Mumford; Emily Frood; Ben Parker; Elaine Taylor; Bill Wilson; Evelyn Weston; Alex Staniforth.

Scottish Labour Party: Daniel Johnson; Sarah Boyack; Foysol Choudhury; Madelaine Kirkman; Kirsteen Sullivan; Nicholas Ward; Frederick Hessler; Stephen Robert Curran.

Scottish Liberal Democrats: Alex Cole-Hamilton; Fred Mackintosh; Jill Reilly; Rebecca Louise Bell; Sally Pattle; Fraser John Ashmore Graham; Caron Marianne Lindsay; Bruce Roy Wilson; Charles Christopher Dundas.

Scottish Libertarian Party: Tam Laird; Cameron Paul Paterson.

Scottish National Party: Graham Campbell; Angus Robertson; Fiona Hyslop; Ben Macpherson; Catriona MacDonald; Sarah Masson; Greg McCarra; Alison Dickie; Alex Orr; Andrew Ewen; Rob Connell.

Scottish Renew: Heather Jane Astbury; Anna Freemantle-Zee.

Scottish Women's Equality Party: Emma Jane Watt; David Malcolm Alexander Renton; Lucy Hammond.

Social Democratic Party: Alasdair James Young; Neil Peter Manson; Lawrence Sebastian Edwards.

UK Independence Party (UKIP): Donald MacKay; John Laurence Mumford; Steve Hollis; Kenneth Lowry.

Independent: Ashley Graczyk.

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Scottish election 2021: Full list of candidates in Edinburgh and the Lothians - Edinburgh News