You Don't Have a Right to a Jury

The doctrine originates in the way we dealt with piracy and other forms of misbehavior on the high seas. You would capture a boat that was smuggling something or otherwise violating a international law. Often the owner of boat would be nowhere in the jurisdiction very hard to find. So if you caught a boat smuggling goods, you know, you could seize the boat and keep it. That was a way of enforcing the law when you couldn't sor hove reach the real owner. Tha's the original so of common law doctrine that is evolved. Andsti laughs at forfeiture, the fiction that the the s are guilty of the crime, and therefore you can sort of punish the goods by taking