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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Troodon, post: 444273, member: 4626&quot;]I don&#039;t really think it works that way... and you should be glad it doesn&#039;t.&nbsp; Otherwise I can get in your car when nobody&#039;s looking and drive off with it, claim you told me I could have it, and insist it belongs to me unless you can prove that I stole it.</p><p><br /></p><p>The fact that you have the car title and didn&#039;t sign it off to me proves the car is still yours, unless I can prove you made some arrangement to transfer the car over to me and just hadn&#039;t given me the title yet.&nbsp; Even if it can&#039;t be proven I stole it, you can get your car back.</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;m not a lawyer, but I&#039;m fairly confident property law works under these principles.&nbsp; It&#039;s not the same thing as if the government was accusing the Switts of stealing the coins where they have the presumption of innocence... that would be a criminal matter.&nbsp; In a civil property manner the presumption in this case would be: the government owned them as of 1933, they never transferred the property to someone else, so unless the Switts can prove otherwise (a receipt would be excellent proof along those lines!) the coins are presumed to still be the government&#039;s property.</p><p><br /></p><p>Otherwise like in my example, I could take your car, claimed you said I can have it and would sign the title over to me later... prove you didn&#039;t make such an arrangement and that I stole it (or someone else stole it and gave it to me), or I get to keep the car.</p><p><br /></p><p>Or in the real case; the government doesn&#039;t have to prove the coins were stolen to keep them; the Switts have to prove they&#039;re not or they don&#039;t get them back.&nbsp; The burden of proof is on the Switts, not the government.</p><p><br /></p><p>If any lawyer thinks I&#039;m wrong on this, feel free to correct me.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Er... I don&#039;t know what your basis is for your asserition that the government that is bound by the Constitution isn&#039;t also protected by the Constitution.&nbsp; After all, the whole purpose of the Constitution is to lay out what rights that the government and the people have and don&#039;t have.</p><p><br /></p><p>It is is the government&#039;s assertion that the coins are their property in the first place.&nbsp; If the government can own property, then they have the same rights and protections for their property as any individual does.&nbsp; Else what&#039;s to stop people from getting in a government owned tank and driving off with it... insisting the government can&#039;t take it back unless they can prove it was stolen?</p><p><br /></p><p>The government did not seize the coins based on the claim they were stolen... they seized the coins based on the claim that they are government property when they were minted, and since the government never transferred the property to anyone else, they still are, unless and until someone can prove otherwise.&nbsp; (None of your examples of items that were never government property apply, sorry, and the government does in fact have property rights just like individuals do.&nbsp; Well, not &quot;just like,&quot; but they do have some.)&nbsp; Again if this isn&#039;t the case... I&#039;m getting myself a tank, and it&#039;s mine if they can&#039;t prove I stole it (I&#039;ll just say some general told me I can have it, and the burden would be on them to prove otherwise, right?).[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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