DETROIT (AP) — Michigan sheriffs are paying for overtime and buying vests, guns, Tasers and vehicles with a little-known pot of state money that was set aside for medical marijuana enforcement.
They’re also leaving a lot of cash on the table, as only 18 of 83 counties this year applied for a slice of the $3 million.
“It’s mind-blowing to think they had this money out there and we had no clue about it,” said Sgt. James Every of the Ingham County sheriff’s office, which was eligible for $114,000 but didn’t apply.
Kent County, which is home to the western Michigan city of Grand Rapids, was eligible for $121,000 but also was unaware, Undersheriff Michelle Young said.
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“We could absolutely use it for compliance and enforcement,” she said.
Michigan voters in 2008 approved the use of marijuana to treat certain illnesses. Nearly 225,000 people have state-issued cards, but the law has confused many and has led to significant legal disputes, including over how to obtain and store the drug. Large illegal growing operations have been busted around the state.
Since 2015, lawmakers have set aside money for sheriffs for medical marijuana enforcement and education. It’s administered by the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs. Every county was eligible this year for a portion of the $3 million, based on the number of new cards or renewals in that county.
Seventeen counties spent $823,000 in 2016, according to a state report. The largest, Wayne and Oakland, spent a combined 67 percent of that figure.
Oakland spent $282,661, much of it on training and investigation overtime. The sheriff’s office bought a $31,000 van, a $30,000 pickup truck and a $6,800 cargo trailer.
“We didn’t have equipment,” Sheriff Mike Bouchard said. “We’d come across huge illegal grow operations — hundreds and hundreds of plants — and we’d have to rent trucks or trailers. … The grant helps alleviate some of the costs necessary to do these activities, but it’s just a sliver.”
According to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office Sept. 1, 2016, submission to the state report, the department:
Executed 59 search warrants,
Executed 19 “knock and talks” with 13 found to be compliant, 2 had no evidence located and 4 found to be non-compliant.
Initiated 19 educational contacts this year, with on criminal actions taken,
Seized 2,961 marijuana plants — or 1,122 pounds — since Jan. 1.
Macomb County has spent about $100,000 over two years, much of it related to investigations and training. The sheriff’s office also bought laptops, vehicles and raid vests.
“I want the guys as protected as they can be,” Det. Sgt. Gary Wiegand said of vests.
Wayne County said it spent $171,618 on wages for dozens of officers conducting surveillance from January through September on 32 marijuana dispensaries in Detroit. More than 600 vehicles were stopped.
The grants were used in smaller counties, too. Sanilac spent $2,850 on five semi-automatic weapons. Antrim spent $479 on night vision binoculars. Cheboygan purchased Tasers.
Young, the Kent County undersheriff, believes the grants haven’t been promoted enough. The Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs declined to be interviewed.
“We have not been surprised by the participation rate as this was and still is a new program,” spokesman Michael Loepp said.
The deadline to apply for the next round of funding is Jan. 1.
Wiegand said Macomb County bought a trailer to haul and store illegal marijuana plants.
“We took more than 100 plants out of a person’s house,” he said. “It’s hard to put all that in the property room.”
One issue reported by the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office is that patients or caregivers are becoming better at cultivating marijuana and the plants are growing big enough to provide one pound of marijuana. With 12 plants per patient, they are going over the 2.5 ounces, the office reports.
“The MMMA does not provide a legal remedy for the patient or the caregiver to address this issue,” Oakland County Sheriff’s Lt. Brent Miles wrote.
Orchard Lake and Sylvan Lake have two of the smallest police forces in Michigan, but voters there will be asked to curb their powers to confiscate property associated with crime.
Ballot measures in both communities would require a criminal conviction before police could pursue a civil forfeiture of property related to the crime. Any money seized from criminals also would have to be used to fund local road repairs, under the proposal.
Police across Michigan and around the country have used civil forfeiture to seize the assets of drug dealers and other criminals. Critics argue the standards are so lax that police can take property without ever charging its owner with a crime.
“It’s really counter to what the United States stands for, innocent until proven guilty,” said Scott Tillman, national field director for the Liberty Initiative Fund, a nonprofit group that claims as its mission “holding government accountable, fighting crony capitalism and protecting civil liberties.”
Tillman said he targeted the two communities not because of abuses there, but to raise awareness of the issue.
“Once people know about it, they have hard a time believing it happens in the U.S.,” he said.
Orchard Lake Mayor Norm Finkelstein said his city hasn’t pursued any civil forfeitures in recent years.
“If passed, it would be meaningless because it conflicts with state law,” Finkelstein said. “Forfeiture proceeds can only be used as the law allows.”
Tillman acknowledges that state law may prevent seized money from going toward road repairs, but said the rest of the proposal, especially the requirement of a criminal conviction, can stand.
Other ballot measures in Oakland County include:
Franklin Village: Voters are asked to approve a $15-million bond proposal for street repairs. It would cost the owner of a $200,000 home about $320 a year for a maximum of 15 years. Voters also face 10 ballot questions related to charter amendments, including one that would require a vote to connect to a municipal water system. One measure would amend the charter to say that the village records are subject to the Michigan Freedom of Information Act, though that law already applies to all communities in Michigan.
Lake Orion Village: Voters are asked to approve a measure that would allow the village to levy up to 1.4 mills in additional taxes for police service. The measure would override the Headlee Amendment and would cost the owner of a $200,000 house about $140 per year.
Oxford Village: Voters are asked to amend the village charter to make all village records subject to disclosure under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act. All municipal records are already subject to the FOIA, whether local charters acknowledge it or not.
Pontiac: Voters are asked to approved a 1.5-mill tax increase to fund youth centers. The measure would cost the owner of a $100,000 house about $75 annually.
Wixom: Voters are asked to approve a new 3.5-mill tax to fund police, fire, public works and parks and recreation. The tax would cost the owner of a $200,000 home $350 annually.
A state court has broken up one of the biggest theft rings in Michigan.
The state Supreme Court should let the ruling stand and the Legislature should enshrine it in law.
The Michigan Court of Appeals recently ruled that a key provision of the civil forfeiture law violates the due process rights of defendants.
It is a welcome decision and long overdue. State and local law enforcement agencies use civil forfeiture to steal the property of people who not only are never convicted of a crime, but often are never even charged with one.
It is a perversion of justice that should have never passed constitutional muster.
The appellate court ruled in the case of Shantrese Kinnon, who was arrested along with her husband in Kent County on drug charges.
After searching the couple’s home, police seized several pieces of property, including an SUV, a pickup, a motorcycle, laptop computer and $400 in cash.
That’s become standard operating procedure for drug arrests. Officers move through a home like burglars, grabbing everything of significant value under the pretense they might have been purchased with the illegal gains from narcotics trafficking.
But the Kinnons were never convicted of the charges for which they were arrested, nor for any other crime.
And yet when Shantrese Kinnon challenged the property seizures and tried to get her vehicles and other valuables returned, she couldn’t because she was unable to post the required 10 percent bond.
In her case, that amounted to $2,000, which she didn’t have.
In most forfeiture cases, even if the person whose property was taken can post the bond, getting their stuff back can still cost hundreds or thousands of dollars because it most often requires hiring an attorney and paying other fees.
So in effect they are being punished without being convicted. Often, defendants choose to let police have their belongings rather than go through the long and expensive process of getting it back.
It’s a lucrative scheme for law enforcement agencies. A report from the Michigan State Police found that in 2014 forfeitures netted police departments $24 million.
And they get to keep it all. For most departments, revenue from property seizures makes up a significant part of their budgets.
That creates a perverse incentive for agencies to grab as much property as they can, and do everything possible to hang onto it, even bargaining with defendants to drop charges in exchange for their seized assets.
Forfeiture is legalized theft, and should not be part of a legal system that purports to value justice.
If a defendant is convicted of a crime and prosecutors can make the case that the proceeds of the illegal activity were used to purchase property, an argument can be made for seizure. But that should come only after conviction.
Rep. Peter Lucido, R-Shelby Township, has introduced a bill to eliminate the bond requirement on forfeiture challenges. That’s a good first step.
The Legislature should pass broader reforms that get police entirely out of the business of stealing other people’s property.
11:25 p.m. EDT August 23, 2016
If you or someone you know is facing charges as a result of Medical Marijuana recommended to you as a medical marijuana patient under the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act, contact Komorn Law and ensure your rights are protected. Michael Komorn is recognized as a leading expert on the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act. He is the President of the Michigan Medical Marijuana Association (MMMA), a nonprofit patient advocacy group which advocates for the rights of medical marijuana patients and their caregivers.
Contact us for a free no-obligation case evaluation at 800-656-3557.
The Justice Department recently announced that it is resuming the “equitable sharing” part of its civil asset forfeiture program, thus ending one of the major criminal justice reform victories of the Obama administration.
Civil asset forfeiture is a legal tool by which police officers can seize and sell private property without a convicting the owner of any crime, and equitable sharing is a process by which state and local police can circumvent state restrictions on civil asset forfeiture and take property under the color of federal law.
It may sound like a scene from a dystopian novel, but under civil asset forfeiture, a police officer can pull you over, claim he smells marijuana, and then take all the cash you have — and maybe even your car, too. Getting your property back requires going through lengthy court procedures to prove that the property is “innocent.”
Back in December, after Congress enacted reductions to the Justice Department’s civil asset forfeiture fund by $1.2 billion, the Justice Department announced that the program was being deferred until further notice.
Criminal justice reform advocates hailed this as a major victory, but Attorney General Loretta Lynch said that it was “imperative” that the “decision to suspend the equitable sharing program be immediately reconsidered.” The Justice Department now says that “it was always our intent to resume payments as soon as it became financially feasible.
… And now, we are finally at a point where it is no longer necessary to continue the deferral.”
Over the past decade and a half, civil asset forfeiture has exploded, and federal incentives have played a large role in that transformation. Last year, American police seized more private property than actual thieves.
The Justice Department’s forfeiture fund has provided a huge financial boon to the federal government. The Institute for Justice notes that the federal government “took in nearly $29 billion from 2001 to 2014, and combined annual revenue grew 1,000 percent over the period.”
Because federal forfeiture policies allow local police to keep up to 80 percent of what they seize, abuses are rampant. When police are allowed to directly benefit from seizing assets, stark injustices can occur.
For example, an art gallery party in Detroit was raided in 2008 because the “gallery did not possess a proper license to hold such an event.” Police seized and impounded 44 vehicles parked on the adjacent street.
Outrage over this incident lead to Michigan officials passing a law to raise the evidentiary standard in state asset forfeiture proceedings. Now, to avoid the restrictions of that legislation, all local police will need to do is involve federal officials, entitling them to equitable sharing in the program.
Under the federal civil asset forfeiture program, state and local police are encouraged to join in federal drug investigations because their participation entitles them to a large portion of the seized assets — dispersed from the equitable fund.
While that may seem like good policy, without proper restraints it simply means the states are just as encouraged as the federal government to seize money from private citizens without just cause.
Through programs like granting clemency to nonviolent drug offenders, the Obama administration has made important strides in reigning in our oversized and overused criminal justice system. Resuming the equitable payment system is an unfortunate step in the wrong direction.
Trevor Burrus is a research fellow and Randal John Meyer is a legal associate at the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies.
If you or someone you know is facing charges as a result of Medical Marijuana recommended to you as a medical marijuana patient under the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act, contact Komorn Law and ensure your rights are protected. Michael Komorn is recognized as a leading expert on the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act. He is the President of the Michigan Medical Marijuana Association (MMMA), a nonprofit patient advocacy group which advocates for the rights of medical marijuana patients and their caregivers.
Contact us for a free no-obligation case evaluation at 800-656-3557.
Innocence until proven guilty should also mean an individual isn’t punished until guilt is established in court. But in Michigan and other states, a suspect can lose property and cash without ever even being charged with a crime.
A package of bills voted unanimously out of committee would establish a higher threshold for civil forfeitures. But it should be toughened to require a conviction before property is taken.
A new report released jointly by the conservative Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Midland and the liberal Michigan ACLU clearly illustrates the problem with forfeitures. That the two often ideologically opposed organizations can find unity on this issue makes the case that reform is needed much stronger.
As the joint report notes, under criminal forfeiture property can’t be kept by government until the owner’s guilt is established beyond a reasonable doubt.
But the standard is much lower for civil forfeitures. State law allows law enforcement to take property merely suspected of attached to an illegal activity, and without the defendant ever having his or her day in court. The requirement is only that there be a “preponderance of evidence” that a crime has been committed.
Consequently, many people have been forced to pay huge fines and fees to retrieve their possessions, even though they were never convicted or even charged with a crime.
“When the government can transfer property from citizens to the state without proving wrongdoing, there is clearly something wrong,” said Jarrett Skorup, a policy analyst with the Mackinac Center and co-author of the report. “The foundation of good government is private property rights and the rule of law — civil forfeiture violates both of these.”
A recent study from a national group, Fix Forfeiture, concluded Michigan’s forfeiture laws are among the most abusive in the country.
Local law enforcement agencies are using civil forfeiture to supplement their budgets and pay for specific programs. That provides a perverse incentive to seize property.
From 2009 to 2013, Michigan law enforcement agencies reported $123.5 million in drug-related forfeiture proceeds.
At least another $149 million was taken by Michigan law enforcement agencies from 2001 to 2008, an average of about $18 million per year.
That means more than $270 million has been seized from Michigan residents since 2001. Since these figures only include forfeitures related to drug crimes, the total value of property seized is likely far greater.
The pending Michigan bills raise the burden of proof standard for determining when property is seized to “clear and convincing evidence,” and requires police agencies to track and report seizures. That should result in fewer takings.
But they do not require a conviction before a seizure, and that is a major flaw that must be corrected. And they also allow agencies to continue the practice of using seizures to fund their operations.
Still, this package is a good start. Efforts should be made to improve the bills to better protect civil liberties.
