What’s Really Wrong With Forfeiture – The Bigger Issue
With all these articles and talk about forfeiture reform and blah, blah, blah. The bigger issue has been overlooked.
Ok so they take some of your belongings they assume were purchased with some kind of illegal funds. Like the leaf blower you got from your dads house after he passed. Like the TV that was given to you by your brother because he bought a new one and was going to throw it out anyway. Like the children’s toys that were presents from relatives and friends. Need I say more.
The system does not have to prove how the items were obtained. It’s a cash grab. They sell it back to you or auction it off. I can’t imagine the items that are taken and in you know whose… garages and homes.
Ready for the worst of it…This part should really keep you up at night.
When they take your computer and other electronic storage products like back up hard drives and such. They are taking personal and private information and selling it on ebay, craigslist, taking it home or whatever.
On most peoples computers they have business, banking, family history, irreplaceable photos, medical, taxes, personal thoughts, and other peoples information, etc…the list goes on and on.
Do you really believe they take the time to ensure that that information is deleted. Assume not – just like the system assumed you were guilty.
That is your personal information and other people’s information (who have nothing to do with anything the system assumes) that is now in the hands of a stranger who’s going to do what they may with it.
The legal system doesn’t really have to prove anything. Prosecutors just throw all the charges they can at you till you are too financially drained to defend yourself and you give up and you plead out. Then you have to continue fighting it out in civil court.
Bottom line is…It’s a money making scheme and you are screwed unless you can continue the fight. In the end – you still lose.
One could go on and on about this. But the picture is pretty clear with the short version. Seems today’s politicians and police use forfeiture anyway they can so it benefits them and not society as a whole.
Imagine going back home one day to find an empty house and all your belongings gone; or even worse, imagine being in your house and having your door suddenly smashed open by law enforcement officers in masks and being told at gunpoint that your personal possessions are being taken away.
This is what happened to Annette Shattuck, a mother of four and a registered marijuana caregiver in Michigan. As she recently testified to the Michigan House of Representatives, her house was raided in 2014 while her 56-year old mother was taking care of her children.
Everything from food, electronics, and vehicles to birth certificates, cash, and social security, insurance and public assistance cards was taken and has yet to be returned. As if this weren’t enough, she was left penniless due to a $1 million hold on all her bank accounts and has been unable to access the adoption subsidy for her special-needs son.
Civil asset forfeiture laws, which were popularized during the drug war hysteria of the 1980s, allow law enforcement to seize money and any other private property, regardless of whether its owner has been convicted of a crime. Not only does this constitute a violation of civil liberties and property rights, but it also fuels widespread abuse of power.
Law enforcement agencies have incentives to confiscate goods since they get to keep a percentage of the profits.
As of 2012, the Asset Forfeiture Fund was estimated to hold around $6 billion, so it is no surprise that this has become a goldmine for law enforcement.
Earlier this year, New Mexico’s Republican Governor, Susana Martinez, signed a new law that ends the practice of civil asset forfeiture in the state, which now has the strongest protections against wrongful asset seizures in the country.
In California, a bill co-sponsored by the Drug Policy Alliance, ACLU and the Institute for Justice passed the California Senate by a vote of 38-1 earlier this month.
Does freezing defendant’s untainted assets violate right to counsel of choice? SCOTUS to decide
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Jun 9, 2015, 05:45 am CDT
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether a pretrial freeze of a criminal defendant’s assets that are untainted by crime violates a constitutional right to hire counsel of choice.
The court agreed to consider the issue in the case of Sila Luis, who is charged with Medicare fraud in Florida federal court. The government had obtained an injunction freezing up to $45 million of Luis’ assets to ensure sufficient funds are available to cover any restitution or judgment.
Luis claimed a court order restraining use of untainted assets would violate the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. According to the cert petition (PDF), retaining counsel of choice would be “no small task” given the volume of discovery—750 banker boxes of documents—in the case.
The government claimed (PDF) the defendant had dissipated the tainted assets by spending them on luxury items and travel, and substitute assets could be frozen.
SCOTUS blog posts the documents in Luis v. United Stateshere
A recent (6/8/15) editorial in the Livingston News visited the Michigan forfeiture laws which has become a hot topic lately.
The editorial goes on to say…
“When law enforcement agencies raid a suspected drug dealer’s home and confiscate property such as cars, money or other items, we understand this.
Police don’t want criminals to benefit from their illegal activity.
However, what happens if there is no conviction?
That property should and would be returned, one would think.
However, that’s not the case in Michigan, and we’re glad our state Legislature is working to reform civil asset forfeiture. The current forfeiture rules must be fixed because they allow police to confiscate items even if it’s determined there was no crime committed.
Michigan’s Civil Asset Forfeiture laws allow police to take property from citizens if they suspect a crime was committed, even when there is not enough evidence to charge them. Homeowners must then prove they did not purchase their property with proceeds from criminal activity and sue to get the property back.
In many cases, police raid a home where there clearly is no drug dealing happening; instead, residents are involved with medical marijuana, which voters stated is a legal use here in Michigan.
The following are a couple examples of how regular citizens were caught in the unjust web of forfeiture laws.
Gin Hency and Annette Shattuck describe themselves as soccer moms, active in their communities and in their children’s lives. Since July 2014, the St. Clair County women have shared another similarity: Both of their homes were raided by the St. Clair County Drug Task Force. Hency and Shattuck are registered medical marijuana caregivers. Among the things taken in the raid were their medical marijuana cards issued by the state, televisions, a bicycle and documents including driver’s licenses and insurance cards.
Another item reported taken was Hency’s vibrator (yes, a sex toy).
“It was devastating,” Shattuck said.
Hency and Shattuck were charged with marijuana-related counts several months after the raids. Three of the six charges against Shattuck were dismissed. Both charges against Hency were dismissed this month, but she has still been unable to reclaim her property.
Another example occurred with Thomas Williams, who was alone in November 2013 when police raided his rural St. Joseph County home wearing black masks, camouflage and holding guns at their sides. They broke down his front door with a battering ram.
“We think you’re dealing marijuana,” they told Williams, a 72-year-old, retired carpenter and cancer patient who is disabled and carries a medical marijuana card.
When he protested, they handcuffed him and left him on the living room floor as they ransacked his home, emptying drawers, rummaging through closets and surveying his grow room, where he was nourishing his 12 personal marijuana plants as allowed by law. Some had recently begun to die, so he had cloned them and had new seedlings, although they were not yet planted. That, police insisted, put him over the limit.
They did not charge Williams with a crime, though.
Instead, they took his Dodge Journey, $11,000 in cash from his home, his television, his cellphone and his shotgun — and are attempting to take his Colon Township home. And they plan to keep the proceeds, auctioning off the property and putting the cash in police coffers.
More than a year later, he is still fighting to get his belongings back and to hang on to his house.
“I want to ask them, ‘Why? Why me?’ I gave them no reason to do this to me,” said Williams, who says he also suffers from glaucoma, a damaged disc in his back, and COPD, a lung disorder. “I’m out here minding my own business, and just wanted to be left alone.”
We ask the same question: Why?
There’s no reason except that police have certain laws that allow for this type of forfeiture.
A bipartisan package of bills, approved by a House committee, would make changes including raising the standard for forfeiture to the highest in civil court, one of clear and convincing evidence rather than a preponderance of the evidence. The bills would also require detailed reports from local police to the state police on property forfeited.
It’s a good first step, and we hope to see it approved so residents don’t have to worry about property getting taken when they’re broken no crimes.
Aggressive police take hundreds of millions of dollars from motorists not charged with crimes.
Largely hidden from public view: the spread of an aggressive brand of policing that has spurred the seizure of hundreds of millions of dollars in cash from motorists and others not charged with crimes.
Thousands of people have been forced to fight legal battles that can last more than a year to get their money back.
Behind the rise in seizures is a little-known cottage industry of private police-training firms that teach the techniques of “highway interdiction” to departments across the country.
One of those firms created a private intelligence network known as Black Asphalt Electronic Networking & Notification System that enabled police nationwide to share detailed reports about American motorists — criminals and the innocent alike — including their Social Security numbers, addresses and identifying tattoos, as well as hunches about which drivers to stop.
Many of the reports have been funneled to federal agencies and fusion centers as part of the government’s burgeoning law enforcement intelligence systems — despite warnings from state and federal authorities that the information could violate privacy and constitutional protections.
A thriving subculture of road officers on the network now competes to see who can seize the most cash and contraband, describing their exploits in the network’s chat rooms and sharing “trophy shots” of money and drugs. Some police advocate highway interdiction as a way of raising revenue for cash-strapped municipalities.
“All of our home towns are sitting on a tax-liberating gold mine,” Deputy Ron Hain of Kane County, Ill., wrote in a self-published book under a pseudonym. Hain is a marketing specialist for Desert Snow, a leading interdiction training firm based in Guthrie, Okla., whose founders also created Black Asphalt.
Cash seizures can be made under state or federal civil law. One of the primary ways police departments are able to seize money and share in the proceeds at the federal level is through a long-standing Justice Department civil asset forfeiture program known as Equitable Sharing. Asset forfeiture is an extraordinarily powerful law enforcement tool that allows the government to take cash and property without pressing criminal charges and then requires the owners to prove their possessions were legally acquired.
The Post found:
There have been 61,998 cash seizures made on highways and elsewhere since 9/11 without search warrants or indictments through the Equitable Sharing Program, totaling more than $2.5 billion. State and local authorities kept more than $1.7 billion of that while Justice, Homeland Security and other federal agencies received $800 million. Half of the seizures were below $8,800.
Only a sixth of the seizures were legally challenged, in part because of the costs of legal action against the government. But in 41 percent of cases — 4,455 — where there was a challenge, the government agreed to return money. The appeals process took more than a year in 40 percent of those cases and often required owners of the cash to sign agreements not to sue police over the seizures.
Hundreds of state and local departments and drug task forces appear to rely on seized cash, despite a federal ban on the money to pay salaries or otherwise support budgets. The Post found that 298 departments and 210 task forces have seized the equivalent of 20 percent or more of their annual budgets since 2008.
Agencies with police known to be participating in the Black Asphalt intelligence network have seen a 32 percent jump in seizures beginning in 2005, three times the rate of other police departments. Desert Snow-trained officers reported more than $427 million in cash seizures during highway stops in just one five-year period, according to company officials. More than 25,000 police have belonged to Black Asphalt, company officials said.
State law enforcement officials in Iowa and Kansas prohibited the use of the Black Asphalt network because of concerns that it might not be a legal law enforcement tool. A federal prosecutor in Nebraska warned that Black Asphalt reports could violate laws governing civil liberties, the handling of sensitive law enforcement information and the disclosure of pretrial information to defendants. But officials at Justice and Homeland Security continued to use it.
Civil forfeiture cash seizures
Under the federal Equitable Sharing Program, police have seized $2.5 billion since 2001 from people who were not charged with a crime and without a warrant being issued. Police reasoned that the money was crime-related. About $1.7 billion was sent back to law enforcement agencies for their use.
Here’s a list of some of the money sent back to local police in the United States for seizures made alone or with others.
New York City Police Participated in 2,167 seizures – $27 million of $134.2 million
Los Angeles County Sheriff, Calif. Participated in 2,564 seizures-$24.3 million of $126 million
Los Angeles Police, Calif. Participated in 2,375 seizures-$18.4 million of $86.1 million
Houston Police, Tex. Participated in 798 seizures-$14.7 million of $63.3 million
Wayne County Sheriff, Mich. – 530 seizures-$13.4 million of $31.6 million
St. Louis County Police, Mo. – 644 seizures-$11.5 million of $42.1 million
Douglas County Sheriff, Neb. – 159 seizures-$11.5 million of $16.2 million
Atlanta Police, Ga. – 827 seizures-$9.3 million of $74.6 million
North Miami Beach Police, Fla. – 64 seizures-$9.1 million of $30.3 million
Laredo Police, Tex. – 149 seizures-$8.5 million of $20.1 million
Amtrak Police, Pa. – 894 seizures-$7.9 million of $53.2 million
Chicago Police, Ill. – 634 seizures-$7.9 million of $56.3 million
Milwaukee Police, Wis. – 1,223 seizures-$7.9 million of $19 million
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police., Nev. – 243 seizures-$7.3 million of $18 million
Baltimore Police, Md. – 1,528 seizures-$7.1 million of $18.5 million
Baltimore County Police, Md. – 981 seizures-$6.8 million of $19 million
San Diego Police, Calif. – 1,498 seizures-$6.8 million of $31.6 million
Jefferson County Sheriff, Ala. – 71 seizures-$6.7 million of $11.4 million
DeKalb County Police, Ga. – 408 seizures-$6.5 million of $41 million
Port Authority Of N.Y. and N.J. Police – 380 seizures-$6.3 million of $30.5 million
San Diego County Sheriff, Calif. – 1,511 seizures-$6.3 million of $33.2 million
City Of Phoenix Police, Ariz. – 483 seizures-$6 million of $15.8 million
There are no local agencies in the United States that received rebates of more than $250,000.
Note: Table does not include statewide agencies or task forces and only includes local agencies who received more than $250,000.
Source: A Washington Post analysis of Department of Justice data
Stop and Seize: More Investigative Articles by the Washington Post
In recent years, thousands of people have had cash confiscated by police without being charged with crimes. The Post looks at the police culture behind the seizures and the people who were forced to fight the government to get their money back. Part 2: One training firm started a private intelligence-sharing network and helped shape law enforcement nationwide. Part 3: Motorists caught up in the seizures talk about the experience and the legal battles that sometimes took more than a year. Part 4: Police agencies nationwide routinely buy vehicles and weapons with money and property seized under federal civil forfeiture law from people who were not charged with a crime. Part 5: Highway seizure in Iowa fuels debate about asset-forfeiture laws. Part 6: D.C. police plan for future seizure proceeds years in advance in city budget documents. Chat transcript: The reporters behind “Stop and Seize” answered your readers’ about the investigative series.
Know your rights:
During traffic stops on the nation’s highways, the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protects motorists “against unreasonable searches and seizures.” The law also gives police the power to investigate and act on their suspicions.
Police have a long-established authority to stop motorists for traffic infractions. They can use traffic violations as a pretext for a deeper inquiry as long as the stop is based on an identifiable infraction.
An officer may detain a driver only as long as it takes to deal with the reason for the stop. After that, police have the authority to request further conversation. A motorist has the right to decline and ask whether the stop is concluded. If so, the motorist can leave.
The officer also has the authority to briefly detain and question a person as long as the officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person is involved in criminal activity. Reasonable suspicion is based on specific and articulable facts but falls short of the legal standard for making an arrest.
A traffic infraction or reasonable suspicion alone do not give police authority to search a vehicle or a closed container, such as luggage. Police may ask for permission to search; drivers may decline. Police do not have to tell drivers that they have a right to refuse.
An officer may expand a roadside investigation if the driver’s responses and other circumstances justify a belief that it is more likely than not that criminal activity is occurring. Under this standard, known as probable cause, an officer can make an arrest or search a vehicle without permission. An alert by a drug-sniffing dog can provide probable cause, as can the smell of marijuana.
Police can seize cash that they find if they have probable cause to suspect that it is related to criminal activity. The seizure happens through a civil action known as asset forfeiture. Police do not need to charge a person with a crime. The burden of proof is then on the driver to show that the cash is not related to a crime by a legal standard known as preponderance of the evidence.
Sources: Jon Norris, criminal defense attorney; David A. Harris, University of Pittsburgh law professor; Scott Bullock, civil liberties lawyer, Institute for Justice; Department of Homeland Security.
