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.
Annette SHATTUCK’s mother was clipping coupons at their Port Huron home when local law enforcement came rushing in wearing masks and camouflage on July 28, 2014.
The officers from the St. Clair County Drug Task Force were there to execute a no-knock search warrant. And Shattuck alleges that through civil asset forfeiture, the officers seized a wide variety of items from her house, including car seats, hammers, saws and $85 that was inside birthday cards for one of her children.
Although Shattuck says she and her husband weren’t even charged with a crime for five and a half months and they still haven’t been convicted, those items are still being held by the police.
“They leave you with nothing,” Shattuck said of her situation, in an interview today. Shattuck was one of a group of individuals who spoke out today in favor of reforms to the civil asset forfeiture process as the House Judiciary Committee voted to advance new reporting requirements and increased legal standards for forfeiture.
Lawmakers are also trying to determine whether stories like Shattuck’s are isolated anecdotes with debatable details or widespread problems that point to systemic issues.
Asset forfeiture allows law enforcement to punish suspected criminals by taking money and property that officers believe were obtained through or involved in illegal activity.
According to a 2014 report from the Michigan State Police (MSP), law enforcement agencies in the state seized some $24 million in assets in 2013 related to drug crimes.
The reporting requirements in HB 4500, HB 4503 and HB 4504 are meant to help the public better track the forfeitures. Other bills in the package, which includes HB 4499, HB 4506, HB 4507 and HB 4508, would increase the legal standard for forfeiture from a preponderance of the evidence to “clear and convincing” evidence.
Those who are most in favor of civil asset forfeiture reform say the bills are merely a step in the right direction to bigger reforms. Meanwhile, the law enforcement community has been somewhat quiet about the legislation.
Judiciary Chair Klint KESTO (R-Commerce Twp.) said today that reporting bills would ultimately help determine what needs to be done.
“Everybody has their opinion we should go in this direction or that direction,” Kesto said. “That’s premature. Let’s get the data.”
Shattuck and her attorney, Michael KOMORN, who testified today, said the reporting requirements are good first steps. But greater reform is needed. Komorn said he’s heard stories about individuals having all kinds of items seized under forfeiture, including a 1925 mandolin, Bridge cards and $37 out of a woman’s purse.
Many of the cases, like Shattuck’s, involve the state’s medical marijuana laws, which don’t fit with asset forfeiture, Komorn said.
The laws can be complicated and if a patient or grower isn’t following them exactly right, the person could be subject to forfeiture.
In an interview, he detailed a case of someone whose house was raided. Law enforcement kept the seized items for a year up until the start of the trial when they all of sudden gave the items back.
“You know why they do that? Because they can,” Komorn said. “There are no checks and balances.”
When Shattuck’s house was raided in July 2014, her children were home alone with Shattuck’s mother. Shattuck said the officers separated her mother from the children as the raid took place. Her children still talk about it, Shattuck said.
When they see a police car, the 9-year-old daughter asks, “Is it coming to my house?” Shattuck was eventually charged for crimes related to the manufacturing of marijuana. The case is ongoing.
Ginnifer HENCY, of Kimball, also shared her forfeiture story today. She said law enforcement raided her house, although she believes she was compliant with the state’s medical marijuana laws.
Police took iPads and phones, she said. “They have had my stuff for 10 months,” she said.
Thomas BUCKLEY, undersheriff of the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Office, said he read through the police reports of both Hency and Shattuck’s cases. “I don’t see anything in the report that anyone did anything improper,” he said.
The task force, which is funded through a millage, usually only seizes items that are involved in the crime itself or that can be directly tied to the crime, Buckley said.
And he said sometimes offenders store proceeds from drugs in unusual places. Because cases are ongoing, Buckley couldn’t provide many details about the situations. But he said the raids were part of a large investigation involving federal agents and multiple locations involved in drug dealing. “A lot of it was under the guise of legitimate medical marijuana,” Buckley said.
As for forfeiture overall, Buckey said he can’t speak for every law enforcement agency, but he believes it’s a positive. “It takes the profit out of the drug trade for a lot of people,” Buckley said.
In an interview earlier this year, Robert STEVENSON, a former law enforcement officer who now leads the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police, urged lawmakers to look beyond individual anecdotes when it comes to asset forfeiture.
Komorn had a different take. He said he has an office full of documents on cases where asset forfeiture was used inappropriately. “The system is broken,” he said, holding a stack of documents on other cases. “These are examples.”
Asked if stories like Shattuck’s and Hency’s are anecdotes or widespread problems, Kesto said he couldn’t answer that and he didn’t know the specific details of their cases. “These stories are anecdotal in nature,” Kesto said. “However, I think it’s unfortunate the way these woman told their stories. If that’s what happened, that’s a real, real problem and that cannot be tolerated. “That’s why we need the reporting bills to see what’s going on.”
ENROLLED HOUSE BILL No. 4851
Act No. 512 Public Acts of 2012
Approved by the Governor December 27, 2012
Filed with the Secretary of State December 28, 2012
EFFECTIVE DATE: April 1, 2013
ENROLLED HOUSE BILL No. 4834
Act No. 514 Public Acts of 2012
Approved by the Governor December 27, 2012
Filed with the Secretary of State December 28, 2012
EFFECTIVE DATE: April 1, 2013
PLEASE VISIT THESE SITES FOR THE MOST CURRENT INFORMATION
Two days ago, the Michigan court of Appeals heard oral arguments for several cases involving registered caregivers who allegedly sold marijuana to undercover police agents posing as certified patients. These highly anticipated cases stem from a 2010 operation which shut down Ferndale dispensary, Clinical Relief.
Tonight on Green Trees Radio we will speak with Stuart Friedman, one of the defense attorneys for People V Clinical Relief. We will discuss the relevance and context of this particular case and how it may effect future litigation.
The defendants, who were accused of running an illegal dispensary, filed a motion to dismiss all charges based on the common law rule of lenity. They argued that at the time of arrest, the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act (MMMA) was ambiguous in regards to patient-to-patient sales of marijuana. The circuit court agreed with the defendants’ claim and dismissed all of the charges. Their case was challenged by the prosecutor and now has made it’s way to the Michigan Court of Appeals.
