Posted on 02/15/2017 3:52:45 PM PST by nickcarraway
At a recent meeting with law enforcement, Donald Trump suggested ruining the career of an unnamed Texas legislator who had allegedly proposed eliminating civil asset forfeiture. In case you don’t know much about it, John Oliver has a great explanation: it’s a civil procedure that police can use to seize property from people when they believe the property was involved in a crime
But, it is notoriously hard to challenge, has been used in questionable ways against poorer people and people of color, and funds resulting from the sale of seized property are typically given to the seizing law enforcement agency, creating substantial motivation for abuse.
In his remark, Trump sidestepped a very large public policy problem. Imagine almost losing your house because your son sold a joint in it without your knowledge or losing the cash you had saved for a new car after a traffic stop for driving in the left lane too long without passing. Both happened—the housing case was in Philadelphia and the traffic stop in rural Texas, but these cases are examples of seizures throughout the United States.
Moreover, in most states, little information is required from police departments about how they use the funds, leading to abuses such as buying a margarita machine or expensive coffee machine with seized funds. It is something that progressives, libertarians, and even conservatives such as the Koch brothers are against.
An amazing amount of property is seized this way.
In 2012, the Justice Department alone seized $4.2 billion in assets, and that does not include other federal seizures held in other funds, or funds seized and retained by states. Civil seizure happens easily because technically the government’s problem is with your property, which has no constitutional rights, not with you, who does.
So, your property can be taken with very little evidence beyond suspicion. Attempts to resist are often met with threats about what will happen if one persists, and it’s hard to challenge even if you move past the threats.
Civil asset forfeiture is seen as an important tool in combatting drug cartels and other criminal conspiracies because its much lower burden of proof allows police to seize property even when they cannot gain criminal convictions. That lower burden of proof plays a major role in both the tactical utility and ability to misuse this procedure. Over time, it has increasingly helped to fund departments too, allowing police departments to buffer the ravages of state and local budget crises, even while other aspects of government have withered.
However, its misuse and the clear incentives to misuse it mean that if it is going to stay, we need to figure out how to preserve the good while limiting the bad. Some have suggested changes that would make it easier to challenge forfeitures such as assuming owners are innocent until proven otherwise, or requiring police meet a higher burden of proof such as clear and convincing evidence, both of which I support.
However, I suggest a simpler solution: state legislatures should require that any funds from the sale of seized assets go to supplement (not replace) funding to public defender’s offices. While some have suggested lessening the profit motivation for police by moving funds into general revenue funds, we know from the rising use of fees in criminal courts, this is no panacea as city officials may still pressure police to seize assets.
Using the money to fund public defenders is simpler.
If you want to curb the improper use of civil asset forfeiture, make the incentives work so that law enforcement will only use it when they really need to. Not only would seized assets no longer directly benefit their budgets, it would fund the attorneys that help keep their actions in check in the criminal courts.
When police really needed to bust cartels, the procedure remains at police disposal. When it is not needed, police will not see themselves or their city or state bosses (who control their annual budgets and approve their benefits packages) as benefiting from over-using it. And, future proceeds will go to support attorneys who defend individuals who face long odds in the criminal justice system already.
It avoids unnecessary commissions and oversight bodies by just flipping the incentives. Perhaps instead of trying to ruin someone’s career for working on an important issue, Mr. Trump could work to find practical and common sense reforms for policies that do some good but also do a lot of bad at the same time.
I’m all for “judicial” asset forfeiture of proven bad guys assets particularly if they are involved in dope peddling, child molesting or human trafficking.
But, there is no legitimate dispute that this procedure has been abused and needs to be looked at and recalibrated.
Drops this and then never actually quotes what he said. Wonder what it was?
There is legitimate dispute that it has been abused.
Look up Florida internet stings and what they did for a long time during them. Finally the push back has made some ground.
Most LEO’s don’t abuse it. But some do.
Let’s not damn it because of “its misuse and the clear incentives to misuse it”, let’s damn it because it is the tactic of a police state, a trampling of our founding principles and documents, whether you’re applying it to Carlos the Jackal or Melvin the retired plumber.
Civil “forfeiture” is one of the very few issues that everybody across the political spectrum agrees on, and that agreement is that it is hated and must be eliminated from our society. Get the conviction first — against an actual person.
Is it? Seems like they all like it.
"“Who's the state senator?” Trump asked. “Do you want to give his name? We'll destroy his career,” he joked, to laughter from the law enforcement officials in the room."
I don't see it as a laughing matter myself, especially as Trump's position on eminent domain and Sessions' position on "forfeiture" are well known (you'll have to look those up yourself) and equally objectionable.
ONLY if there is a conviction.
I’m not counting crooks. The left says it targets their pets, minorities and poor people, disproportionately. It would be nice for them to hate it because of its trampling of due process, but we’ll take their help.
It’s a woman state senator in Texas who proposes reining in the civil asset forfeiture laws in the Lone Star State.
I listened to the beginning of the Glen Beck Radio show (I know, I know) for the first time in a long time this morning, and this woman was a guest on Beck’s show. Her proposed law is reasonable.
In any matter where the underlying issue is criminal in nature there should NEVER be any form of civil liability without an actual conviction first.
Have none of you here figured out HOW TO have but not on paper?...Therefore you are worthless to persons/institutions that measure by possession? And for some reason they do not pursue a net loss?
Taking away the property from a criminal sounds good, but it also disinherits the inheritors. They may be totally innocent.
can’t get blood from a stone...have you all forgotten?
The proven solution is to require a conviction by a jury.
No simple charges filed.
No plea bargains.
Strictly a potentiality upon conviction by a jury.
I agree but what if he plead Guilty?
Then if the government wants the assets seized they still have to win in a jury trial.
So, your saying SPLIT the process. Meaning, in my illustration, perp pleads guilty and goes off to prison; AND, in your case, if the government wants the perps assets, they have to file a civil suit to get them.
I don’t agree in a pleads guilty situation. Example: What if he plead guilty to selling tons of cocaine that ended up in thousands of kids veins and killed hundreds of them. The taxpayers should be able to just take his money via a judicial finding of facts and a ruling based on those facts. We shouldn’t have to go to the expense of another jury trial AGAIN to get the bastards assets.
You and I are in complete agreement though that as currently applied it is woefully unfair in way too many cases and often is used by LEO’s as a revenue source.
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