Posted on 01/16/2015 2:07:39 PM PST by oblomov
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Friday barred local and state police from using federal law to seize cash, cars and other property without proving that a crime occurred.
Holder’s action represents the most sweeping check on police power to confiscate personal property since the seizures began three decades ago as part of the war on drugs.
Since 2008, thousands of local and state police agencies have made more than 55,000 seizures of cash and property worth $3 billion under a civil asset forfeiture program at the Justice Department called Equitable Sharing.
The program has enabled local and state police to make seizures and then have them “adopted” by federal agencies, which share in the proceeds. The program allowed police departments and drug task forces to keep up to 80 percent of the proceeds of the adopted seizures, with the rest going to federal agencies.
“With this new policy, effective immediately, the Justice Department is taking an important step to prohibit federal agency adoptions of state and local seizures, except for public safety reasons,” Holder said in a statement.
Holder’s decision allows some limited exceptions, including illegal firearms, ammunition, explosives and property associated with child pornography, a small fraction of the total. This would eliminate virtually all cash and vehicle seizures made by local and state police from the program.
While police can continue to make seizures under their own state laws, the federal program was easy to use and required most of the proceeds from the seizures to go to local and state police departments. Many states require seized proceeds to go into the general fund.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Holder didn’t end asset forfeiture. He ended a federal program that forced the splitting of the proceeds among local, state, and federal authorities. It’s an important first step, because the “free cash” flow has been a powerful incentive for keeping this atrocity going.
“The program has enabled local and state police to make seizures and then have them “adopted” by federal agencies, which share in the proceeds.”
Sounds to me like a bounty program. So, if they feds approved doing this for some crimes, why not for others like immigration enforcement??
On a serious note, I applaud this action but wonder why our esteemed AG would do this. What is the pay back for him and Barry.
“The 40 large they found in his trunk? Stays seized by the LEO’s.”
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Maybe I’m just a loose wingnut but I think if someone is crazy enough to haul a trunkload of cash in a car he should be able to do so unless someone can prove he came by it by commission of an actual crime. I used to carry a wallet stuffed with Benjamins simply because I wanted to be able to buy used equipment for cash, I then took it back to my business, reconditioned or completely rebuilt it and sold it to other businesses, all transactions were reported but in those days a lot of people would not accept checks or credit cards as payment for used machinery. If I were doing the same thing today I would probably have everything seized by the goobermint. Just why should it be Uncle’s business if someone has ten thousand in Benjamins on his hip? As things have stood for a long time if you let them know you have more than a few dollars in your wallet or in your car all they have to do is say they “BELIEVE” that it is drug money and seize it and they act as if two or three hundred dollars is still a lot of money when in reality it is a week or so of grocery money for a family now and nothing more. It is up to you then to prove it is NOT illegal gains so unless it is a really huge sum you will spend more trying to get it back than it is worth and probably not win anyway. If it IS a really huge sum then most likely it is illegal gains. It amounts basically to law enforcement acting in the manner of an old time highway robber and getting away with it.
You can believe one thing for certain, Holder is not doing this to protect the people, he has other motives.
“For once, Holder is doing the right thing. No one, including you can defend asset seizure. I think you probably don’t understand the issue and automatically assume Holder did the wrong thing.”
Doing away with asset seizure is the right thing.
It was done by holder the wrong way - by fiat and apart from law.
If it rests only on fiat, it can be changed by the next guy.
So the locals can still continue the practice of keeping seized money without a conviction.
Police spent the seizure proceeds with little oversight, in some cases buying luxury cars, high-powered weapons and military-grade gear such as armored cars, according to an analysis of Justice Department data obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests.
Local police department oversight should be done at the local level. It's none of the Feds business.
Meanwhile the Feds (including the IRS) continue to keep seized cash without the requirement of a conviction and that continues with apparently little oversight.
This is what Obama and Holder are striving for. A Federal Police State with no competition or power at the local level.
They don't care about unconstitutional seizures.
Yet we have people here who can say nothing more than "Holder did the right thing".
Naw, it was an A-10 Warthog.
Good insight and analysis.
[ Just to throw this idea out there - Let the cops and prosecutors keep doing what they are doing now, but if the person is found not guilty the county will have to pay them back double the cash value of what was seized PLUS 10% interest per month.
Put some skin for the locals in the game and see how fast the practice cleans itself up. Only a open and shut case would then be seized, and not like now as a revenue base. ]
THERE IT IS! A SOLUTION!
Me, too. Cops have been abusing this law since day one. People get their personal property taken from then without a even being charged.
If you are stopped by the cops and have a load of cash on you they can take it. Federal Marshals used to go around in airports asking people if they had a lot of cash on them. If they did, it was taken under the pretense they were probably going somewhere to buy drugs. One guy owned a nursery and was going to buy some trees from a seller who would only take case. (This was before it was easy to get cash anywhere.) The money was taken from him by federal marshals. This was on 20/20 back when they did investigative reporting.
The “authorities” have been trampling on peoples’ rights for decades and it’s only gotten worse.
I was reading a piece by Frank Serpico the other day. He says things are just as bad as always. He also said “Cops today have an us vs them attitude.”
The problem with your proposal is if the feds take everything you got then you don’t have the money to hire a decent attorney. And believe me, they take money for that exact reason.
“Why is the whole administration ruling by fiat?
Why isn’t the republican oligarchy doing anything??”
“Holder’s action comes as members of both parties in Congress are working together to craft legislation to overhaul civil asset forfeiture. On Jan. 9, Sens. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), and Reps. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) and John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) signed a letter calling on Holder to end Equitable Sharing.
Grassley praised Holder’s decision on Friday. ‘We’re going to have a fairer justice system because of it,’ Grassley said.”
From the above Washington Post article.
” Holder and state/federal goons are still gonna grab your cash without due process. They just ain’t gonna share it with the locals.”
Nailed!
Holder’s FR nick: evil_sloth
Well, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
The exception will swallow the rule. It will mean that fewer seizures are “adopted” and more are the result of “collaboration” but the drug war gravy train will ride on.
http://reason.com/archives/2015/01/21/the-persistence-of-policing-for-profit
This reminds me of ten years ago, when a couple of the drug warriors around here were more open about supporting asset forfeiture and were busy trying to tell us that CAFRA had solved all these problems. It didn’t.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/1515174/posts?page=1136#1136
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/1072159/posts?q=1&;page=89#86
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1592490/posts?page=306#306
Too many of “his people” are getting caught up in the forfeiture property grabs is my guess.
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