Posted on 12/26/2015 3:03:36 PM PST by Kaslin
Perhaps the omnibus passed last week had at least one small silver lining. The Department of Justice notified police departments that it would no longer provide them with an option of partnering with them on asset forfeiture cases and sharing the proceeds, thanks to budget cuts put in place in the final FY2016 budget. As the Washington Post’s Christopher Ingraham explains, the partnership allowed local police departments to evade tougher scrutiny on forfeiture cases and use the lax federal law to keep much more from their seizures:
The Department of Justice announced this week that it’s suspending a controversial program that allows local police departments to keep a large portion of assets seized from citizens under federal law and funnel it into their own coffers.
The “equitable-sharing” program gives police the option of prosecuting asset forfeiture cases under federal instead of state law. Federal forfeiture policies are more permissive than many state policies, allowing police to keep up to 80 percent of assets they seize — even if the people they took from are never charged with a crime.
The DOJ is suspending payments under this program due to budget cuts included in the recent spending bill.
“While we had hoped to minimize any adverse impact on state, local, and tribal law enforcement partners, the Department is deferring for the time being any equitable sharing payments from the Program,” M. Kendall Day, chief of the asset forfeiture and money laundering section, wrote in a letter to state and local law enforcement agencies.
It wasn’t just the budget cuts, but also the losses that the DoJ has sustained with the program:
In addition to budget cuts last year, the program has lost $1.2 billion, according to Day’s letter. “The Department does not take this step lightly,” he wrote. “We explored every conceivable option that would have enabled us to preserve some form of meaningful equitable sharing. … Unfortunately, the combined effect of the two reductions totaling $1.2 billion made that impossible.”
In truth, this program seems indefensible, both morally and on the basis of federalist principles. Let’s start with the latter. Local police have to operate within the Constitution, of course, but their oversight and accountability start with their local communities and the states in which they operate. States have responded to the controversies over asset forfeiture by restricting the circumstances in which police can seize, keep, and convert property to their own use. Having the federal government provide a back door around those restrictions in exchange for a share of the loot violates the federalist principles.
Morally, though, it’s even worse. It interferes with the relationship the police have with their communities in a way that erodes trust and accountability. If the local community and the state cannot create the legal code and the manner in which it is enforced, then the law enforcement agencies lose their moral authority to operate. Furthermore, states have passed laws limiting the percentage of assets police can keep to dial down the incentives for abuse. The DoJ program defeated those efforts.
Most egregiously, the DoJ provided a way to allow police to keep seized assets even in the absence of a conviction when they otherwise might not have been able to do so. That is itself a morally repugnant policy. That’s why some states and local communities have passed laws to prevent it — laws that the DoJ conspired to thwart.
This doesn’t make the omnibus a good bill, or even an acceptable compromise. It’s terrible for a number of reasons. However, when it comes to FY2017’s budget, let’s keep this particular cut in place and put a stake through the heart of this particular end run around federalism.
This is probably a cynical observation, however my read is that due to the so-called budget cuts, the Feds are keeping it all for themselves.
That it is stopped at the local level is heartening. However, there has been many more articles about abuses by the Federal agencies on unsuspecting and innocent Americans in all walks of life and a relative few by local.
The most egregious example of local is Waco Twin Peaks.
This is probably a cynical observation, however my read is that due to the so-called budget cuts, the Feds are keeping it all for themselves.
That it is stopped at the local level is heartening. However, there has been many more articles about abuses by the Federal agencies on unsuspecting and innocent Americans in all walks of life and a relative few by local.
The most egregious example of local is Waco Twin Peaks.
Get that dollar!
The looters fighting over who gets the loot.
No honor among thieves.
If the local cops can’t keep it, they’ll stop taking it. Departments actually depend on this money and have worked it into their budget.
Only the federal government could lose money in a program whereby they legally steal money.
Exactly, not mentioned in the article is all the costs that the state and locals have to eat when the perp is arrested by the feds and the US Attorney declined prosecution because the case does not meet their arbitrary guidelines.
These people are then dumped on the state and locals who have to cover the costs of prosecution and incarceration, probation.
This happens hundreds of times a day across the country. The state and locals should decline to prosecute any federal referrals unless the feds share the costs.
The money typically paid for the upgraded cars, fancier computers, high-end modular furniture, and expensive weapon choices for the state or local cops. They can probably exist a year or so without the funding but it’ll eventually turn into some Congressional solution episode and they invent a law which mandates the money ‘must be’ shared. Personally, I’d rather see the money get put into some federal bucket and mandated to only be spent only on roads or bridges.
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