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Like a bad skin disease that spreads rapidly once it takes hold, civil asset forfeiture grew rapidly for several decades, in the 80s and 90s especially. Once law enforcement agencies figured out how to turn it into an easy means of padding their budgets without much public scrutiny, they ran with it. Forfeiture laws originally meant to allow the confiscation of the great wealth amassed by drug overlords, were increasingly applied to seize small amounts of property owned by people who were merely suspected of having some connection with illegal activity. Many thousands of innocent Americans have had cash, cars,...

Gov. Doug Ducey signed legislation Wednesday that will make it tougher for prosecutors and law enforcement to seize cash and property from people suspected of a crime, effectively overhauling the state's civil forfeiture laws despite opposition from state prosecutors. Ducey signed the measure after being caught between the state legislature and county prosecutors. House Bill 2477 by Republican Rep. Eddie Farnsworth is meant to reform rules dictating when prosecutors can seize someone's assets. Officers can currently seize property based on suspicion alone without the need of a conviction or a charge. Police and prosecutors acquire Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization or...

The legitimate purpose of government? It is to protect citizens from force and fraud, to defend individuals against violent and criminal attacks on their persons and property, and, beyond that, to leave them at liberty to pursue their own happiness. Tyranny, conversely, is what we call governments that engage in force and fraud, committing violent and criminal acts against innocent people — even when those crimes are cloaked in the costume of legality. In these United States, at this modern moment in time, which is it? Do we live in a legitimately governed country or an abject tyranny? Or is...

Imagine if something like this happened to you. You are away on a trip when you get word that your son was involved in a serious accident. You rush home and find out that he had taken your late-model SUV, driven it while drunk, and wrecked the vehicle beyond the point of repair. The dumb kid is all right, but facing charges for his criminal drunk driving. But that’s not all. Because your vehicle was involved in the commission of a crime, it is subject to seizure under the state’s civil asset forfeiture law. Therefore, you stand to lose big...

Justice Clarence Thomas questions the constitutionality of taking property from motorists with civil procedures. The idea that the government can take away someone's car or cash without due process offends at least one member of the US Supreme Court. In a statement Monday, Justice Clarence Thomas called on his colleagues to revisit civil asset forfeiture, the process that allows prosecutors to go after assets allegedly linked in some way to a crime. The justice argued the system has been widely abused. "Civil proceedings often lack certain procedural protections that accompany criminal proceedings, such as the right to a jury trial...

Sen. Rand Paul has long taken the lead in calling for the reform of civil asset forfeiture laws, a controversial police practice in which authorities basically steal the property of citizens without due process and little recourse. Billions have been seized from citizens by the police based on nothing more than suspicion, which many see as a direct violation of the Fifth Amendment. It’s state-sanctioned theft. “Under civil forfeiture laws, your property is guilty until you prove it innocent,” says the Institute for Justice’s Scott Bullock. On Thursday, Sen. Paul reintroduced FAIR (Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration) Act, which specifically addresses...

So, you’re sitting on millions of dollars’ worth of confiscated property. You want to give your workers a raise, but federal rules bar you from using seized assets to fund salaries. What’s an attorney general to do? Well, if you’re Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, you turn to a strange source for the solution: the very U.S. Justice Department officials who are responsible for enforcing the rules you want to skirt. They told Herring he could use the funds to cover routine costs “so long as your overall budget does not decrease.” Herring promptly started using seized funds to cover...

In a White House meeting with county sheriffs from around the nation on February 7, President Trump sided with the law enforcement community in opposing change in the nation’s civil asset forfeiture laws. Here is the transcript of that meeting, and the president’s flippant attitude (he joked about destroying the career of a state senator in Texas who had proposed a bill to reform civil asset forfeiture) and eagerness to stay in the good graces of the sheriffs are very bad news. Shortly after the election, I wrote that Trump should become a proponent of civil asset forfeiture and defang...

By a very large measure, Americans oppose civil asset forfeiture. They think that it is wrong for the government to take property from someone who has not been convicted of any crime. The most recent evidence showing that is found in a recent Cato Institute survey on public attitudes toward the police and in it, 84 percent said they oppose allowing the police to seize a person’s property on mere suspicion that he may have been involved in crime. Unfortunately, it seems that Donald Trump’s choice for Attorney General, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, is among that small minority of...

Nationwide, proceeds from sales of seized property (homes, cars, etc.) go to the seizers. And under a federal program, state and local law enforcement can partner with federal authorities in forfeiture and reap up to 80 percent of the proceeds. This is called — more Orwellian newspeak — “equitable sharing.” No crime had been committed in the Sourovelises’ house, but the title of the case against them was Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. 12011 Ferndale St. Somehow, a crime had been committed by the house. In civil forfeiture, it suffices that property is suspected of having been involved in a crime....

The U.S. Border Patrol says over $3 million has been seized after it was found on Tuesday inside two cars in Escondido, California. ... The cash was being smuggled from the U.S. into Mexico.

During his speech after the election results had made it clear that he would be the next president, Donald Trump promised that he would be “president for all the people.” No winning candidate ever says otherwise, but once in office they usually proceed to enact a host of laws that make things better for their most vociferous supporters while doing little or nothing for ordinary Americans. The “president of all the people” promise is soon forgotten. There are many actions that Trump could take to make life better for ordinary people whether they supported him or not. One of them...

The Saginaw County Sheriff’s Department has yet to explain how 56,000 miles were added to the odometer of a classic muscle car that it seized and held for over a year before selling it. The county also denied a Freedom of Information Act request for more documents regarding the vehicle following a previous article detailing the civil asset forfeiture case. On Sept. 13, it was reported that 56,000 miles had been added to a 1965 Chevy Nova SS, which was owned by Shiawassee County couple Gerald and Royetta Ostipow, while it was in the possession of the department. Information in...

Today, Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB 443, one of the most important reforms for civil forfeiture in recent years. ... The new law is aimed at closing a loophole that allowed law enforcement to evade state protections. -- snip -- Through a federal forfeiture program called “equitable sharing,” state and local law enforcement agencies may collaborate with a federal agency, like the DEA or ICE, and forfeit seized property under federal law, even if that would circumvent California’s more stringent protections for property owners. But starting next year, [CA] agencies will first need to obtain any criminal conviction before they...

A year after the Saginaw County Sheriff seized a classic muscle car from a Shiawassee County couple, it sold the car — with another 54,000 miles that had been logged in the interim. Last month, the couple filed a federal lawsuit over the car and other items that had been seized and then sold by the department. The department's actions grew out of a 2008 investigation for possible drug crimes, but the couple was never convicted or even charged with a crime. Gerald and Royetta Ostipow filed the lawsuit on Aug. 24 with the U.S. District Court in Detroit against...

... One state where [civil asset forfeiture] reform sailed through the legislature with no opposition is New Mexico, where a very fair law was signed last year by Governor Martinez. That, however, was not enough to put an end to an extraordinarily aggressive system in Albuquerque, where the politicians had gotten hooked on funds derived from forfeited cars and other property. The claim by Albuquerque officials that the law did not apply to the city led to a suit filed by two state senators, Lisa Torraco and Daniel Ivey-Soto, to compel the city to obey. I wrote about that case...

It is a basic principle of American law that the government may not deprive citizens of their property without due process. But, according to the Michigan Court of Appeals, at least one Michigan statute lets the state do exactly that. When Shantrese Kinnon and her husband were arrested on drug charges in Kent County, the police searched her home and seized some property, including a GMC Denali, a Chevrolet El Camino, a motorcycle, a tablet, a laptop, and nearly $400 in cash from her purse. Even though the couple had not yet been convicted of a crime, a scheme known...

If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, it is likely that your Second Amendment rights will mean nothing. The constitutional protections we have depended on for years have failed when the liberals control a court; and it is likely that Hillary will redefine all courts. The liberals’ successful record of civil asset forfeitures provides a fine example of how they can get around the constitutional protections provided by the Fifth and Second Amendments. In many civil asset forfeiture cases, the citizen has not been found guilty of any crime, but the government swoops in to seize—pardon me, to force the forfeiture...

Republican political consultant Mike Madrid isn't used to getting calls from the ACLU, and yet he has found himself working with the civil liberties group because some practices are so egregious that Republicans and Democrats should have no trouble finding common cause. The issue is civil asset forfeiture -- also known as "policing for profit." The federal government can seize your property, and the only way you can get it back is to prove you are not guilty of a crime. California law prohibits local authorities from permanently seizing most property without a conviction, but there's a loophole in the...

Forfeiture is the process of transferring of property or cash from citizens to the government and is done at the state and national level. Sometimes, it happens through the criminal justice system. A person is charged with and convicted of a crime and the court determines if the the defendant acquired assets (usually cars or cash) through illegal activity. If the court says yes, those assets can be forfeited to the state. But, increasingly, law enforcement is using civil forfeiture — a process which goes through the civil system rather than the criminal system. In civil forfeiture, assets can be...