Legislative Lowdown – The Latest News on the Law.

By Rick Dalton

Legislative Lowdown  / Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace officers Association  / Prepared by Rick Dalton  29 July 2023

Civil Asset Forfeiture

The Department of Justice Asset Forfeiture Program encompasses the seizure and forfeiture of assets that represent the proceeds of, or were used to facilitate federal crimes. The primary mission of the Program is to employ asset forfeiture powers in a manner that enhances public safety and security. This is accomplished by removing the proceeds of crime and other assets relied upon by criminals and their associates to perpetuate their criminal activity against our society. Asset forfeiture has the power to disrupt or dismantle criminal organizations that would continue to function if we only convicted and incarcerated specific individuals.  ~Source: http://www.justice.gov/afp~

The problem, as it is explained by the Institute for Justice, is that every year, police and prosecutors across the United States take hundreds of millions of dollars in cash, cars, homes and other property—regardless of the owners’ guilt or innocence. Under civil forfeiture laws, the government can seize this property on the mere suspicion that it is connected to criminal activity. No charges or convictions are required. And once property is seized, owners must navigate a confusing, complex and often expensive legal process to try to win it back. Worst of all, most civil forfeiture laws give law enforcement agencies a powerful incentive to take property: a cut, or even all, of forfeiture proceeds….

Forfeited cash and proceeds from the sale of forfeited property generate revenue for the government—and provide an important measure of law enforcement’s forfeiture activity.

In 1986, the Department of Justice’s Assets Forfeiture Fund took in $93.7 million in revenue from federal forfeitures. By 2014, annual deposits had reached $4.5 billion—a 4,667 percent increase.

The forfeiture funds of the DOJ and Treasury Department together took in nearly $29 billion from 2001 to 2014, and combined annual revenue grew 1,000 percent over the period.

Total annual forfeiture revenue across 14 states more than doubled from 2002 to 2013. Those 14 states were the only states for which the Institute for Justice could obtain forfeiture revenues for an extended period.

Civil forfeiture laws pose one of the greatest threats to property rights in the nation today. They encourage law enforcement to favor the pursuit of property over the pursuit of justice, and they typically give the innocent little recourse for recovering seized property. And without meaningful transparency, law enforcement faces little public accountability for its forfeiture activity or expenditures from forfeiture funds.

~Source:  http://ij.org/report/policing-for-profit/executive-summary/

The CSPOA’s position is that asset forfeiture is only appropriate after a conviction.  This is the only method that falls in line with constitutionally founded principles such as due process, search and seizure, and innocent until proven guilty.  And even in these cases, it is a conflict of interest for those confiscating those assets to benefit therefrom!  Otherwise, this is a recipe for corruption.