Civil asset forfeiture fund proceeds are up $1.6 billion and growing as police & prosecutors profit.

Arlington, VA.- Georgia’s civil forfeiture laws are among the worst in the nation but the problems are made worse by a lack of public accountability, as a new report from the Institute for Justice called Rotten Reporting in the Peach State details. Even though a 2011 lawsuit forced some agencies to start filing forfeiture reports, many state reports lack basic details necessary for proper public oversight. Without greater transparency, it is difficult for citizens or public officials to know how forfeiture and its proceeds are being used. State law should be reformed to allow for better and more consistent reporting from all agencies.

Under Georgia’s civil forfeiture laws, law enforcement agencies can seize and keep cars, cash and other private property that is merely suspected of being involved in criminal activity. 

Unlike criminal forfeiture, a property owner facing civil forfeiture need not be found guilty of a crime—or even charged with a crime—to permanently lose his or her possessions.

The problem at the core of civil forfeiture is the perverse financial incentive that encourages law enforcement to “police for profit” rather than seek the neutral administration of justice. 

Under Georgia law, law enforcement agencies that take property are allowed to keep 90 percent of the proceeds, after a 10 percent processing fee is paid to the District Attorney’s office.

Forfeiture reform should improve public oversight by creating uniform reporting standards and requiring all agencies to follow them, and it should also address the substantive problems with Georgia’s laws by following three principles embodied in the Institute for Justice (IJ’s) forfeiture model legislation: (1) A conviction should be required before final title to property is transferred to the state; (2) an innocent owner who is not suspected of any wrongdoing should quickly get back seized property; and (3) police and prosecutors should not profit from enforcing forfeiture laws.

Reforms like these would allow the state to be tough on crime while still respecting property rights. Convicted criminals would lose ill-gotten gains, and innocent people would not lose their property to overzealous police or prosecutors whose budgets benefit from the taking.

“Civil forfeiture represents one of the biggest threats to property rights in Georgia,” said Lee McGrath, IJ’s legislative counsel. “Georgia has been plagued with forfeiture abuse and it’s time the legislature reformed its forfeiture laws. Rotten Reporting highlights how the perverse financial incentive and significant lack of transparency invite abuse, and what Georgia can do to protect the property rights of all Georgians.”
 http://www.ij.org/georgia-asset-forfeiture-release-1-29-2013

Arizona’s profit incentive in civil forfeiture:
http://www.ij.org/images/pdf_folder/private_property/forfeiture/az-forfeiture-report.pdf

Minnesota’s forfeiture laws stack the deck against property owners.
http://www.ij.org/images/pdf_folder/other_pubs/stacked-deck.pdf 

Institute for Justice scores major federal court victory in Massachusetts civil forfeiture case.
 
In a major triumph for property rights, a federal court in Massachusetts dismissed a civil forfeiture action against the Motel Caswell, a family-run motel in Tewksbury, handing a complete victory to owners Russell and Patricia Caswell.  In one of the most contentious civil forfeiture fights in the nation, Magistrate Judge Judith G. Dein of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts concluded, based on a week-long bench trial in November 2012, that the motel was not subject to forfeiture under federal law and that its owners were wholly innocent of any wrongdoing.

The Institute for Justice (IJ) and local counsel Schlossberg, LLC, brought the case to trial to expose the injustices of civil forfeiture laws that allow law enforcement agencies to pad their budgets by taking property from innocent owners who have never been convicted or even charged with a crime.
Federal Court ruling (pdf).

“This is a complete victory for the Caswell family and for the protection of private property rights,” said Scott Bullock, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice.  “The Caswells will keep their motel, and private property rights are preserved.”

The government had sought to take the Motel Caswell from the Caswell family under the theory that the motel allegedly facilitated drug crimes.  But the court found that Mr. Caswell “did not know the guests involved in the drug crimes, did not know of their anticipated criminal behavior at the time they registered as guests, and did not know of the drug crimes while they were occurring.”

“This outrageous forfeiture action should never have been filed in the first place,” said Larry Salzman, an IJ attorney.  “What the government did amounted to little more than a grab for what they saw as quick cash under the guise of civil forfeiture.”

Caswell said, “I couldn’t have fought this fight without the help of the Institute for Justice.  It is hard to believe anything like this goes on in our country, but the government goes after people they think can’t afford to fight.  But with IJ’s help, we put up a heck of a fight and have won.  The public needs to stand up against these abuses of power.”

The Problem of civil forfeiture is widespread.  In 1986, the year after the U.S. Department of Justice’s Asset Forfeiture Fund was created—the fund that holds the forfeiture proceeds from properties forfeited under federal law and available to be paid out to law enforcement agencies—it took in just $93.7 million.  Today, it holds more than $1.6 billion.  

An Institute for Justice report, Inequitable Justice:  How Federal “Equitable Sharing” Encourages Local Police and Prosecutors to Evade State Civil Forfeiture Law for Financial Gain, documents how the problem is growing worse.  Between 2000 and 2008, equitable sharing payments from the U.S. Department of Justice to state and local law enforcement doubled from about $200 million to $400 million per year.

“Civil forfeiture is a draconian power that is too easily abused,” said Darpana Sheth, an IJ attorney.  “This case epitomizes what an aggressive U.S. attorney wielding these laws can do to a small property owner like Russ Caswell.”
 http://www.ij.org/images/pdf_folder/private_property/forfeiture/inequitable_justice-mass-forfeiture.pdf