Washington Times editorial board praises Rand's bill to rein in asset forfeiture

[jct74]

EDITORIAL: Stopping police asset-forfeiture predators
Left and right agree that civil-forfeiture laws must be radically reformed

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Friday, July 25, 2014

When the public is more afraid of the cops than the bad guys, the system is broken. There’s reason for some law-abiding Americans to worry about their pocketbook becoming lighter after a visit from the lawman. Bonnie and Clyde never pretended to be anything but robbers.

A 64-year-old Texas woman, for example, was accused of being a drug dealer simply because she was carrying cash in her pickup truck from the sale of her land. The cops took her money, though she had never been convicted of a crime in her life. She had to sue in federal court to get all of her money back.

A family grocery store in Michigan was threatened by the IRS for “money laundering” because they handled money in the way their insurance policy required. Car owners giving friends a lift in New York City suffer their vehicles seized because the Taxi Commission thinks they’re operating an illegal cab.

...

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky wants to stop this abuse with a bill that he calls the Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration Act. It would eliminate the profit motive by requiring law enforcement agencies to send the money seized directly into the Treasury. The act would require cops to follow all applicable state laws, which would put a stop to local jurisdictions that have used federal seizure statutes to evade strict laws. Some states, such as Minnesota, have cracked down on forfeiture abuse.

...

Given the gridlock in Washington, this is a proposal that ought to advance, given its wide appeal across party lines. The American Civil Liberties Union has been outspoken on the need to rein in forfeiture laws, and so have conservative and libertarian groups, such as the Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute.

Democrats and Republicans alike ought to put this forfeiture reform on President Obama’s desk. It’s a golden opportunity for a bit of bipartisanship in a town that could use some.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...ice-predators/

[Anti Federalist]

Rand Paul introduces bill to reform civil asset forfeiture

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/t...et-forfeiture/

By Radley Balko July 25 at 10:22 AM 

This is a pretty big deal, especially if Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) can round up enough co-sponsors to build some momentum.

Sen. Rand Paul yesterday introduced S. 2644, the FAIR (Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration) Act, which would protect the rights of citizens and restore the Fifth Amendment’s role in seizing property without due process of law. Under current law, law enforcement agencies may take property suspected of involvement in crime without ever charging, let alone convicting, the property owner. In addition, state agencies routinely use federal asset forfeiture laws; ignoring state regulations to confiscate and receive financial proceeds from forfeited property.

The FAIR Act would change federal law and protect the rights of property owners by requiring that the government prove its case with clear and convincing evidence before forfeiting seized property.

The bill would also require states “to abide by state law when forfeiting seized property.” This is important. Currently, a number of state legislatures across the country have passed reform bills to rein in forfeiture abuses. The problem is that the federal government has a program known as “adoption” or “equitable sharing.” Under the program, a local police agency need only call up the Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives or similar federal agency. That agency then “federalizes” the investigation, making it subject to federal law. The federal agency then initiates forfeiture proceedings under the laxer federal guidelines for forfeiture. The feds take a cut and then return the rest — as much as 80 percent — back to the local agency. This trick thwarts the intent of state legislature that have attempted to make civil forfeiture more fair when it comes to burden of proof, protections for innocent property owners and eliminating the perverse incentive of allowing forfeiture proceeds to go to the same police agency that made the seizure.

Which brings us to a final important provision in the bill: It would “would remove the profit incentive for forfeiture by redirecting forfeitures assets from the Attorney General’s Asset Forfeiture Fund to the Treasury’s General Fund.” Read the full text of the bill here.

Paul, along with Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), appears to be walking the walk when it comes to criminal justice reform. In addition to the redemption bill he and Booker co-sponsored that I wrote about a few weeks ago, Paul also recently introduced a bill that would bar the federal government from prosecuting medical marijuana patients in states where medical marijuana is legal.

I’ve seen some critics on social media and elsewhere point out that Paul appears to be positioning himself for a presidential run, so this may just all be part of his run-up to 2016. As I wrote in my prior post, I’m skeptical of the notion. This particular bill notwithstanding (civil asset forfeiture is extremely unpopular, and there is actually a history of Republican-led reform on this issue), it seems unlikely that most of these reforms are going to help Paul in the Republican primaries. And as Emily Bazelon has pointed out, it isn’t at all clear how a policy such as restoring voting rights to felons would benefit Republicans. It’s far more likely to hurt them. It seems to me that Paul is actually leading on these issues.

But even if Paul’s reform crusade is all political posturing, so what? If these bills pass and result in needed reforms, I doubt that the former prisoners with restored voting rights, the victims of forfeiture abuse or the ex-inmates who can now pursue a second chance at life with a clean record will care much about the motivations of the sponsors of the bills that made those things happen.

More encouraging, think about what this allegation that Paul is posturing really means. In 1996, the House speaker sponsored a bill that would have allowed for the execution of marijuana distributors. That former speaker, Newt Gingrich, more recently advocated for prison reform. (Aside: It’s worth noting that Gingrich is all over the place on these issues — in the same year that he wrote the linked op-ed, he praised the draconian drug policies of Singapore, where drug dealers can face mandatory execution.) A U.S. president who left office as recently as 1992 once suggested something similar.

Today, two states have decriminalized marijuana, at least two more will soon vote on the matter, and not only is a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination introducing bills to dramatically reform the criminal justice system, some of his critics are suggesting that he’s only doing so because it is politically popular. That’s a huge amount of progress in a short amount of time.

[Anti Federalist]

///