Law to Clean Up ‘Nuisances’ Costs Innocent People Their Homes

Jeff Sessions wants police to take more cash from American citizens
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/07/17/jeff-sessions-wants-police-to-take-more-cash-from-american-citizens

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday said he’d be issuing a new directive this week aimed at increasing police seizures of cash and property.

“We hope to issue this week a new directive on asset forfeiture — especially for drug traffickers,” Sessions said in his prepared remarks for a speech to the National District Attorney’s Association in Minneapolis. “With care and professionalism, we plan to develop policies to increase forfeitures. No criminal should be allowed to keep the proceeds of their crime. Adoptive forfeitures are appropriate as is sharing with our partners.”

Asset forfeiture is a disputed practice that allows law enforcement officials to permanently take money and goods from individuals suspected of crime. There is little disagreement among lawmakers, authorities and criminal justice reformers that “no criminal should be allowed to keep the proceeds of their crime.” But in many cases, neither a criminal conviction nor even a criminal charge is necessary — under forfeiture laws in most states and at the federal level, mere suspicion of wrongdoing is enough to allow police to seize items permanently.

Jeff Sessions Just Made it Easier For Law Enforcement to Seize Your Assets Even If You Haven’t Been Convicted of A Crime
▻http://www.theroot.com/jeff-sessions-just-made-it-easier-for-law-enforcement-t-1797073267

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The Justice Department announced on Wednesday that it will be restarting the controversial “adoptive forfeiture” program, which allows local police departments and law enforcement agencies to seize the property of people suspected of a crime, even if they haven’t been charged with or convicted of one.

This particular federal asset forfeiture program, which is a very lucrative revenue source for local enforcement, was shut down by the Obama administration, but the Washington Post reports that in the 12 months before then-Attorney General Eric Holder shut the program down in 2015, state and local authorities took in $65 million that they then shared with federal agencies.

Weekend Read: How ’highway robbery’ allows police to seize cash, property
▻https://www.splcenter.org/news/2017/07/22/weekend-read-how-highway-robbery-allows-police-seize-cash-property

Law enforcement may keep some or all of what they take, depending on the state. In 13 states and the District of Columbia, agencies are not required to record or report what they’ve taken — or how much it’s worth, or why it was confiscated in the first place.

It’s a power that opens the door for abuse by law enforcement, particularly cash-strapped agencies. Fortunately, 24 states have implemented reforms and even more have debated curbing the practice.

But this week, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced plans to expand forfeiture on a federal level.

“We plan to develop policies to increase forfeitures,” Sessions said in prepared remarks delivered Monday to the National District Attorneys Association. “No criminal should be allowed to keep the proceeds of their crime.”

But because a person does not need to have been convicted of – nor even charged with – a crime to have assets seized, it is often not criminals targeted by law enforcement. As Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in March:

These forfeiture operations frequently target the poor and other groups least able to defend their interests in forfeiture proceedings. … They are more likely to use cash than alternative forms of payment, like credit cards, which may be less susceptible to forfeiture. And they are more likely to suffer in their daily lives while they litigate for the return of a critical item of property, such as a car or a home.