Civil Asset Forfeiture

 

You're driving along a busy highway when you notice a neatly-dressed young man apparently hitch-hiking.  Feeling that someone dressed as he is probably doesn't pose much of a threat — and you've got a pistol with you — you pull to the curb and offer him a ride.  Within a half-mile, a police car pulls you over, for what you can't imagine.  The police have been surveilling this young gentleman because he's a suspected unregistered pharmaceuticals distributor.  In the subsequent search, he is found to be in possession of large quantities of contraband.  You are both detained.  Your car is towed.

At arraignment, you explain that you were merely giving a ride to someone who seemed to need one.  The police report seems to corroborate your tale.  That, and the fact that you have no 'record' to speak of, leads the prosecutor to decline to prosecute you.  Your passenger gets the book thrown at him.

When you ask where you go to get your car and your pistol back, you learn that both have been seized as instruments involved in a crime.  "But all charges against me have been dropped! I didn't commit any crime!" you object.  Everyone nods knowingly, then they explain that the pistol was in a car that was used to transport a criminal, presumably to a place where he could continue to do criminal things.  You're free to go; your car and your pistol are staying.

This is how 'civil asset forfeiture' (CAF) works.  Originally, it was an additional penalty laid upon lawbreakers that their tools would be lost to them and, hopefully, make future crimes more difficult and thus less likely.  During the last 80 to 100 years, prosecutors discovered that there's gold in them thar hills.  The first sign of a new wave of 'prospecting' by DAs happened when men trolling for prostitutes in the seedier parts of town ran afoul of scantily-clad policewomen posing as hookers.  They would arrest the 'john' and seize the car.  Bonanza!  Nowadays, virtually anything serious that you're involved in — whether you're guilty or not — and this is the part most sane people find most incredible — is going to be accompanied by instant on-the-spot seizure of cars, cash, firearms, and even houses.  If it can be sold at auction, say good-bye to whatever it was.

Sure, you can get your stuff back, but in CAF cases, the state doesn't have to prove the item was connected to a crime — they collected it as part of an arrest or a search under reasonable suspicion — you have to prove that the item was not involved in a crime!  You have to get a lawyer, file a motion with the court, and contend against a system that has a large, taxpayer-funded budget for just such things.  You could spend $15,000 to get your $21,000 car back — if you win which, considering that the DA and the judge are both paid from the same budget, is not assured.  And if you win your car back, you'll still have to pay the storage charges, and that could be thousands more.

Something like that happened to Arlene Harjo of Albuquerque.  She let her son take the family car to the gym.  He went to a party instead.  There was alcohol.  He had some and got arrested on his way home.  APD seized the car.  It took her two years, but this last July, a federal appeals court judge ruled that Albuquerque's 'law' that allowed civil asset forfeiture without a conviction was unconstitutional.  That's two: New Mexico and North Carolina.  In the other 48 states, you can still lose your stuff to the system even though you aren't charged with, much less convicted of, anything criminal.

Now, you may think that CAF is a minor problem, and you might think so because you never hear about such things on the 6-o'clock news.  Think again.  Over the last dozen years or so, federal and state forfeitures amounted to more than the total for all burglaries nationwide.  Yes, the cops are a bigger problem than the robbers.

I urge you not to believe any of this, but rather to do your own research and discover what a big liar I am — heh heh heh.