A conservative Virginia lawmaker is tackling one of the most abuse-prone practices of law enforcement: civil asset forfeiture.
Civil asset forfeiture allows police to seize property from citizens who have not been convicted of—or even charged with—a crime. They then usually keep most or all of what they take, which is often large amounts of cash or vehicles.
The police need only suspect, based on the “preponderance of the evidence,” that the property they seize is somehow involved in a crime. The property’s owners are guilty until proven innocent.
Virginia Delegate Mark Cole wants to change the law to require a criminal conviction before seizing personal property.
“While I certainly do not want to make the job of our law enforcement officials harder, I believe we need to strengthen our property protections to avoid potential abuse or the taking of property from an innocent person,” Cole told Watchdog.org.
The state of Virginia received a D- grade on its forfeiture record from the Institute for Justice, which monitors civil asset forfeiture cases. Between 1996 and 2007, the state raked in over $7.2 million from the practice.
The effects of wrongful asset forfeiture can be devastating. One man, Mandrel Stuart of Staunton Virginia, lost his business when police took $17,550 from him after they pulled him over for having tinted windows and a video playing in the car. He was never charged with a crime.
The Washington Post reported this year that police have been using seized cash to prop up their budgets and purchase millions of dollars worth of guns, surveillance equipment, and armored cars. Other spending included a $4,600 “Sheriff’s Award Banquet” in New Mexico, and a $637 coffee maker for a sheriff’s department in Amarillo, Tex.
The more ridiculous aspects of the law also got some attention from John Oliver this month. Since police supposedly suspect the property itself, as opposed to a person, of being involved in a crime, Oliver highlighted cases like “United States of America v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins” and “United States v. Article Consisting of 50,000 Cardboard Boxes More or Less, Each Containing One Pair of Clacker Balls.”
Civil asset forfeiture is often a liberal or libertarian cause, championed by groups like the libertarian Institute for Justice or the liberal American Civil Liberties Union. But Reason’s A. Barton Hinkle notes that Cole is hardly the libertarian type: he’s extremely socially conservative, and once sponsored a bill to protect people from having Book of Revelation-style “mark of the beast” microchips implanted in them. He is generally supportive of law enforcement, having helped secure funding for his county sheriff department.
And more conservatives are rallying behind him: Watchdog.org reports that Cole’s proposal is backed by both Tea Party groups and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Law enforcement is already pushing back against Cole’s proposal, claiming they risk too much by allowing criminals to potentially transfer their property to others ahead of their conviction.
Luckily Cole has the majority of America on his side. Rasmussen recently found that 70 percent of Americans think someone should be convicted of a crime before having their personal property taken.
