As a member of the Special Committee on Criminal Justice Reform in the Missouri House of Representatives, I recently attended a public hearing where the issue of civil asset forfeiture was discussed. For the uninitiated, civil asset forfeiture is a process that allows the government to take your property or cash if they suspect it’s been involved in criminal activity, without getting a conviction or even charging you with a crime.
Want it back? The burden is now on you to prove your property isn’t guilty of anything. Oh, and if your attempts to get your property back fail, the law enforcement agency that took it from you gets to sell it and keep the proceeds for itself.
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If this concept sounds ludicrous to you, you’re in good company. Last session, our committee voted unanimously in favor of legislation eliminating most such uses of civil asset forfeiture. During the aforementioned hearing, not a single positive aspect of the practice was argued.
Yet it still persists. The bill we passed out of committee was stalled in the legislative process, following a sizable behind-the-scenes effort to kill it.
“Why?” you may ask. In the past, when in the mood to be charitable, I would have said it’s due to a noble but ultimately misguided effort to creatively go after the bad guys. But having seen the results of civil asset forfeiture, I’m no longer in such a generous mood. Civil asset forfeiture is about money, full stop.
As in many states, the law in Missouri does recognize the dangers of civil forfeiture. It sets restrictions on its use (at least in theory). Even when prosecutors meet these restrictions, any proceeds from such forfeiture must go to public education, thus removing any incentive for law enforcement to abuse the practice for selfish motives. Seems reasonable, right?
Well, some police and prosecutors disagree. They want to keep all that delicious forfeiture cash for themselves, so they use a federal program to team up with the feds and sidestep state restrictions. Rather than file forfeiture cases in state court, they simply work with the feds to file federal cases instead. In exchange for providing this work-around, the feds get about 20% of the proceeds, while the local law enforcement agencies who pressed the charges get the other 80%. Schools end up with pennies, if anything at all.
This should outrage everyone. Care about state sovereignty? Under this process, our laws in Missouri don’t matter. Care about the concept of innocent until proven guilty? Too bad. Concerned about the integrity of the prosecutorial process? Oh well!
The Fourth and Fifth Amendments are designed to protect you from “unreasonable searches and seizures” and require “just compensation” for property taken for public use. Remember that time when three-fourths of the states ratified an amendment to repeal these provisions? Neither do I. Yet so many politicians apparently need to be reminded that such protections are still in place.
Despite the claims of prosecutors and other advocates of civil asset forfeiture, seizing property simply on a hunch that a crime has occurred is unreasonable. And using forfeiture proceedings for the purpose of gaining revenue can’t be seen as anything other than theft without compensation.
I have no doubt that the process is often used to go after legitimate “bad guys.” But the fact that agencies conspire with the federal government to bypass the protections afforded in state law invalidates any good faith motivations. Moreover, even criminals deserve due process and constitutionally protected rights.
I’m sure it’s tempting to read all this and think, “Who cares? I mean, this probably only happens to drug dealers, right?”
Setting aside the inaccuracy of that assumption, such thinking is exactly why our liberties are eroding every day. If the government can do this to them, they can do it to you, too. A violation of anyone’s rights is an offense to us all. We must stand together and end civil asset forfeiture on every level.
Tony Lovasco, a Republican, is a member of the Missouri House of Representatives, currently serving on the Ways and Means, Criminal Justice, and Downsizing State Government committees.
