New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, a Republican, signed a historic reform of civil forfeiture in her state earlier this year. The reform law cracked down on the much-abused practice by, among other things, requiring that defendants be convicted of crimes before government can cite those crimes to justify taking away their property. It also required that the proceeds of all forfeitures must go to the state’s general fund, so as to eliminate any profit motive for state agencies or local governments.
This admirable reform doesn’t sit well with officials in New Mexico’s largest city, Albuquerque, who have decided to exempt themselves from the law by pretending that the law does not apply to municipal forfeitures. The truth is they are addicted to easy revenues from seizing automobiles, which they then also, shockingly, drive around for their own personal use. They are headed for an important legal showdown that will determine not only a specific dispute in New Mexico, but also a broader national question of whether city governments may be a law unto themselves.
In most states, civil forfeiture allows government to take property away from people who are never charged with a crime. Thanks to the recent spotlight turned on to the topic by journalism and popular culture, Congress and state legislatures are considering reforms.
Property owners hit by forfeiture actions must reclaim what is theirs through expensive and time-consuming administrative court cases in which the presumption of innocence does not apply.
At the federal level, the IRS is a serial abuser of this power, frequently seizing cash from small businesses whose routine bank deposits happen to be of a size bureaucrats find suspicious. At the state and local level, real-life horror stories abound of police seizing cash from motorists without probable cause or reasonable suspicion. City governments have been known to confiscate houses on the pretext that the properties were somehow tangentially involved in crimes by people who don’t even own them.
One would expect that a sweeping reform like the one passed in New Mexico would change officials’ attitudes. Not so. The burghers of Albuquerque claim that municipal forfeiture programs are not mentioned explicitly in the new state law, so as far as they are concerned, it’s business as usual. They are being sued by two state legislators, one from each major party, who simply want to make them obey the law.
According to the Institute for Justice, an organization that has spearheaded civil forfeiture reform efforts nationwide and represents the two lawmakers, Albuquerque seized more than 8,300 cars, one for every 66 residents, between 2010 and 2014. The program hauls in more than $1 million a year.
To recover their property, owners must prove their innocence, for they are presumed guilty. They have only 10 days to initiate proceedings and must pay $50 just to get a hearing. As in most places where civil forfeiture is practiced, the procedures put property owners at a great enough disadvantage that many simply give up without a fight or agree to settlements. Those who do manage to get their cars back are charged for towing and storage anyway.
Most people agree that, like press restrictions and official state religions, civil forfeitures are not the sort of thing that should ever happen in America. But officials who think themselves above the law are even more pernicious. In Albuquerque, the two cancers afflict the body politic together. It will send a very bad message if the courts fail to crack down hard, or if the voters fail to punish their leaders’ arrogance.
