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“We live in a stage of politics, where legislators seem to regard the passage of laws as much more important than the results of their enforcement.”
-William Howard Taft |
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Civil Asset Forfeiture
Gary Marbut, Montana Shooting Sports Association
I certainly didn’t know as much about this in Montana as I thought.
“An egregious abuse of liberty is something called “civil asset forfeiture.” Originally argued to take the profit out of crime, forfeiture of property has come to be a mainstay of many police agency budgets with expanded forfeiture authorities and no oversight. The net effect is to corrupt police agencies by turning them into robbers.
Doesn’t affect you because you don’t commit crimes, you say? Think again. For a person to have their home, bank accounts and other assets taken under forfeiture laws does not require that a person be convicted of any crime, or even charged with a crime. Suppose, for example, someone phones in an anonymous tip that you are trafficking in drugs, or laundering money. The police raid your home, but don’t find any drugs. They can still take your home under current forfeiture rules. It’s happened, more than once.
This is where the “civil” in “civil asset forfeiture” comes in. They files a civil lawsuit against your property – not against you, against your property (as in “State vs.. Blue House at 101 Elm St.) If you want to retain your property, you have to file a counter-suit to get it back. Your property is guilty until proven innocent. In this counter-suite you have the burden to prove, absolutely, that the house belongs to you AND that you have done nothing illegal.
It is very difficult to prove a negative, something the forfeiture authorities depend on. You’ll run up thousands of dollars in legal fees with small chance of winning. Most people just walk away from their assets under these conditions, when they hear from their lawyer how hopeless it is and how much it will cost to fight forfeiture. Besides, since the authorities have taken all of your assets (house, bank account, investments, etc.), you don’t have anything left to pay the legal bills. The authorities depend on this, too.
Montana laws about forfeiture are better than those in many other states. But, guess what, that doesn’t help. Here’s how they rig the game. If your assets should be forfeited, local police will turn that over to federal prosecutors, to get around the laws of states that are more restrictive and less authoritative than federal laws. After you lose in federal court, or give up, the feds give 80% of the forfeiture proceeds back to the local police agency that opened the action. This is called “federal return” of forfeiture proceeds.
It’s hard to believe all of the incredibly egregious instances where this scenario has played out. The national organization that works to reform forfeiture laws is “Forfeiture Endangers Americans’ Rights,” or F.E.A.R. They have a very informative Website at: http://www.fear.org.
One thing FEAR has been tracking lately is the extent of corruption in handling forfeiture proceeds. It seems as if nobody is accounting for the money that comes into police agencies form forfeiture actions – it often goes directly to special police funds that are not audited or supervised, or it just disappears within the police agency.
A bill to correct his problem was introduced in the Montana Legislature a few years ago. It required that a person’s assets could not be forfeited unless they were actually convicted of a crime. And, it required that all forfeiture proceeds, including “federal returns” must go into the general fund of the elected body that supervises the police (for accountability), such as the city council or the county commissioners. That bill didn’t pass because the police testified against it. Police testified that they’d be forced to shut down critical police functions if they weren’t allowed to take peoples property without conviction and without fiscal oversight. The bill died – was killed in committee because of police opposition!
Well, here’s the kicker. FEAR has discovered that the Colorado National Guard has been authorized to participate in forfeiture activities and to benefit financially from those activities. Here’s what FEAR says: “A new Colorado law, Colorado Revised Statutes (CRS) 16-13-601 and 28-3-1303 (2) designate the Colorado National Guard as a law enforcement agency for the limited purpose of participating in the Federal Asset Forfeiture Program.”
Not only have police agencies been corrupted by the profit motive of seizing peoples’ assets, but there is a move afoot to corrupt the National Guards as well – to get them hooked on the gravy train of legalized property theft.
If that doesn’t make your hair stand on end, I don’t know what will.
For a thorough and informative discussion of how civil asset forfeiture actually works, read Dean Koontz’s fictional but accurate account in his book “Dark Rivers of the Heart,” and/or visit the FEAR Website to study up on the topic of civil asset forfeiture.”
The police state is not just around the corner, it is here.
There should be a statewide outcry insisting we have legislation to protect people from the enforcement agencies’ legalized theft.
What do the rest of you know of Montana law and “civil asset forfeiture?”
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© Montana Sheriffs & Peace Officers Association
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