Colorado Rep. Joe Rice is co-sponsor, with
Sen. Brandon Shaffer, of legislation that
would let officials take money and property
without proving a crime was committed.
In 2002, after years of government officials accusing people of crimes, then using the unproven allegations to steal their money, cars and valuables, often without even bringing charges against the original owners, the process of asset forfeiture was reformed in Colorado. The very sensible reform required officials to win convictions in court first, then take any property involved in crimes later. Now two lawmakers, Rep. Joe Rice and Sen. Brandon Shaffer, want to go back to the old way of doing things, short-circuiting due process and making residents of the state potential victims of highway robbery by the officials who are supposed to protect them.
The old procedure, still in place in many of the United States, was civil asset forfeiture. Based on medieval theories of law that allowed officials to bring charges against money and objects, civil asset forfeiture provided an easy means for officials to take cash, vehicles and even homes that they wanted without compensating the owners and without meeting the high standards of proof required in criminal courts. They were able to put seized assets to their own uses, which turned legalized theft into a lucrative revenue stream for many agencies. Not surprisingly, civil asset forfeiture became an abusive enterprise.
So it was reformed in 2002 by a law that required that assets be seized only from owners who had been convicted in court of crimes involving those assets: "No judgment of forfeiture of property in any forfeiture proceeding shall be entered unless and until an owner of the property is convicted of an offense listed in section 16-13-503." District attorneys were also required to report on their use of asset forfeiture so that the practice could be monitored for abuses.
No judgment of forfeiture of property in any forfeiture proceeding shall be entered unless and until an owner of the property is convicted of an offense listed in section 16-13-503.
But requiring that prosecutors actually prove their cases before they go on looting sprees is apparently too much for Rep. Joe Rice and Sen. Brandon Shaffer. They have introduced HB 1238 (PDF), which repeals the requirement for criminal convictions before money and valuables are seized by government officials. It also eliminates the reporting requirement , allowing asset forfeiture to proceed out of public view.
It really is a recipe for highway robbery.
That's not hyperbole. If you want to know what civil asset forfeiture looks like in the absence of criminal convictions and public scrutiny, look to Tenaha, Texas. In a years-long series of abuses now gaining national attention, local law enforcement has been -- no exaggeration -- using asset forfeiture to rob travelers. The San Antonio Express-News reports:
A two-decade-old state law that grants authorities the power to seize property used in crimes is wielded by some agencies against people who never are charged with — much less convicted of — criminal activity. ...
Linda Dorman, an Akron, Ohio, great-grandmother had $4,000 in cash taken from her by local authorities when she was stopped while driving through town after visiting Houston in April 2007. Court records make no mention that anything illegal was found in her van. She’s still hoping for the return of what she calls “her life savings.”
At least 140 people were robbed just between 2006 and 2008, according to the newspaper. There, as in the old days in Colorado, local officials get to keep what they take. And since the thieves wear uniforms, anybody who protests gets threatened with jail until they sign a waiver surrendering their possessions. Talk about your perverse incentives.
That's the situation that Rice and Shaffer want to inflict on Colorado. The legislative duo explicitly propose to strip protections from the law so that uniformed predators of the sort that plague the roads around Tenaha, Texas, can mug the people of Denver, Durango and Littleton.
The Colorado lawmakers can't plead ignorance, since the protections they want to gut were put in place just seven years ago to address headline-grabbing abuses, and the festering situation in Texas is an object lesson in what asset forfeiture means in the absence of those protections.
Oddly enough, Texas lawmakers are considering legal changes of their own. Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee, has introduced a bill tightening restrictions on the use of asset forfeiture, and ultimately wants to require convictions before assets can be seized.
That, of course, is the requirement that Rice and Shaffer want to abolish.
email J.D.: civilliberties (at) tuccille.com
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Comments
You are right when you say "medieval!" One of my ancestors was a man named Thomas Wyatt The Younger, his father, the Elder was a political rebel (and somewhat famous 17th century poet) in England in the time of Mary Queen of Scots. He was a cousin to Mary and felt that she was not good for England. He was instrumental in putting Elizabeth I on the throne (a good thing for England, wars came to a stand-still although they engaged in a lot of piracy), but he lost his head in the process. When that happened the entire family was stripped of its rightful property - their lands and Allington Castle, Kent - and his son who was my ggggggg-grandfather became a refugee, basically, in Virginia, where his uncle was governor at the time,
Point just is... it is time for a new revolution. We're back at square one. And this once incident you cite, is not an isolated case. The county and state have been slowly stealing parts of my parents' farm in Missouri for years!
Similar things are happening Texas. Alex Jones, who is from Austin, has talked about it on his show. If somebody from the government wants your house there, they just make up something, take it and move right in!
Requiring a criminal conviction in order to proceed with forfeiture is at best only a minor speed-bump impediment to greed obsessed government officials. The result of such a requirement is that due process procedures are shoved aside to assure convictions so that the grab of cash/property can proceed.
With today's commonly corrupt police, prosecutors, and judges, obtaining a conviction is so easy, usually without a trial by jury, it becomes a mere formality rather than a safeguard.
The forfeiture provisions related to the idiotic drug war work as profit incentives to focus on such silly 'crimes' rather than real crimes against person and/or property.
I know this as a direct result of my own experience; police, prosecutor and judge, all lied and subverted due process to create a case in order to expedite the theft of private property.
Forfeiture as a means to make victims of real crimes whole, may be just, but to allow government to profit just invites and encourages abuse, injustice...and tyranny.
Forfeiture as a means to merely fill government coffers has no place in a just society…
Smitty,
The Houston Press ran an investigative feature article a few months ago about the confiscation of property to benefit the victims of crime. What they found was that the crime victims never saw a single dime of that money!
I know. No surprise there.
How Dependent Are Colorado Police On “Asset Forfeiture” To Pay Police Salaries?
Americans should be alert to a problematic increase in “police property seizures” as the economy worsens: Police departments having a budget crisis, faced with having to layoff police officers, may increasingly look to civil asset forfeiture of Citizens’ property to pay their salaries and operating costs.
Police corruption abounds some U.S. Cities: Citizens are illegally shot, falsely arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned. Every American is at risk of being falsely imprisoned despite the conviction standard “evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.” Frequently reported, Police falsify evidence and or purchase testimony from paid informants to convict Citizens. Imagine how easy it would be for corrupt police to forge evidence to cause “civil asset forfeiture” of a person’s property like their home. Civil Asset Forfeiture requires a lower standard of evidence than criminal evidence, “only a Preponderance of Civil Evidence” to seize property. No one need be charged with a crime: government can use as civil evidence to forfeit someone’s real property, the fact the owner reported to police that their tenant was dealing drugs to show the owner—had prior knowledge of the activity.
After “The Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act 2000” passed: the “old statute of limitations” died that gave government “five years” to seize property from the actual date a “property” was involved in crime. Police now have five-years to seize property from “whenever police claim” they learned a “property” was made subject to civil asset forfeiture. Local police often work with federal police agencies to “federally forfeit property” to avoid state laws that require a criminal conviction first before a person’s property can be forfeited—then split the seized proceeds, other forfeited assets. There are over 200 U.S. laws and violations that can subject property to civil asset forfeiture. For example a misrepresentation on a federally insured mortgage loan application can make your home—forever subject to federal civil asset forfeiture.
Most property and business owners that defend their assets against Government Civil Forfeiture claim an “innocent owner defense.” This defense can become a criminal prosecution trap for both guilty and innocent property owners. Any fresh denial to the government when questioned about committing a crime “even when you did not do it” can “involuntarily waive” your right to assert in your defense—the “Criminal Statute of Limitations” has passed for prosecution. Any fresh denial of guild, even 30 years after a crime was committed may allow Government prosecutors to use old and new evidence, including information discovered during a “Civil Asset Forfeiture Proceeding” to launch a criminal prosecution. For that reason many innocent property and business owners are reluctant to defend their property and businesses against Government Civil Asset Forfeiture. Re: Waiving Criminal Statute of Limitations: See James Brogan V. United States. N0.96-1579; USC18, Sec.1001
Corrupt Police framing property is seldom reported, probably because victims of civil asset forfeiture trade off not going to jail for giving up their confiscated property to Police. Congress to help protect Americans from government forfeiture abuse, should pass legislation that raises the standard of evidence Government uses for Civil Asset Forfeiture from a mere “Preponderance of Evidence” to “Clear and Convincing Evidence.”
Of great concern, what might happen to “Fair Justice” in countries where police and government become dependent on forfeiting property from others to pay their salaries and budgets?
This is a dangerous state asset forfeiture bill.
It isn't just the bill that has to be stopped: Several Asset Forfeiture Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange know they might be crushed if "nationally" the standard of evidence for “Civil Asset Forfeiture" was raised from a mere “preponderance of Evidence” to "Clear and Convincing Evidence" before assets could be confiscated from American Citizens.
In the U.S., private security corporations and their operatives work so closely with law enforcement to forfeit property—providing intelligence information and other services, they appear to have merged with police.
To locate U.S. Corporations involved in Civil Asset Forfeitures, enter into an Internet search engines “Corporations in Asset forfeiture” or “Corporations with Asset Forfeiture Government Contracts.” Usually, found websites will mention or list U.S. Corporations involved in forfeiting assets and related services.
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