Mississippi became the latest state to tighten its civil forfeiture laws when Gov. Phil Bryant signed a bill on Monday that will require warrants for police to seize property.

FINALLY

Mississippi became the latest state to tighten its civil forfeiture laws when Gov. Phil Bryant signed a bill on Monday that will require warrants for police to seize property. Through civil forfeiture, law enforcement agencies do not need to file criminal charges, or even secure a criminal conviction, to permanently confiscate cash, cars and other forms of personal property. 

Under the newly signed bill, HB 812, whenever an agency seizes property, it must obtain a seizure warrant from a circuit or county court within three business days of the seizure. Agencies that do not procure a warrant with that timeframe cannot forfeit the property and must return it to its owner. In addition, agencies now will have to request prosecutors file for forfeiture within 30 days of a seizure.

Most importantly, HB 812 implements new transparency requirements to track seizure and forfeiture activity. For the first time, Mississippi agencies will now have to record a description of the seized property, its estimated value, its final deposition, as well as if anyone attempted to contest the forfeiture. Those records will then be uploaded to a public, searchable website, which will be created and maintained by the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics. Agencies that do not comply with the new reporting requirements will not receive state or federal grants.

“HB 812 will hopefully inform the public about how often law enforcement seizes and forfeits property,” Lee McGrath, Senior Legislative Counsel at the Institute for Justice (IJ) said in a statement.

“Equally important, the bill will produce data on which state legislators may rely to make additional reforms to a civil process that has come under widespread criticism, including from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas,” McGrath added.

Previous investigations paint a worrying picture. An extensive report by The Washington Post into a federal forfeiture program known as equitable sharing found that Mississippi law enforcement conducted nearly 400 cash seizures “without warrants or indictments.” Through that same federal program, Mississippi police and prosecutors collected $47 million in forfeiture revenue from the U.S. Department of Justice, according to a report by the Institute for Justice.

In January, Reason magazine uncovered “strange and petty seizures by police” in Mississippi, including cases where law enforcement confiscated car batteries, a comic book collection, garden hoses, a horse saddle, and even had a white couch forfeited to a sheriff’s office. (“The whereabouts of the couch remain unknown.”) Their investigation also revealed that the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics  had seized almost $4 million in cash, just in 2015, with the median seizure just under $13,000.

Later that month, Mississippi received failing grades from IJ for its utter lack of transparency and accountability. Yet the new law does not require transparency for how police and prosecutors spend forfeiture funds.  

“Mississippi’s failure to account for spending from forfeiture funds is particularly troubling,” said Jennifer McDonald, a IJ research analyst. “With forfeiture, law enforcement agencies can keep some or all of the proceeds from the property they take. This enables them to generate and spend funds outside the normal appropriations process, which undermines the legislature’s power of the purse. At a bare minimum, agencies should have to publicly report how they spend forfeiture proceeds.”

Most infamously, police in Richland (which has barely 7,000 residents) funded a “$4.1 million police station, a top-level training center and a fleet of black-and-white Dodge Charger police cars” entirely through civil forfeiture.

Reforming civil forfeiture was remarkably popular, both with citizens and legislators. A poll last year found 88 percent of registered voters oppose forfeiting property without a criminal conviction. In the legislature, HB 812 was approved by wide margins, passing the House of Representatives by 118 to 3 and the state Senate unanimously. Mississippi is now the third state this year and the 19th state since 2014 to have passed civil forfeiture reform.

  http://www.orrazz.com/2017/03/mississippi-became-latest-state-to.html

Richland’s $4.1 million police station funded by civil forfeiture

Photo by Steve Wilson

IMPRESSIVE: Richland, Miss.’s $4.1 million police station was paid for entirely by civil forfeiture.

By Steve Wilson | Mississippi Watchdog
The Mississippi city of Richland has a new $4.1 million police station, a top-level training center and a fleet of black-and-white Dodge Charger police cars.
All of it was paid for through civil forfeitures of property and cash seized during traffic stops and emptying driver's pockets and wallets when being cited for moving violations. ALL OF IT.

Photo by Steve Wilson

TEARFULLY DONATED: The sign for Richland’s $4.1 million police station, which was paid for entirely by civil forfeiture. Richland is a small town of 5000, but rakes in some several millions of dollars in CAF, civil asset forfeiture through taking whatever they want from the local citizenry. The town is emptying fast of locals, all trying to leave before their houses are stolen as has happened to so many of their neighbors, on a daily basis.

Civil libertarians question the constitutionality of civil forfeiture, which has become a key part of revenue for state and local law enforcement agencies nationwide. Under the laws of many states, citizens can be deprived of their property or even cash if police merely suspect the owners to be involved in criminal activity.

Mayor Mark Scarborough and police chief WR “Russel” James of Richland — population 4,033 (down from 12000 in 3 years) and located south of Jackson on I-20 in Rankin County — say they’re not only giving city taxpayers a bargain, but they’re also helping do their part to stem the heavy drug trade that travels between Texas and Atlanta on I-20, which eventually trickles down to smaller cities like theirs.
Lee McGrath, legislative counsel for the libertarian Institute for Justice, said the tide is turning on civil forfeiture in the nation.

Both Montana and New Mexico have reformed their civil forfeiture systems, and former Attorney General Eric Holder announced a number of changes in civil forfeiture at the federal level.
“Why legislative efforts (to reform civil forfeiture) in Mississippi and across the nation will ultimately succeed is because forfeiture is contrary to basic American principles,” McGrath said. “In Mississippi and across the United States, the American people believe a person is innocent until proven guilty. And so should his property. Forfeiture is contrary to that.
“The American people believe in a separation of power between the legislative branch and the executive branch. Forfeiture is contrary to that as well. Forfeiture gives law enforcement and other members of the executive branch the sword and the purse. When those two combine, there is a high probability of corruption.”
In Mississippi, the Institute for Justice gives Mississippi a D-plus for its laws on civil forfeiture. The state needs only a preponderance of evidence that the property is related to a crime, a lower standard than the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard required for a criminal conviction. McGrath said property owners in Mississippi can be acquitted in a criminal proceeding, but still lose their property since those claims are contested in civil court, where the burden of proof is on the property owner, not the state.
The state also doesn’t require police to collect or report data on forfeiture use or proceeds.
RELATED: New Mexico’s success in reforming its civil forfeiture system

Photo by Steve Wilson

PAID FOR: Every patrol car in the Richland Police Department fleet was paid for with money from civil forfeitures during what police say were drug seizures. From every single person pulled over from ANY kind of moving violation, a 100% seizure rate, the nations highest.

Since 2006, Richland’s four-officer interdiction team has racked up huge forfeiture numbers. In 2014, the team seized $506,400 in cash and property, helping boost the city’s civil forfeiture account to more than $2.3 million. For those keeping score at home, that’s $72 for every resident of Richland. The city also reported $400,000 in revenue from fines and court costs.
The city shares its part of the interstate and 50 percent of its seizures with the Pelahatchie Police Department, and 10 percent of every seizure goes to the office of the district attorney for Rankin and Madison counties, Michael Guest.
Those numbers are actually down from past years. In 2013, the department seized more than $1.2 million in cash and property.
Two years ago, Richland built a new training center with a target range used by 22 other law enforcement agencies in the area. The new police station, which opened last month, has spacious offices, a courtroom and better security than the old, cramped office across the street.
Richland’s interdiction numbers have been a huge money-maker for the police department, which, Scarborough said, has freed up city funds to invest in other needs, such as parks and a new fire station to replace the one destroyed by a tornado that hit the city last year.
“It’s great to be able to say that we built that building (the police station) and built it not only today, but built it for the future with funds that aren’t taxpayer dollars,” Scarborough said. “That frees us up huge with the rest of the city. Every other department benefits from the drug seizure deal.”
Scarborough started the interdiction program when he entered office in 2005, and it netted immediate results. One of the department’s first busts was $485,000 from a BMW on the back of a flatbed truck. James said the money was hidden in a secret drawer opened by pistons and a code. Another big bust was 40 to 50 gallons of pure methamphetamine oil contained inside a hidden tank in a truck.
“All of that money is being returned to the program and being returned to the city,” James said. “I don’t think you can use the money any better than we have rather than just stacking the money in an account.”
Per capita, Richland outpaces surrounding communities in the Jackson metro area. The city of Clinton, on Interstate 20 west of Jackson in neighboring Hinds County, declared only $10,000 in seized assets on the balance sheet of the city’s 2015 budget. In a 2014 audit of Brandon’s finances, the Rankin County city listed $567,510 in fines and forfeitures in 2013. In the city of Jackson’s most recent budget, the city listed more than $3.1 million in fines and forfeitures.

 http://watchdog.org/218867/civil-forfeiture/

Police can now steal money from debit and credit cards under asset forfeiture

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/08/cops_can_skim_your_cards/

Hand over your cash...now!

asset seizure

http://www.blacklistednews.com/Civil_Asset_Forfeiture%3A_Guilty_Until_Proven_Innocent/44902/0/38/38/Y/M.html

POLICING FOR PROFIT: Feds try to take innocent elderly couple's Mom-and-Pop motel

The most contentious civil forfeiture fight in the nation will be the subject of a week-long trial starting Monday, November 5, 2012, in Boston. Throughout the week, the Institute for Justice, which represents the property owners in the case, will expose the ugly practice of civil forfeiture—where law enforcement agencies can pad their budgets by taking property from innocent owners who have never been convicted or even charged with a crime.




The trial will start at 10 a.m. at the John Joseph Moakley U.S. Courthouse, 1 Courthouse Way in Boston. The case of Tewksbury, Mass., motel owner Russ Caswell and his wife will be presided over by Magistrate Judge Judith G. Dein in Courtroom 15. At the heart of the trial will be the protections afforded innocent owners, like the Caswells, when faced with the loss of their property.



All Russ and his wife want is to peacefully operate their motel. But because their property was worth one million dollars and carried no mortgage, and because a handful of drug crimes had taken place on the property over 20 years (which represent less than .05 percent of the 125,000 rooms the Caswells rented over that period of time), the federal government is trying to take the Caswell's property through civil forfeiture, sell the land and keep the money. Under a process known as "equitable sharing," the federal government would keep 20 percent of what they net and the local police department would pocket 80 percent. Russ and his wife stand to lose everything they worked their lives to build.





"The Caswell case epitomizes everything that is wrong with our nation's civil forfeiture laws," said Scott Bullock, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice. "People who are never even charged let alone convicted of criminal wrongdoing can face the loss of their homes, cars, cash, or, like with the Caswells, their entire business and livelihood."



"This outrageous forfeiture action should never have been filed in the first place," said Larry Salzman, an IJ attorney. "What the government is doing amounts to little more than a grab for what they saw as quick cash under the guise of civil forfeiture. Our goal in this case is to not only spotlight the inevitable abuse that transpires when law enforcement agencies are allowed to use civil forfeiture, but to set a precedent that will end this nightmare for the Caswells and stop an abuse of power that has ruined the lives of too many innocent Americans."



Russ said, "I think it is quite obvious why the federal government has come after us and not other businesses. We own a million-dollar property with no mortgage, so anything they get here, they get to keep for themselves. This case took a huge financial toll on our family before the Institute for Justice stepped up to defend us. And it continues to put a huge personal strain on both me and my wife. At this point in our lives, we should be thinking about our retirement. Instead, we have to take on this fight to save our business and make sure that it won't happen again to the next generation that comes along."



http://www.ij.org/massachusetts-civil-forfeiture