Pubdate: Tue, 18 Nov 2014
Source: Washington Times (DC)
Copyright: 2014 The Washington Times, LLC.
Contact:  http://www.washingtontimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/492
Author: Andrea Noble
Page: A1
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/af.htm (Asset Forfeiture)

D.C. ON TRACK TO REFORM POLICE PROPERTY SEIZURE LAWS

Department Has Incentive to Keep Cars

D.C. lawmakers are pushing forward with legislation to reform 
policies allowing police to seize property from people they stop, 
regardless of whether criminal charges are ever filed - a practice 
called civil asset forfeiture that is facing increasing scrutiny nationwide.

Among the changes, the D.C. Council has proposed diverting profits 
from seizures into the city's general fund instead of letting the 
police department keep and spend the money, reducing the appearance 
that officers have an incentive to take cash or cars.

City lawmakers will vote for the first time Tuesday on the reform 
proposal, which would establish protocols for notifying owners of the 
status of their property and the manner in which they can contest a seizure.

Under current law, D.C. police are allowed, for example, to take 
vehicles and everything in them if they are suspected of being 
connected to a crime, such as transporting illegal items like drugs 
or guns. In many cases, the cars are required to be forfeited and the 
goods can be held indefinitely or sold at auction even if no charges 
are filed or they don't belong to the people from whose possession 
they were taken.

Examples of civil asset forfeiture across the country in recent years 
have elicited shock from lawmakers and citizens surprised to discover 
the low bar police must meet and how government agencies profit from 
the process.

In Iowa last year, state troopers seized more than $100,000 from two 
professional gamblers who were transporting their winnings home when 
they were pulled over - allegedly for failing to signal when changing 
lanes. A Texas district attorney got into hot water in 2005 after it 
was revealed that he spent money from a forfeiture account to buy 
alcohol and a margarita machine for a party.

In July, Sen. Rand Paul introduced a bill to address the issue at the 
federal level. The Kentucky Republican's Fifth Amendment Integrity 
Restoration, or FAIR, Act would make forfeitures more difficult and 
redirect profits federal law enforcement agencies make from them into 
the treasury's general fund rather than an account controlled by the 
attorney general's office.

The practice has come under scrutiny in the District, where a council 
committee report disclosed that police budgets into the next four 
years rely in part on revenue the department expects to accrue from a 
federal partnership with the Justice Department called the Equitable 
Sharing Program.

The D.C. Metropolitan Police Department collects about $30,000 
annually from its local asset forfeiture program and another $670,000 
through the federal forfeiture program, which allows local 
departments to reap up to 80 percent of the proceeds of cases they 
work in conjunction with federal investigators.

Council Chairman Phil Mendelson said Monday that the bill under 
consideration is likely to be amended, but that he doubted the 
council would seek to stop it.

"My sense is that the council will support reforming the civil asset 
forfeiture process. Any discussion is in regard to the details," Mr. 
Mendelson said.

The Public Defender Service for the District filed a class-action 
lawsuit in May 2013 against the city, arguing that forfeiture laws 
violated the Fifth Amendment rights of hundreds of individuals who 
had property seized by police.

Property owners are supposed to be allowed an opportunity to 
challenge the seizure of their goods, but in its lawsuit the public 
defender service said that was not happening.

The D.C. Council's proposal, introduced in January 2013 by council 
member Mary M. Cheh, Ward 3 Democrat, would create a timeline for the 
asset forfeiture process and would require the District to inform 
owners within 10 business days of a seizure that the city was seeking 
forfeiture of property.

After receiving the notice, the property owner then would be able to 
contest the forfeiture or seek to recover the property in the interim 
through a court hearing.

"We're hopeful that it will serve as a blueprint for other 
jurisdictions across the country that recognize that the perverse 
profit incentive fueling civil forfeiture is turning our nation's 
cops into robbers," said Darpana Sheth, an attorney at the 
Arlington-based Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm 
that has fought for reform of forfeiture laws.

Currently, property owners are required to pay a bond - typically 10 
percent of the property's worth - to challenge a police seizure, but 
there is no set time frame for when a challenge will be heard.

In a case highlighted last year in The Washington Times, a D.C. woman 
paid a bond of $1,020 but still had to wait five months to get her 
car back after police stopped her son while he was driving her 2005 
Honda Accord and discovered he was carrying an illegal gun.

In the nearly two years since the measure was introduced, D.C. police 
placed a moratorium on the sale of vehicles seized by officers 
through civil asset forfeiture. Police also updated their general 
orders on the topic, requiring an officer seeking to seize property 
to get authorization from a supervisor before doing so.

Because the police department has budgeted funds it expects to 
receive as a result of its participation in the federal program for 
the next four years, the measure would hold off on diverting profits 
from those seizures until fiscal 2019.

At that point, city officials would be forced to forgo the funds 
because the federal program directs that the money be dedicated to a 
law enforcement fund.

As the city's attorney general, Irvin B. Nathan opposed an initial 
version of the bill on the grounds that it would stop the city from 
collecting millions of dollars it gets through its participation in 
the federal partnership. His office declined to comment on the latest 
version of the bill, which was approved in a markup hearing Wednesday 
by the council's Committee on the Judiciary.

"Overall, the department supports the goals of the bill," 
Metropolitan Police Department spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump said. "We 
know this has been getting a lot of attention nationally, and we 
agree that there have been troubling practices around the country. 
These programs must have strong oversight and supervision."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom