Pubdate: Sat, 17 Jan 2015
Source: Wall Street Journal (US)
Copyright: 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.wsj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/487
Author: Devlin Barrett and Zusha Elinson

NEW POLICY BARS PARTICIPATING IN SO-CALLED FEDERALLY ADOPTED FORFEITURES

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department will no longer participate in
asset seizures by local police agencies that critics say grab cash
and other property from individuals without proving they have done
anything wrong.

The new policy marks one of the most significant changes to asset
forfeiture in decades and will bar the U.S. from participating in some
types of seizures that have proven popular among state and local
law-enforcement agencies because they provide a windfall of cash to
local police.

Attorney General Eric Holder on Friday called the change "the first
step in a comprehensive review that we have launched of the federal
asset-forfeiture program."

The practice, known as federally adopted forfeitures, allowed local
law enforcement to retain a greater portion of any seized
assets - such as cash or other valuables - than under many state laws.
Under "adoptions," local police agencies would seize property in
accordance with federal law and ask the federal government to
"adopt" the forfeiture. The U.S. would then sell the assets and
return a large chunk of the proceeds to the state or local agency.

While asset seizures were meant to target drug traffickers and other
criminals, they have become increasingly controversial as people
complained that their money, cars and other property were seized
without evidence they had committed any crime.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa), who heads the Senate Judiciary
Committee, had urged the Justice Department to end the practice. On
Friday, he welcomed the shift, though he cautioned "the devil was in
the details" of how it would be implemented.

"The rule of law ought to be about protecting innocent people. Too
often, we"ve seen just the opposite with civil asset-forfeiture
laws. The practice up to this point had perverse incentives," Mr.
Grassley said.

The asset-seizure practices of some police departments have come under
attack from both libertarians, who view them as an example of
overreaching government, and liberal groups, who contend the practice
disproportionately targets minority drivers and citizens.

The American Civil Liberties Union also cheered the Justice
Department"s decision, saying the past forfeiture practice "is a
clear violation of due process that is often used to
disproportionately target communities of color," and urged state
and federal lawmakers to pass laws to further scale back asset seizures.

Ron Brooks, a retired California state narcotics officer and past
president of the National Narcotic Officers" Associations Coalition,
criticized the move, saying it would eliminate a valuable weapon in
the fight against drug-trafficking organizations.

"While the money is helpful to us, that's not the reason
forfeiture occurs," said Mr. Brooks, now a consultant. "It occurs
because it removes the most critical component of these criminal
organizations: the capital to operate," he said.

Mr. Brooks said the move would deprive local law enforcement of money
that it uses for things like police equipment and overtime pay.

In 2010, forfeiture programs confiscated homes, cars, boats and cash
in more than 15,000 cases. The total take topped $2.5 billion, more
than double the take five years earlier, Justice Department statistics
show.

The rule change doesn't prevent local authorities from using their
own seizure laws to confiscate property.

The new policy also doesn't apply to seizures resulting from joint
operations involving federal and local law-enforcement authorities, or
stemming from warrants that are issued by a federal judge.

The two-page instruction signed by Mr. Holder on Friday also will
still allow federal authorities to adopt seizures of weapons,
explosives and assets that are linked to child pornography. He said
that forfeiture is still a "critical law-enforcement tool when used
appropriately."

Asset forfeiture by law-enforcement agencies has grown since the 1980s
and 1990s, largely as a result of the fight against drug traffickers.

Justice Department officials said that when the laws were first
applied, few states had their own seizure laws, so using the federal
law was an effective way to strip criminals of their profits. Now,
however, every state has either criminal or civil forfeiture laws.

It wasn't immediately clear how much of an affect the federal change
would have on state and local police departments, but the move isn't
expected to have much of an impact on federal accounts, since
forfeiture adoptions in the past 6 years added up to just 3% of the
value of forfeitures in the Justice Department"s Asset Forfeiture
Program.
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