The Issue
State law allows county
officials to seize money or property believed to be connected to crime. The
practice is called civil forfeiture and here, as across the country, it's on
the rise. The Lancaster County District Attorney's Office has generated
millions in forfeiture proceeds in recent years and has a $1.75 million
surplus. The proceeds help to fund the Lancaster County Drug Task Force, which
the DA says still is underfunded.
In theory, the idea of seizing
cash and other assets from drug dealers and then using the proceeds to fight
the drug scourge seems like a perfect kind of justice.
But as critics across the
country are pointing out, the practice of civil forfeiture is ripe for abuse.
And even two former Justice
Department officials who helped create the asset forfeiture initiative in the
1980s have expressed alarm at the way it’s being used.
Writing in The Washington Post,
John Yoder and Brad Cates maintained that civil forfeiture has become a
fundraising activity for some law enforcement agencies, rather than “an
even-handed effort to enforce the law.”
Lancaster County District
Attorney Craig Stedman acknowledged the potential for abuse in an interview
with LNP.
“If it’s being abused as a
means of generating revenue, then you have a problem,” Stedman said.
He said that Lancaster County —
unlike many other counties — waits until a person is convicted and a direct
appeal is denied before it files forfeiture petitions to allow the county to
keep the assets.
The reality is, though, that
property once seized seldom goes back to its owner.
In many cases that’s
appropriate; the money or assets are connected to the sale of drugs. Where
that’s not the case, there is a process to file for the return of your
property. If your request is denied, you’ll likely need to hire an attorney.
If you’ve lost hundreds of
dollars, and you don’t have much to begin with, are you likely to chance losing
hundreds more by hiring an attorney?
Most people don’t even try to
get their assets back; some feel powerless to fight for their return.
Consider the case of Theresa
Campbell, whose son pleaded guilty to possession of drugs with intent to
distribute.
In the course of raiding the
family home, police took $300 from Campbell’s purse.
Police said Campbell helped her
son to hide drugs during the raid but she wasn’t charged with any crime.
She never got her money back.
Consider, too, Barbara and
Ralph Spring, who are raising their grandsons after their daughter Jessica died
of a drug overdose.
They would have liked to have
had their daughter’s Jeep Cherokee to transport their grandkids. Or they might
have sold it and put the proceeds toward their grandkids’ college savings.
But a drug dealer they don’t
even know ended up with the vehicle. After he was arrested, he surrendered the
Jeep to the police.
It was later sold by Lancaster
County.
The District Attorney’s Office
published a brief legal notice stating that anyone with a legal claim to the
vehicle should come forward.
But the Springs didn’t see the
notice. County officials might have tried calling them — they’ve had the same
phone number for 20 years, they told LNP — but the brief legal notice was the
only notice that’s required.
Sometimes, it seems, legal and
right are not the same.
Stedman defends civil
forfeiture as an effective way of stripping assets from drug dealers, and of
funding enforcement.
Critics, however, call the
practice “policing for profit.”
It turns on its head a basic
tenet of American justice: Law enforcement doesn’t have to prove that cash and
other property are connected to crime.
The property’s owner has to
prove that it is not.
In other words, the property is
guilty until proven innocent.
Civil forfeiture feeds the
perception that the rights of ordinary citizens are trumped by law enforcement.
And that perception leads to
cynicism and distrust of our legal system.
There’s a way to counter that
perception: Appoint an independent ombudsman to review civil forfeitures, and
streamline the appeal procedures.
No one is going to cry for the
convicted drug dealer whose assets were seized and then used for the excellent
purpose of investigating and charging other drug dealers.
Seizing the property of those
who are convicted — or at least charged — seems entirely appropriate.
But those who live with
criminals, or care for them, shouldn’t be viewed as guilty by association.
And neither should their
assets.
Gerry Hyland, working to make the cops even more unaccountable
