Pubdate: Mon, 07 Sep 2015
Source: Columbus Dispatch (OH)
Copyright: 2015 The Columbus Dispatch
Contact:  http://www.dispatch.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/93

UNREASONABLE SEIZURE

Legislature Should End Forfeiture Program That Punishes Innocent

Law-enforcement agencies shouldn't be able, under the color of law, 
to appropriate an innocent person's possessions - a nice car, cash in 
their wallet, their house - and then use it to enrich the agency.

Law-enforcement agencies shouldn't be able, under the color of law, 
to appropriate an innocent person's possessions - a nice car, cash in 
their wallet, their house - and then use it to enrich the agency.

But this is happening in Ohio and across the nation.

It's called "civil-asset forfeiture." Intended to stymie drug cartels 
and organized crime by stripping away their assets and 
infrastructure, it has become grossly misused by zealous 
law-enforcement officers.

The situation is so outrageous that it has united an unlikely 
coalition of conservatives and progressive groups; "Fix Forfeiture" 
launched its push for legislative reform in late June, targeting 
three states viewed as key to beginning national change. With bills 
now making their way through the Michigan and Pennsylvania 
legislatures, attention has turned to Ohio, where Rep. Tom Brinkman, 
R-Cincinnati, expects to introduce a bill within weeks.

"Ohio is a very relevant state: As goes Ohio, so goes the nation," 
said Holly Harris, executive director of Fix Forfeiture. "It should 
never be enough that an agent of the government can say 'You look 
guilty, therefore I'm going to take your property.' That's crazy."

Record-keeping is patchy, which is part of the problem. But it 
appears Ohio reaps an average of $9.2 million a year in forfeited 
assets under a sharing arrangement with the feds, according to data 
gleaned from public records by an Institute for Justice report in 2010.

Properly governed, civil asset forfeiture might be a valuable 
policing tool. But horror stories of its abuse blaze across the Web. 
A sampling:

In Feb. 2014, college student Charles Clarke was flying back to 
Florida after visiting family in Cincinnati. Worried about losing 
$11,000 in his life savings, family gifts and financial aid, he kept 
it where he thought it would be safest: On him. He didn't count on 
being robbed by law enforcement.

Drug Enforcement Administration task force officers at the Cincinnati 
airport confiscated the money, though a search of Clarke found no 
drugs or contraband. Even as Clarke fights to get back his money, it 
is reported that more than a dozen police agencies are lining up for 
a cut of his cash. Among them: the State Highway Patrol and Ohio 
attorney general's office.

Clarke was never charged with a crime.

In 2013, Montana troopers seized $16,000 from a farmer who had saved 
to buy tractor parts. He, too, was never criminally charged, but the 
state put the money toward its first canine unit.

Earlier this year, the Philadelphia district attorney's office 
finally dropped outrageous demands in a case against a family whose 
$350,000 family home was confiscated last year after a son had been 
arrested for selling $40 worth of heroin.

The civil-asset forfeiture tactic is misused to seize property 
unrelated to a crime, or for crimes that are so minor or lacking in 
evidence that they aren't prosecuted. If people want their property 
back, they must hire a lawyer and prove their innocence, upending the 
American justice system's presumption of innocence.

An Ohio law should require a conviction before seizing property. It 
should insist on proportionality; property seized should relate to 
the crime. It should require record-keeping and public reporting. And 
it should remove any financial incentive for law enforcement. The 
Ohio legislature should put an end to state-sanctioned theft.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom