DOJ suspends asset seizure program

https://www.rt.com/usa/326932-doj-suspends-asset-seizure-program/

DOJ suspends asset forfeiture profit-sharing with local police, cites budget cuts

The Department of Justice has announced a moratorium on splitting gains made from its civil asset forfeiture program with local law enforcement. Budget cuts of $1.2 billion made keeping the practice “impossible,” the DOJ said, upsetting police groups.

While federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the US Marshals will continue using the legal tool, the “equitable sharing payments” will not return until “a later date should the budget picture improve," according to the DOJ.

Civil asset forfeiture is the taking of property by authorities who suspect it has been used in a crime, and it is often a profitable routine. When large sums of cash aren’t being directly collected as alleged drug money, other items like cars or houses can eventually be liquidated to fund police pet projects.

The whole program nationwide should be stopped and budgets cut further......the sheriff of Nottingham is corrupt.

The unreported fact here is .... over the past 20 to 30 years the Feds have educated/trained vast numbers of State LEO's in asset forfeiture ... the State LEA's got their legislatures to expand their own asset forfeiture laws & authorities.  

Now they don't need the Feds to do asset forfeiture and many times won't even call them in to assist with asset forfeiture that result from what are mostly State drug cases & highway currency seizures by State troopers.  

They don't have to deal with the Federal red tape & get to keep all of the money without sharing any of the dough with the Feds.

(btw ... the lion's share of Federal asset forfeiture nowadays occur within agencies of the Treasury & the Department of Homeland Security .... not Justice)

Part of my daughter's duties in the civil division of the SA is civil forfeiture. She has seen tremendous abuse. However, there remains clear examples where it is an appropriate remedy, but that would be only a small percentage of the cases. She settles most without taking everything, but it remains a confiscatory scheme which rewards those who are taking rather than going to the general budget. A huge flaw which breeds abuse. We need to cut budgets and reduce forfeitures by 75% with the proceeds from the same going to general budgets, and definitely not to LEO.

Ownership is an illusion anyway.

PkrBum wrote:Ownership is an illusion anyway.

Yup if you can keep it it ain't yours...