Asset forfeiture has become a “booming business” for the government, with federal forfeitures alone having brought in $2.5 billion during 2018. Civil asset forfeiture is a practice where government agents (usually the police) seize private property they “suspect” may be connected to criminal activity, then, whether or not any crime is actually proven to have taken place, the government keeps the citizen’s property, often divvying it up with the local police who did the initial seizure. By asserting that someone’s property, a building or a large of amount of cash for example, is tied to an illegal activity, the government then confiscates the property for its own uses, and it’s up to the owner to prove that their property was not connected to criminal activity or that the owner had no involvement or knowledge of the criminal activity.
However, to pursue a claim, an owner often has to jump through a series of legal hoops—what Justice Sotomayor’s dissent referred to as “labyrinthine processes”—set up by the government in the hopes that innocent owners will abandon attempts at recovery. Challenging these takings in court can cost an owner more than the value of the confiscated property itself, which, as Gorsuch’s concurrence explained, is why some agencies reportedly place special emphasis on seizing low-value items and relatively small amounts of cash. In Culley v. Marshall, Alabama police seized vehicles belonging to Halima Culley and Lena Sutton while the cars were being used by other individuals accused of drug possession. Although Culley and Sutton were themselves innocent of any wrongdoing, the state kept their vehicles for 20 months and 12 months respectively.
Abram J. Pafford, Gregory J. DuBoff, Francis J. Aul, and Timothy J. Whittle of McGuireWoods LLP helped advance the arguments in the amicus briefs for Culley v. Marshall.
The Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties organization, defends individuals whose constitutional rights have been threatened or violated and educates the public on a wide spectrum of issues affecting their freedoms.
This press release is also available at www.rutherford.org.
Source: https://tinyurl.com/3pk7d2ph
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