This past weekend, many celebrated Constitution Day, a time to honor the Constitution and the essential rights it guarantees for all Americans. For IJ, every day is Constitution Day. We’ve spent more than three decades vindicating and giving life to our rights in and out of court.

For instance, just a few days ago, IJ scored a first-round victory in our class action lawsuit against Indiana’s for-profit prosecution of civil forfeiture cases. A judge ruled against the state’s attempt to dismiss our case and certified our class of hundreds of victims of the Hoosier State’s uniquely abusive forfeiture scheme.

As you know, forfeiture laws across the country provide a perverse financial incentive for governments to take people’s property to fill their coffers. But Indiana goes further, outsourcing civil forfeiture cases to private lawyers on a contingency-fee basis. In other words, more forfeitures mean more money in a private lawyer’s pocket. This helps explain why the state dedicated eight years to taking IJ client Tyson Timbs’ car—a saga that ended only after IJ scored a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court victory and two subsequent wins at the state’s high court.

The Constitution demands that prosecutors seek justice, not personal financial gain. Last week's ruling is an important step in ending Indiana’s unjust forfeiture scheme.

But sometimes there are bumps and setbacks as we battle injustice. Just hours after our win in Indiana, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled against our challenge to the state’s civil forfeiture laws, which gives law enforcement broad powers to seize and keep innocent people’s property. Although the court acknowledged the unfairness of the current system, in a stunning display of judicial abdication, a majority of the justices said the court couldn’t do anything about it and that any changes to the system must come from the legislature. So IJ will seriously consider asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case, which seems poised to re-examine the constitutionality of civil forfeiture as it applies to innocent property owners.

IJ is committed to abolishing civil forfeiture and other abuses of Americans’ constitutional rights—no matter how long it takes. In honor of this Constitution Day, please make a contribution to fuel this work.

Scott

Scott G. Bullock
President and General Counsel
Institute for Justice

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