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If you're charged with a crime, the prosecutor has to prove you did it beyond a reasonable doubt; when it's a civil case, it's up to YOU to prove based on "preponderance of evidence" that you are innocent. A real difference, especially when the accused is an inanimate object.
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In civil asset forfeiture, police seize the goods of people they suspect of criminal activity - without the need for a charge or conviction - and sue that property (i.e. "State of Iowa v Six Tons of Bricks") and you pay a lawyer to prove your property's innocence.
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If your lawyer loses (or if you can't afford a lawyer), you lose your stuff, and the cops get to keep it or sell it and keep the money as an off-the-books black budget. Cops love this money - it lets them buy military surveillance gear.
https://revealnews.org/article/chicago-and-los-angeles-have-used-dirt-box-surveillance-for-a-decade/
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https://revealnews.org/article/chicago-and-los-angeles-have-used-dirt-box-surveillance-for-a-decade/
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But not just that: one sheriff stole $70k from his townspeople and used the money to buy a muscle car that he only drove to and from work.
https://www.ajc.com/news/local-govt--politics/feds-want-reimbursement-for-gwinnett-sheriff-70k-muscle-car/zkOidGb5oRfCHGO5RlZGsL/
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https://www.ajc.com/news/local-govt--politics/feds-want-reimbursement-for-gwinnett-sheriff-70k-muscle-car/zkOidGb5oRfCHGO5RlZGsL/
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City attorneys have worked with cops in the past to draw up "wish lists" of stuff they'd like to steal. The cops then nose around the owners of that stuff, looking for a pretence to seize it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/us/police-use-department-wish-list-when-deciding-which-assets-to-seize.html
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https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/us/police-use-department-wish-list-when-deciding-which-assets-to-seize.html
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Indeed, police departments future budgets projected their forfeiture revenues for years to come, effectively setting a quota for how much they had to steal from people each year:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/dc-police-plan-for-future-seizure-proceeds-years-in-advance-in-city-budget-documents/2014/11/15/7025edd2-6b76-11e4-b053-65cea7903f2e_story.html
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/dc-police-plan-for-future-seizure-proceeds-years-in-advance-in-city-budget-documents/2014/11/15/7025edd2-6b76-11e4-b053-65cea7903f2e_story.html
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By 2014, US police were stealing more from the people they were sworn to protect than all the nation's burglars combined.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/north_america/americas-current-economy/police-civil-asset-forfeitures-exceed-all-burglaries-in-2014/
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https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/north_america/americas-current-economy/police-civil-asset-forfeitures-exceed-all-burglaries-in-2014/
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No wonder that by 2015 Congress ended the program (don't worry, Trump reinstated and expanded it):
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/23/the-feds-just-shut-down-a-huge-program-that-lets-cops-take-your-stuff-and-keep-it/
Long after the program was ended, cops insisted that without forfeiture, they lacked the "incentive" to fight crime:
https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/taken/2019/02/03/sc-civil-forfeiture-police-defend-practice-say-funds-essential-law-enforcement/2746412002/
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/23/the-feds-just-shut-down-a-huge-program-that-lets-cops-take-your-stuff-and-keep-it/
Long after the program was ended, cops insisted that without forfeiture, they lacked the "incentive" to fight crime:
https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/taken/2019/02/03/sc-civil-forfeiture-police-defend-practice-say-funds-essential-law-enforcement/2746412002/
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They predicted that without forfeiture, police budgets would be too strained to fight crime, while criminals' coffers would swell. That was the scare-story New Mexico's legislature heard in 2015 when the state ended civil forfeiture.
https://www.propublica.org/article/police-say-seizing-property-without-trial-helps-keep-crime-down-a-new-study-shows-theyre-wrong
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https://www.propublica.org/article/police-say-seizing-property-without-trial-helps-keep-crime-down-a-new-study-shows-theyre-wrong
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Five years later, the verdict is in, and the cops' predictions were wrong. A new report from @IJ shows that NM experienced no rise in crime, no drop in arrests, and "arrest/offense rates consistent with trends in two neighboring states, CO and TX."
https://ij.org/report/policing-for-profit-3/
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https://ij.org/report/policing-for-profit-3/
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The study shows that far from being an instrument to return stolen goods or make restitution to crime victims, forfeiture is a way to fatten police budgets and personally enrich police officials. The seizures are mostly small-dollar amounts (not drug dealer money).
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The larger seizures tell an even worse story: they include numerous instances in which a family home was seized because an underage offender sold small quantities of drugs from the premises - leaving families to spend fortunes defending their homes, often unsuccessfully.
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