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 |  Subject: How a Quiet poLICE Lobbying Campaign Killed Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform in Missouri  Tue Dec 31, 2019 2:23 am | |
| When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that police had to abide by the Bill of Rights when they seize property from people, Rep. Shamed Dogan, R-Baldwin, thought he finally had the momentum to reform civil asset forfeiture and end what he calls “policing for profit.”
He thought he would be able to stop Missouri police from pulling over motorists, seizing cash without a crime and keeping the money for departmental expenditures.
But Dogan was deeply disappointed by the end of the 2019 Missouri legislative session. A quiet lobbying campaign by law enforcement killed his reform and accused him of being “anti-police.”
No police officer or prosecutor testified in public against Dogan’s bill. But their behind-the-scenes lobbying prompted Rep. Holly Rehder, R-Sikeston, chair of the House Rules Committee, to kill the bill. Rehder did not respond to requests for comment.
Dogan, a libertarian Republican, has been trying to reform civil asset forfeiture for years. He wants to remove the incentive for police to seize cash they can spend on departmental expenditures.
Dogan thought he would prevail after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last February that Indiana and all other states had to follow the Eighth Amendment in asset forfeitures. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for a unanimous court, said the “excessive fines” protection of the Eighth Amendment applied to the states. The court thought Indiana police may have imposed an excessive fine on Tyson Timms when they seized his $42,000 Range Rover after arresting him for a drug crime that had a fine of $10,000.
If the Supreme Court was frowning on police seizing a $42,000 car in a criminal case where the owner faced a $10,000 fine, surely the court would say Missouri police were violating the Eighth Amendment when they seize millions of dollars from citizens who were never charged with crimes or found possessing drugs. Or so Dogan thought.
Trying to Close the Federal Loophole
Dogan asked his House Special Committee on Criminal Justice to close the loophole Missouri police and prosecutors use to circumvent state law on asset forfeiture so they can keep the money seized from motorists instead of turning it over to schools.
Missouri law seems to set a high bar for police to seize property. It permits the state to seize cash from citizens only if there is a criminal conviction. In those cases, there needs to be proof beyond a reasonable doubt — or 90% or more certainty — to bring the conviction. Once a person is convicted, the property the police seized goes to schools.
But police can sidestep those requirements by sending the money to the federal Equitable Sharing program. If a preponderance of the evidence — say, 50.1% rather than 90% — links property to a crime, police can route the cash through the Justice Department and get 80% of it back to spend on things such as jails, surveillance equipment, military-style vehicles or police headquarters — but not on schools. All it takes to reach that 50% threshold is for a drug dog to sniff cash and alert that the money has been near marijuana. That’s enough for the police to seize the property, even though in a court of law this would not be considered reliable evidence.
Dogan’s bill would have shut off the federal loophole and forced police to follow the state law, which requires convictions — not just suspicion — and which transfers property to schools.
That change would have put a big dent in some police budgets. In 2018, police around Missouri reported to the state auditor’s office that they seized $9 million. St. Charles County, which has about 27 miles of Interstate 70, and Phelps County, which includes about 30 miles of Interstate 44 near Rolla, seized the most of all Missouri counties. Their police departments collected about $5 million, combined, in a total of about 60 highway stops. Those departments received most of that money back through Equitable Sharing.
Police Lobbying Campaign
For a brief time, it looked like Dogan might pull off his reform. His committee, which included former law enforcement officials, passed the bill unanimously.
More: https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/how-quiet-police-lobbying-campaign-killed-civil-asset-forfeiture-reform-missouri
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Anarcho-Capitalist, AnCaps Forum, Ancapolis, OZschwitz Contraband
“The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual, crime.”-- Max Stirner
"Remember: Evil exists because good men don't kill the government officials committing it." -- Kurt Hofmann |
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