Jeff Sessions wants police to take more cash from American citizens

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday said he'd be issuing a new directive this week aimed at increasing police seizures of cash and property.

“We hope to issue this week a new directive on asset forfeiture — especially for drug traffickers,” Sessions said in his prepared remarks for a speech to the National District Attorney's Association in Minneapolis. "With care and professionalism, we plan to develop policies to increase forfeitures. No criminal should be allowed to keep the proceeds of their crime. Adoptive forfeitures are appropriate as is sharing with our partners."

Asset forfeiture is a disputed practice that allows law enforcement officials to permanently take money and goods from individuals suspected of crime. There is little disagreement among lawmakers, authorities and criminal justice reformers that “no criminal should be allowed to keep the proceeds of their crime.” But in many cases, neither a criminal conviction nor even a criminal charge is necessary — under forfeiture laws in most states and at the federal level, mere suspicion of wrongdoing is enough to allow police to seize items permanently.

Additionally, many states allow law enforcement agencies to keep cash that they seize, creating what critics characterize as a profit motive. The practice is widespread: In 2014, federal law enforcement officers took more property from citizens than burglars did. State and local authorities seized untold millions more.

Since 2007, the Drug Enforcement Administration alone has taken more than $3 billion in cash from people not charged with any crime, according to the Justice Department's Inspector General.

The practice is ripe for abuse. In one case in 2016, Oklahoma police seized $53,000 owned by a Christian band, an orphanage and a church after stopping a man on a highway for a broken taillight. A few years earlier, a Michigan drug task force raided the home of a self-described “soccer mom,” suspecting she was not in compliance with the state's medical marijuana law. They proceeded to take “every belonging” from the family, including tools, a bicycle and her daughter's birthday money.

In recent years, states have begun to clamp down on the practice.

“Thirteen states now allow forfeiture only in cases where there's been a criminal conviction,” said Robert Everett Johnson, an attorney for the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm that represents forfeiture defendants.

In 2015, Eric Holder's Justice Department issued a memo sharply curtailing a particular type of forfeiture practice that allowed local police to share part of their forfeiture proceeds with federal authorities. Known as “adoptive” forfeiture, it allowed state and local authorities to sidestep sometimes stricter state laws, processing forfeiture cases under the more permissive federal statute.

These types of forfeitures amounted to a small total of assets seized by federal authorities, so the overall impact on forfeiture practices was relatively muted. Still, criminal justice reform groups on the left and the right cheered the move as a signal that the Obama administration was serious about curtailing forfeiture abuses.

In his speech Monday, Attorney General Sessions appeared to specifically call out adoptive forfeitures as an area for potential expansion. “Adoptive forfeitures are appropriate,” he said, “as is sharing with our partners.”

“This is a federalism issue,” Johnson said. “Any return to federal adoptive forfeitures would “circumvent limitations on civil forfeiture that are imposed by state legislatures … the Department of Justice is saying 'we're going to help state and local law enforcement to get around those reforms.'”

The Department of Justice did not return a request for comment.

Source

Sen. Rand Paul: ‘I Think Civil Asset Forfeiture Is a Terrible Idea Until You’ve Convicted Someone’

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” on Sunday that he thinks civil asset forfeiture – where police can seize, then keep or sell any property they suspect is involved in a crime regardless of whether or not the owner is arrested or even convicted - “is a terrible idea until you’ve convicted someone.”

“There was a discussion the other day in the White House about civil asset forfeiture. I think civil asset forfeiture is a terrible idea until you’ve convicted someone, and I’d like to have that discussion with the president,” Paul said.

Paul was asked how concerned he was that the Trump administration could expand surveillance powers given that Paul voted against the confirmation of Mike Pompeo to head the CIA, but voted for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to lead the Justice Department.

“How concerned are you that the Sessions Justice Department, the Pompeo CIA, the potential ODNI administration of Dan Coats are going to go back more towards the direction that you’ve been opposed for many years?” a reporter asked.

Paul said he was “very concerned, and while I do have some agreements with President Trump on less regulation, less taxes, replacing Obamacare, on surveillance we may not be – or on privacy – on the same wavelength. We’ll have to see.”

Paul said addressing the issue of civil asset forfeiture is important, because it unfairly targets poor people.

“I’ve had that discussion with Senator Sessions,” he said, referring to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was sworn in last week, “and I think some of the things we’ve done particularly to poor people—poor people in our country deal in cash more than wealthier people, and more than people who have their life better planned out who might deal with money in a different way.

“They have cash, and they walk around—doesn’t make them automatically guilty of a crime because they deal in cash, and so I think in order to take someone’s money from them, the government ought to prove that it was ill gotten,” Paul said, adding that the other side of that argument is “if someone’s caught with 50 kilos of some kind of drug and then there’s $50,000 in cash sitting there that somehow the people that are caught are going to get it back. That never happens.

“What we’re really, really talking about is people driving down the road, walking down the street…they just have their possessions taken from them without any kind of conviction,” he said.

“There’s a real danger, and there have been instances of up and down the country of little towns on the side of highways just pulling over everybody and just taking their money, almost like some sort of Robin Hood kind of scheme, so I do worry about that, and I will continue to stand up for what I feel is right no matter no matter whether it’s a Republican or Democrat in office,” Paul said.

Source

I say we contact President Trump here and here and tell him about asset forfeiture abuse and that we want him to oppose it. The more of us he hears from the better.

Where does the Donald stand on marijuana?

Where does President-elect Donald Trump stand on marijuana-medical and recreational,state's rights and the nomination of Jeff Sessions,staunch prohibitionist extraordinaire,for Attorney General?
NORML is asking that same question. That is why they are sending Trump a letter asking him to clarify his position. NORML would love it if you added your signature to the letter.
Trump has stated that he will respect the laws the states have enacted concerning marijuana. Yet his nomination of Jeff Sessions contradicts that position. I have written on Sessions and posted news stories about him when it concerns marijuana legalization. Sessions longs for the old days of police brutality,broken in doors,destroyed families and properties. Not to mention legally stolen items that have nothing to do with the crime but good luck proving your innocence. Wait,I thought it was innocent until proven guilty. Not in military court martials and asset forfeiture hearings.

S.B. 443 would rein in civil asset forfeiture abuses in California

From CREDO:

Protect and serve. That’s the role police are supposed to play in our communities. Stealing from innocent Americans? Not so much.

Unfortunately, an unjust, racist policy called civil asset forfeiture encourages police in California to do just that – seize property and cash that is allegedly associated with a crime and keep the assets whether or not anyone is charged or convicted. 1 Those assets go into a “slush fund,” and can be used for almost anything, from armored cars and new technology to luxury vehicles and vacations for law enforcement officers.2 It sends the message to law enforcement: Need money? Just seize some assets.3

Here’s a true story of civil asset forfeiture in action: A taco truck owner is pulled over by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. When questioned, he is honest about the fact that he is carrying a large sum of money from his legal business. Officers find no evidence of a crime. The man is not arrested, or even charged with a crime. Despite the fact that he has done nothing wrong, the police seize $10,000 dollars from this man. Even with a lawyer, he is never able to navigate the legal channels effectively enough to get his assets back. This happens to thousands of Californians every year, especially to people of color and people living in poverty. California police pocketed nearly $600 million from civil asset forfeiture between 2006 and 2013. Instead of a tool to undermine drug organizations, this form of state-sanctioned robbery is employed as a routine funding source.

Tell the California Legislature: Vote yes on SB 443, to help rein in civil asset forfeiture abuse by law enforcement in California.

The civil asset forfeiture laws we know today were originally designed to take down drug "kingpins," but they have morphed into what amounts to legalized theft by the police.4

The majority of people who have their possessions stolen by law enforcement never even have charges brought against them. At the federal level, 87 percent of cases where assets are seized are civil, not criminal.5 That means that the program isn’t punishing criminals or keeping them off the street, it is simply allowing police to profit off of Americans, especially people who are living in poverty or people of color.

The man who had $10,000 stolen from him was able to hire a lawyer, but was eventually advised by his attorney to drop the case because of the expense, and because what starts as asset forfeiture has been known to morph into more serious situations when challenged – like deportation investigations of undocumented people or their relatives.6 The risk that comes with fighting law enforcement, plus the incredible expense of pursuing justice through the legal system, makes communities of color and low-income communities particularly vulnerable to civil asset forfeiture.

California made changes to limit civil asset forfeiture almost 20 years ago, but police departments have found, and are exploiting, a loophole: the federal "Equitable Sharing Program."7 The state’s heavy participation in that program brings over $50 million in profit to the state every year, making California the second highest state in the country in civil asset forfeiture profits.8 SB 443 would close those loopholes and rein in civil asset forfeiture abuse by law enforcement in California.

Tell the California Legislature: Policing for profit is unacceptable. Vote yes on SB 443. Click the link to sign the petition.

Citations are on the same page you sign the petition.

End Civil Asset Forfeiture laws

From Freedom Works:

Recently it was reported that a Christian band, orphanage, and church had $53,000 taken from them by the Oklahoma state government. The government did it by using an unconstitutional program known as civil asset forfeiture. This is where the government can take your property without even charging you with a crime. Civil asset forfeiture is unconstitutional, it violates your property rights, and it has got to end. Sign our petition to urge Congress to end civil asset forfeiture right now.

As long as this unconstitutional scheme is allowed to exist, everyone’s property is at risk of being taken by the government. Just think, if a church’s property was taken by the government, how safe is your property? Ray, stand up for your property rights! Tell Congress to stand up for your property rights by signing our petition today.

For Freedom,