Adoptive Forfeiture: Sessions wrong to bring back extortionate federal program

Imagine you are traveling down the interstate, possibly going on vacation or making a final move to another city. You have a couple of thousand dollars in your pocket-all the money you have.
Suddenly you see the lights flashing in your rearview mirror. A police officer pulls you over. He searches your car. He doesn't find drugs or stolen goods, but he does come upon the cash-and takes it based on nothing more than the suspicion you might have obtained it illegally.
A U.S. government anti-crime program uses adoptive forfeiture to allow police agencies to seize cash and property from individuals suspected of criminal activity. Federal law doesn't require a conviction or even charges being filed. Instead, the police take the property and the rightful owner must prove it was obtained lawfully, which usually proves difficult, even for the innocent.
Not only federal law enforcement but state and local police agencies are involved. When a local department makes a seizure it splits the take with the feds, usually keeping 80 percent and passing 20 percent to Washington.
More than a dozen states have passed laws prohibiting asset seizure without a criminal conviction. But the more lenient-and more lucrative-federal rules apply in adoptive forfeiture. That was a boon to jurisdictions that embraced the program with gusto.
President Barack Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder threw a monkey wrench at the cash cow in 2015 by shutting down the program. But in the year before that happened, state and local law enforcement raked in $65 million. That's a lot of forfeitures.
The money didn't just come from known drug dealers or other criminals. It also came from traffic stops where cash but no contraband was found. In some cases the amount seized was just a few hundred dollars. When an individual tries to get his or her property back there are court dates and legal fees. Often the police propose a settlement and return only a portion of the seized money and property. And that's usually the best deal possible.
Now Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the program will be making a comeback. And we can just imagine that some local governments are eagerly anticipating the renewed flow of money.
In our view, the whole program is little better than extortion. We think Holder was right to suspend it, and we think Sessions is wrong to bring it back. Anyone who values the rule of law and the Constitution should be outraged.
If someone commits a crime and is convicted, by all means seize the fruits of the crime. But if there is no crime proven then there can be no proven illicit gains. Government on any level should not be allowed to profit based on what they think-or find it convenient to think.
We still have due process in this country.
At least we are supposed to have due process.

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