August 29, 2016 at 2:48 p.m.
Seizing back our property rights
Seizing back our property rights
That's why they feel emboldened to just seize all the property they can for police budgets through civil asset forfeiture, the process by which law enforcement can take property suspected of being used in a crime even if no one is ever charged with the crime.
Say what?
That's right, as our ongoing series shows, even though no one may ever be charged, the police can still take property used in apparently humanless crimes and sell it for fun and profit.
The property is the bad guy, so to speak, and the police put the property in a very special jail cell to which only they have the keys, otherwise known as law enforcement budgets.
They do this because they think we're all too stupid to know what they're doing, which is stealing the property of many innocent people. Oh, and sometimes they actually disrupt some criminal activity, but, hey, that's gravy.
This past year, some lawmakers in both parties decided to challenge the Brotherhood of Justice and propose some sensible reforms. After all, the people aren't stupid, but more likely scared of police, and so they reported what was happening to them.
What followed was legislation from reform-minded leaders. It wasn't perfect legislation, but the bills would have curbed the most egregious abuses of the practice.
First, it would have allowed forfeiture only if an actual human being was convicted in the crime related to the property seizure. This is common-sense thinking because property doesn't commit crimes; people commit crimes.
Second, the legislation would require the property seizure to be proportional to the value implicated in the crime. Right now, police take expensive property implicated in petty crimes, and for which the penalty itself would be petty, perhaps hundreds of dollars, and sell the property for thousands of dollars.
Critically, too, the measures would have restricted the police practice of laundering the seized assets through federal agencies to avoid giving proceeds to schools, as they are required to do under state forfeitures. The bill would have also cut off the state practice of letting police agencies keep 50 percent of the value seized for "expenses" related to the seizure.
The bills would have also required transparency because, right now, police agencies don't have to report in any consistent fashion the property they seize or the money they make on those forfeitures.
Of course, once the legislation was introduced, the Brotherhood of Justice cranked up its lobbying machine to kill the reform efforts. Judging from the testimony given to lawmakers, the Brotherhood apparently thought lawmakers were also too stupid to see through the ridiculous arguments they put forward.
When it came to the Legislature, they were on better footing with their assessments of stupidity. Most lawmakers didn't see through the smoke, or didn't want to see through the smoke - they only see special interests with any clarity - and the bills were defeated.
But let's take a look at some of the arguments they put forward. Attorney general Brad Schimel, for instance, criticized the provision that would have prohibited law enforcement from recovering costs incurred in investigating a crime. He ignored the vague statutory language on what constitutes expenses related to a seizure - virtually anything that keeps the police department going - and said cutting off that stream of revenue would be shifted to taxpayers.
Maybe and maybe not, but what the attorney general misses is that that decision should indeed be for the taxpayers to make. Cutting off the cash cow would force those seizures and forfeitures and expenses into the budget process, where the taxpayers' elected representatives could scrutinize what law enforcement is up to in these actions.
It's called transparency, and making police justify to the electorate the seizures, the money they make from subsequent forfeitures, and what that money is spent on sounds like sensible advice, not a reason to defeat the restrictions.
Representing the Wisconsin District Attorneys Association, David O'Leary also riffed on the outrageous idea that law enforcement shouldn't be allowed to keep the goodies they seize but instead should pass them on for the public good.
During this little rant, O'Leary came up with the gem of the entire hearing: "This bill eliminates any incentive for law enforcement to go after money and property from criminal activity by preventing the recovery of costs associated with seizures."
Whoa Nellie! Since when are police supposed to have financial incentives to go after crime and criminals? Isn't that their job - the job we pay them to do?
Again, taxpayers should decide how to dispose of appropriately appropriated property from crime. And taxpayers should decide if they want to fund those missions and bear the costs, and how much they want to spend on them if they do.
Giving police an extra incentive to seize property beyond their own sworn duties will only send them out eagerly seizing ever more property. Police are human, just like the rest of us, no more or less honest, and it is a prescription for corruption.
In their testimonies, law enforcement officials painted a heroic picture of cops saving their communities from drug kingpins and never abusing average citizens.
They didn't talk about the home the police seized in Pennsylvania and tried to forfeit because an elderly couple's son made three $60 marijuana sales to undercover police on the front porch. They didn't talk about the trap in Tenaha, Texas, where police seized well more than $3 million from passing motorists, often threatening to turn their children over to foster care and throw the adults in jail if they didn't sign over their property.
Oh, and if they did sign over their cash and valuables, they could just go on their way.
They didn't talk about Beverly Greer of Brown County here in Wisconsin, who brought $7,500 in cash to bail out her son from jail because police told her to bring cash, and who watched as police, rather than release the son, seized the cash after a drug dog sniffed out traces of narcotics on the bills.
As we have reported, most bills carry narcotics traces, but that didn't matter to Brown County police, who also ignored Ms. Greer's ATM receipts.
They didn't talk about John Bickley, who lost a $26,000 car because, in Walworth County, his daughter sold about $250 in drugs to an undercover cop in the car. The daughter was never charged.
To listen to law enforcement, it's all sweetness and light. And, of course, this is what most lawmakers love to be told. They love it when special interests whisper sweet nothings in their ears.
But it's not all sweetness and light, and next year lawmakers should again try to substantively reform this practice, and the media should shine a bright light on law enforcement's use of it as they do.
Better yet, they should just end civil asset forfeiture altogether and tie all forfeitures to the criminal prosecution of a person, as well as force police to pursue forfeiture though the specific criminal prosecution, not in a separate legal transaction.
That would do the trick, and not a minute too soon.
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