The California state legislature took a step toward reinstating reason and common sense this week when both houses passed Senate Bill SB-443. Now Gov. Jerry Brown has to follow the lead of state senators Ben Hueso and Marty Block as well as assembly members Lorena Gonzalez and Shirley Weber, along with a majority of their colleagues, by signing the measure into law.
The bill puts handcuffs on state and local cops hoping to steal a few million dollars by seizing people’s assets without proving they committed a crime.
Under the War on Drugs-era civil forfeiture policy, law enforcement agencies had the authority to seize a Californian’s property if they suspected the property had been obtained via unlawful means.
For example, say Jason Nobody was driving down the street and he was pulled over by police. In his glove compartment is an envelope with $2,000 cash because a) Jason doesn’t trust the banking system with his money, b) he was on his way to buy medicine because his heath care plan is horrible or c) it doesn’t matter, it’s his money he can do with it what he wants.
If an officer suspected Jason’s money was obtained through drug deals, the officer had a right to seize the money.
And because his department would receive a percentage of the seized revenue’s value thanks to incentives provided by federal law enforcement, an argument could be made he had an obligation to make a few bucks for his city and his department.
The problem, however, is that even though Jason had not committed or been convicted of a crime, the $2,000 would be gone, either lost in a bureaucratic maze of reclamation or the cost to recoup too costly once attorney and court fees were paid.
As you might imagine, the ones who suffered most under civil forfeiture laws were poor and working-class people who had the misfortune of being stopped for an infraction but penalized because they looked or acted suspiciously.
From time to time the law did allow police to seize property and cash from drug dealers and other criminal profiteers but any one with a modicum of reason and common sense would agree capturing and selling the belongings of innocent people after casting a wide dragnet for criminal bounty is unfair and wrong.
Last year a similar proposal was beaten to death in the state capitol so it’s not as if there is a dearth of common sense and reason that has sprung up around this issue over night.
Instead what seems to have happened is that law enforcement groups did not lobby vociferously and endlessly against this year’s legislation. Makes you wonder what they got in return.
But for the time being law abiding Californians should rejoice knowing they are much closer to keeping their property safe from unfounded seizure.
