How Federal "Equitable Sharing" Encourages Local Police and Prosecutors to Evade State Civil Forfeiture Law for Financial Gain
By Dick M. Carpenter II, Ph.D., Larry Salzman and Lisa Knepper
October 2011
This report examines a federal law enforcement practice known as “equitable sharing.” It enables—indeed, encourages—state and local police and prosecutors to circumvent the civil forfeiture laws of their states for financial gain.
Civil forfeiture is the government power to take property suspected of involvement in a crime. Unlike criminal forfeiture—used to take the ill-gotten gains of criminal activity after a criminal conviction—with civil forfeiture, police can take property without so much as charging the owner with any wrongdoing.
Owners caught up in civil forfeiture proceedings typically have few legal rights, while police and prosecutors enjoy all the advantages. Worse, most state and federal laws award the law enforcement agencies that take the property at least a cut, if not all, of the proceeds. This direct financial incentive and the limited safeguards for owners combine to encourage the taking of property.
Equitable sharing makes this bad situation worse. Through equitable sharing, police and prosecutors can take property from citizens under federal civil forfeiture law instead of their own state laws. From the perspective of law enforcement, this is a good deal: Federal law makes civil forfeiture both relatively easy and rewarding, with as much as 80 percent of proceeds returned to the seizing agency.
Thus, with equitable sharing, state and local law enforcement can take and profit from property they might not be able to under state law. If a state provides owners greater protections or bars law enforcement from directly benefiting from forfeitures, agencies can simply turn to federal law.
Recent research published in the Journal of Criminal Justice shows this is exactly what agencies do when faced with stricter and less generous state forfeiture laws—they turn to the feds and keep on pocketing forfeiture money.
And the problem is growing worse. Between 2000 and 2008, equitable sharing payments from the U.S. Department of Justice to state and local law enforcement doubled from about $200 million to $400 million. And data from two states, Massachusetts and California, indicate that these figures underestimate the true extent of equitable sharing nationwide.
Forfeiture reform is desperately needed at all levels. But for state reforms to have lasting effects, law enforcement must not be allowed to use equitable sharing to disregard state law. State and local law enforcement should have to follow state law.
Written by Damon Geller
Times continue to be terrifyingly desperate for fiscally insolvent federal and state governments. Following recent news that the U.S. government made savings & retirement accounts a prime target for confiscation, we now have this bombshell from the Washington Post: The executive branch of government has seized money from thousands of innocent U.S. citizens with absolutely no due process. Police departments around the country, at the command of the Justice Department & Homeland Security, have confiscated money from over 200,000 citizens – in some cases tens of thousands of dollars – even though many of them committed no crime! Why? Because our state & federal governments are broke, bankrupt and in desperate need of capital. Just like this administration, law enforcement is shredding the Constitution and rule of law. The Police State is now being expanded to unlawfully gain access to citizens' money. Experts advise that you have only ONE choice if you want to protect your savings and retirement from the eventual overreach of government confiscations and seizures.
Government on the Brink of Disaster
The U.S. government and the Fed pumped trillions of dollars of YOUR money into the banks and stock market over the last several years, catapulting the U.S. debt to $28 trillion by 2018. But now, the U.S. government and the Fed are completely out of ammo, with the Fed no longer able to buy U.S. treasuries. They desperately need money to maintain their own power, and taxes are not enough. So government officials are doing everything they can to keep the Ponzi scheme going, such as seizing the public’s money through inflation, deficits, and outright confiscation.
The 4th Amendment under Siege
The 4th Amendment of the Constitution reads clearly: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” But according to the shocking Washington Post report, the 4th Amendment is under siege.
Unknown to most citizens, police officers around the country received training and financial support from the departments of Homeland Security and Justice to engage in the practice of “highway interdiction” – which involves the police using minor infractions as an excuse to stop citizens, request warrantless searches, and seize cash. In most cases, no crime has been committed and the police never make an arrest.
As part of highway interdiction, the enforcers within the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government – the police – have seized an enormous amount of money from innocent U.S. citizens through a Justice Department program known as “Equitable Sharing.” Equitable sharing, the federal government’s largest asset forfeiture program, gives the executive branch of government the authority to confiscate your money without due process, even if you’ve committed no crime!
The Washington Post obtained a database from the Justice Department containing details about 212,000 seizures through the Equitable Sharing Program, likely totaling in the hundreds of millions of dollars or more. The following are just a few of the horrifying cases exposed by the Washington Post:
- Police confiscated $32,000 from a New York man after stopping him because he had a cracked windshield
- Police confiscated $17,550 from a Virginia man after stopping him because his car windows were tinted
- Police confiscated $13,000 from a North Carolina man after stopping him for no offense whatsoever
- Police confiscated $2,400 from a Nevada man after stopping him for no offense whatsoever
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