This controversial legal mechanism allows police departments
and district attorney offices to profit from property seized during arrests,
even if a suspect is never convicted of a crime. This property — which is often
tied to drug suspects — ranges from cash, cars and homes to jewelry and flat
screen televisions.
While the annual haul –– which covers both the AG itself and
67 county DA offices –– is down from previous years, critics say the report
shows that police still regularly take small amounts of cash from suspects — in
some instances from innocent people.
Jennifer McDonald, a researcher with the national non-profit
Institute for Justice, says these smaller confiscations are a sticking point
for reformers. Potentially innocent people caught up in such a seizure rarely
find it worth the cost of retaining a private lawyer to retrieve a few hundred
dollars or less.
“For district attorneys to say, ‘Someone has $175 dollars in
their wallet. We can call that drug money,’ is concerning. That means anyone
who happens to be carrying cash at the wrong place at the wrong time can have
their property taken and they’re very likely to not get it back,” she said.
Although the state legislature and court rulings have moved
to tighten Pennsylvania’s forfeiture policies, McDonald hopes the state
implements more reforms to protect innocent people.
Institute for Justice has previously sued over abuses linked
to asset
forfeiture in Philadelphia, where use of this tool has declined
dramatically over the past decade. Although forfeiture petitions continue
to bring in over a million dollars a year in Philadelphia, a Keystone
Crossroads investigation earlier this year showed suburban and exurban
jurisdictions had
eclipsed big cities in their use of forfeiture.
The recent AG report showed that the main subject of that
story, Berks County DA John T. Adams, brought in $1.8 million between June 2017
and June 2018 –– more than any other county.
Adams said this reflects his efforts to squash major drug
organizations. He credited his county detectives with executing several
high-profile busts, including the breakup of a large synthetic marijuana ring
that generated hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“Part of our fight against the drug trade is to strip the
profits that are made by the drug dealers and the drug organizations so they
can’t reap the benefits of their illicit activity,” he said. “[Forfeiture]
takes away the profits of their drug dealing. It takes away their incentive to
sell drugs.”
Adams said his office had recently raised the minimum amount
of cash it would seize to $500 in most cases to prevent instances in which
innocent people surrendered property because it was too costly to fight back.
Adams acknowledges that the state’s forfeiture laws hold
some potential for abuse — that it is largely up to individual DAs to implement
controls on property confiscation.
“We know there’s a lot more scrutiny now,” he said. “We
welcome that.”
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