Melissa Quinn reporting via the Heritage Foundation's
Daily Signal
* * *
Oklahoma state Sen. Kyle Loveless is not backing down.
The Republican has been called a liar and a socialist, in
the pocket of organized crime, and al-Qaeda’s and ISIS’ best friend by officers
of the law who protect and serve.
But in a year when Loveless, R-Oklahoma City, is up for
re-election to the state legislature — a time when most lawmakers would choose
not to stir the pot — the state senator has decided to challenge Oklahoma’s
civil asset forfeiture laws, which some consider a “cash cow” for police and
prosecutors because of their ability to seize cash and property without
charging the owner with a crime.
“The way I look at it is, it comes back to should the
government be able to take someone’s stuff and keep it without charging them or
proving it, and I say no,” Loveless said. “If they’re going to keep calling me
names, I’m a big boy. I can take it.”
This year, at least a dozen state legislatures across the
United States are considering legislation to reform civil forfeiture laws.
* THANK GOD!
But in no other state is the debate more contentious than
in Oklahoma, where Loveless, who introduced a bill to challenge the current
system, has been fielding attacks from prosecutors, sheriffs, and police
officers for his efforts.
“Every way across the board in different agencies, city,
county, statewide agencies, the system is fraught with abuse,” Loveless told
The Daily Signal during an interview from his office in the state capitol.
“Innocent people’s stuff is being taken. The system is so perverted that it is
like climbing Mount Everest to get your stuff back.”
(*NOD*)
Civil forfeiture is a tool that gives law enforcement the
power to take people’s cash, cars, and property if they suspect...
* SUSPECT...! NOT "PROVE." NOPE!
"SUSPECT!"
...it’s connected to criminal activity.
The procedure was expanded in the 1980s and hailed as a
tool law enforcement needed to fight the war on drugs.
In recent years, civil forfeiture has been dubbed
“policing for profit” by opponents, a term used to describe the money-making
scheme civil forfeiture creates for police and prosecutors, since law
enforcement doesn’t have to charge people with a crime to take their cash, cars,
or houses.
In Oklahoma, anecdotes involving innocent people who had
property and cash wrongfully seized by police under civil forfeiture have
emerged, and such stories have fueled Loveless’ efforts to reform the state’s
laws.
In 2010, for example, Grady County ranch owner and
operator Stephen Mills, who was in the military at the time, had his truck
taken by the Grady County Sheriff’s Department after he lent it to a ranch
employee to use.
The worker was arrested for stealing equipment from an
oil field, and law enforcement seized Mills’ truck under civil forfeiture.
Mills, who currently serves as the police chief in Apache,
Okla., called the Sheriff’s Department twice a week for four months asking them
to return his vehicle. They eventually stopped returning his calls.
“It was stealing,” Mills told The Daily Signal during an
interview at his Grady County ranch. “It doesn’t matter if they had the color
of the law behind them. They were stealing.”
Six months after the Sheriff’s Department took Mills’
truck, he made a phone call to the Chickasha Express Star, a newspaper, which
called the district attorney’s office for a comment. Not long after, a lawyer
assisting Mills told him he could go pick up his truck.
(*SNORT*)
In March 2012, Creek County, Okla., sheriff’s deputies
raided a home belonging to Linda Goss and her husband. The couple was arrested
for allegedly having illegal drugs in their home, and police seized firearms, a
fishing boat, and a truck under civil asset forfeiture.
* BUT... KEEP READING...
Goss and her husband spent three days in jail, only to
learn that police had raided the wrong home.
(*BOOM*)
Charges against the couple were dropped, and, according
to a lawsuit they filed, tests showed that the alleged illegal drugs weren’t
drugs at all.
(*BOOM*)
Goss and her husband couldn’t afford the impound fees for
the truck, which they lost.
* GEEZUS...
Their boat was returned, but they said it was damaged.
(*SIGH*)
“When law enforcement says they’re going after [the drug
trade], I’m sure they are, because we see the busts all the time, and I think
we should have the tools to do that,” Loveless said. “However, the problem is,
we shouldn’t balance that on the backs of innocent people’s stuff.”
After learning about how innocent Oklahomans can get
caught in the civil forfeiture machine, Loveless introduced legislation in May
implementing a number of changes to the state’s civil forfeiture laws.
Loveless said he planned to address the original bill
this year and meet with law enforcement in the interim to address any concerns
they may have. But the backlash from police and prosecutors was so swift that
he decided to draft a second proposal that he hoped tackled concerns from civil
forfeiture opponents and supporters.
The second version of Loveless’ bill, released last
month:
Requires a criminal conviction before property can be
forfeited. The legislation also allows for five exemptions in which property
can be tied to a crime — and subsequently forfeited — without a conviction.
* Er... I'M STILL HUNG UP ON "WITHOUT A
CONVICTION"... BUT I'D HAVE TO SEE THE DETAILS...
* ANYWAY... CONTINUING...
Directs forfeiture proceeds to a fund managed by a
15-person board made of Oklahoma citizens and members of the law enforcement
community. The board has the authority to award grants to drug treatment
centers, drug courts, and law enforcement for drug interdiction efforts.
* NOT A FAN OF THIS EITHER. THE MONEY SHOULD GO INTO THE
GENERAL REVENUE AND THE LEGISLATURE SHOULD DECIDE HOW IT'S SPENT - JUST AS
LEGISLATURES DECIDE HOW TAX REVENUES AND FEE REVENUES SHOULD BE SPENT.
(*SHRUG*)
Raises the burden for the government to justify property
seizures.
Requires agencies using civil forfeiture to provide an
annual report to state leaders. The report would be made publicly available
online.
Opponents of civil forfeiture say the system creates a
perverse profit incentive for law enforcement to seize property from innocent
people, since police and prosecutors can use forfeiture proceeds to pad their
budgets and purchase items without oversight from appropriators.
A report from the Institute for Justice found that from
2000 to 2014, state law enforcement agencies reported nearly $99 million in
forfeiture proceeds, of which 72% came from cash seizures. Current state law
allows agencies to keep up to 100% of
forfeiture proceeds.
Loveless credits his bill with eliminating that profit
incentive while also ensuring that law enforcement has the tools necessary to
combat drug crimes.
* I'M STILL HUNG UP ON TREATING "DRUG CRIMES"
DIFFERENTLY THAN OTHER CRIMES.
(*SHRUG*)
“We have sheriffs out there and agencies out there [who]
if in their budget they want an armored humvee and their budget appropriators
don’t give it to them, they’ll just use the money to go get it,” Loveless said.
Despite Loveless’ efforts to pass a package reforming
Oklahoma’s civil forfeiture laws, he hit a roadblock in the state legislature. Last
week, the Senate Judiciary Committee refused to take up his legislation, and
reports suggest that the package was “sent there to die.”
Loveless said he still has options and plans to use every
tool at his disposal to at least get some aspects of his proposal to the Senate
floor.
The Oklahoma City Republican can move to put the full
bill directly on the Senate’s agenda, though he would need to secure a
supermajority to be successful. Loveless can also amend another bill addressing
civil forfeiture to include some aspects of his proposal once it gets to the
Senate floor. That bill, which the Judiciary Committee passed unanimously,
addresses the repayment of lawyer fees and expenses for those who successfully
challenge a forfeiture.
“Oklahomans of all walks of life and political ideologies
support civil asset forfeiture reform,” Loveless said in a statement after the
Judiciary Committee passed on the bill. “However, [the committee chairman] did
not think their voices should count in the political process.”
Despite the setback, both Loveless and Mills agree that
law enforcement’s use of civil forfeiture in Oklahoma represents a nationwide
trend, one that must be addressed. “This isn’t just a problem in Oklahoma,”
Mills said. “It’s a national problem. We need to change the whole mindset on a
national level to take it back to the constitutionality of what’s being done.”
According to a report from the American Civil Liberties
Union of Oklahoma, law enforcement agencies in 12 counties located along the
I-40 corridor seized $6 million in cash from property owners from 2009 to 2014.
Of the money taken during that five-year span, just $2 million belonged to
those charged with a crime.
* YOU'RE READING THIS... RIGHT FOLKS?!
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
Loveless said that oftentimes, police will pull over a
car as it is heading out of a major city along I-40 and seize cash they assume
came from the sale of drugs.
But Loveless questions why law enforcement doesn’t
intercept the cars before drugs are sold and on Oklahoma streets.
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