SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (Feb. 6, 2019) – On Monday, a Utah Senate committee passed a bill that would reform the state’s asset forfeiture laws and make it more difficult for state and local police to participate in a program that allows them toย circumvent tighter state asset forfeiture laws by passing cases off to the feds.
Rep. Todd Weiler (R) introduced Senate Bill 109 (SB109) on Jan. 30. The legislation would make several positive changes to Utah’s asset forfeiture process and clarify ambiguity in the current law. According to the Libertas Institute, SB109 would “add clarity and codify the Courtโs correct interpretation of the law put in place by voters in Initiative B in 2000, and further augmented through subsequent legislative reforms weโve worked on in recent years.” The legislation would also expand asset forfeiture reporting requirements, prohibit an agency that violates forfeiture reporting requirements to receive a grant from the forfeiture fund during the following fiscal year, and prohibit any requirement that law enforcement agencies conduct a forfeiture as a condition of receiving a grant from the forfeiture fund.
Theย Senate Judiciary, Law Enforcement, and Criminal Justice Committee passed SB109 with a favorable recommendation by a 4-1 vote.
Passage of SB109 would also make it more difficult to take advantage of aย loophole that allows state and local police to get around more strict state asset forfeiture laws. This is particularly important in light of aย policy directive issued in July of that year by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessionsย for the Department of Justice (DOJ).
FEDERAL LOOPHOLE
A federal program known as โEquitable Sharingโ allows prosecutors to bypass more stringent state asset forfeiture laws by passing cases off to the federal government through a process known as adoption. The DOJ directive reiterates full support for the equitable sharing program, directs federal law enforcement agencies to aggressively utilize it, and sets the stage to expand it in the future.
Law enforcement agencies can circumvent more strict state forfeiture laws by claiming cases are federal in nature. Under these arrangements, state officials simply hand cases over to a federal agency, participate in the case, and then receive up to 80 percent of the proceeds.ย However, when states merely withdraw from participation, the federal directive loses its impact.
A few years ago, California faced this situation. The state has some of the strongest state-level restrictions on civil asset forfeiture in the country, but state and local police were circumventing the state process by passing cases to the feds.ย According to a report by the Institute for Justice,ย Policing for Profit, California ranked as the worst offender of all states in the country between 2000 and 2013. In other words, California law enforcement was passing off a lot of cases to the feds and collecting the loot. Theย state closed the loopholeย in 2016.
Current Utah law prohibits prosecutors or seizing agencies from directlyย or indirectly transferring property held for forfeiture and not already named in a criminal indictment to any federal agency or any governmental entity not created under and subject toย state law without a court order. A judge cannot issue such an order unless
(i) the conduct giving rise to the investigation or seizure is interstate in nature and sufficiently complex to justify the transfer;
(ii) the property may only be forfeited under federal law; or
(iii) pursuing forfeiture under state law would unreasonably burden a prosecuting attorney or state law enforcement agency.
SB109 would penalize any agency that violates these transfer provisions by barring it fromย receiving a grant from the state forfeiture fund during the following fiscal year. It would also require all equitable sharing revenue be deposited to the state fund. Law enforcement agencies would no longer be able to keep equitable sharing money, removing the financial incentive from transferring cases to the feds.
As the Tenth Amendment Centerย previously reportedย the federal government inserted itself into the asset forfeiture debate in California. The feds clearly want the policy to continue.
Why?
We can only guess. But perhaps the feds recognize paying state and local police agencies directly in cash for handling their enforcement would reveal their weakness. After all, the federal government would find it nearly impossible to prosecute its unconstitutional โWar on Drugsโ without state and local assistance. Asset forfeiture โequitable sharingโ provides a pipeline the feds use to incentivize state and local police to serve as de facto arms of the federal government by funneling billions of dollars into their budgets.
WHATโS NEXT
SB109 will now move to the full Senate for further consideration.
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