Attorney General Holder Ends Incentive for Law Enforcement to Seize Property

Today, Attorney General Eric Holder issued an order establishing a new policy prohibiting federal agencies from accepting civil asset forfeiture assets seized by state and local law enforcement agencies unless the owner is convicted of a crime. The U.S. Treasury Department, which has its own forfeiture program, is issuing a similar policy.  The Department of Justice becomes involved after a state or local law enforcement agency seizes property pursuant to state law and requests that a federal agency take the seized asset and forfeit it under federal law.

For years, advocates have criticized the Department of Justice practice of accepting and processing seized assets such as cash, cars and other property from state and local law enforcement agencies through its Equitable Sharing Program, which retains 20 percent of the proceeds from the seizure received from a state or local law enforcement agency and returns 80 percent of the proceeds to the state or local law enforcement agency that initiated the seizure. The practice has enabled some state and local law enforcement to bypass state laws that prohibit police departments from keeping the proceeds from civil asset forfeiture or impose a stricter legal standard for seizing property.  The Washington Post has recently documented widespread abuse of this practice, usually as part of carrying out the war on drugs.

Bipartisan support for civil asset forfeiture reform is growing in Congress. Last week, key congressional leaders including Sens. Charles E. Grassley (R-IA) and Mike Lee (R-UT), signed a letter calling on Holder to end the Equitable Sharing program that was the subject of the policy change today.  Sen. Grassley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has oversight over the Equitable Sharing Program, has named civil asset forfeiture as one of his top legislative priorities for this year. In 2014, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced legislation to reform asset forfeiture and is expected to soon reintroduce this legislation with bipartisan support. Advocates applaud Attorney General Holder’s decision to prohibit state and local law enforcement from utilizing the Equitable Sharing program for most civil asset forfeiture seizures but urge Congress to pass legislation that makes this reform permanent and fixes federal forfeiture more broadly.

"First, sentencing reform, then marijuana reform, and now asset forfeiture reform,” said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. “Eric Holder will go down in history for his pivotal role in addressing the excesses and abuses of law enforcement in America.”

Attorney General Eric Holder’s legacy will be his work on criminal justice reform. His accomplishments include:

• Calling on policymakers at all levels to find ways to reduce the number of people behind bars.
• Supporting efforts in Congress and the U.S. Sentencing Commission to reduce punitive sentencing.
• Supporting policies that made the sentences of thousands of prisoners shorter and fairer.
• Changing how the Justice Department charges people to reduce the application of draconian mandatory minimum sentencing.
• Establishing guidance allowing states to legalize and regulate marijuana with less federal interference.
• Establishing guidance to make it easier for banks to deal with state-legalized marijuana businesses.
• Promoting efforts to re-integrate formerly incarcerated individuals into society and eliminate barriers to successful re-entry.
• Working to end the “school-to-prison pipeline”, including working with the Departments of Education to scale back "zero tolerance" school discipline policies.
• Advocating for the restoration of voting rights for the formerly incarcerated.
• Urging federal law enforcement agencies to identify, train and equip personnel who may interact with a victim of a heroin overdose with the overdose-reversal drug naloxone.