Third party hearings – Brenda Grantland

Today I approved the first comment ever on this blog. I screen all comments to avoid spam and because I don’t want a bunch of comments that don’t contribute substantially to the issue under discussion.

The comment I approved today — posted November 30, 2014 by “Folly” in response to my article “Criminal forfeiture laws need to be reformed too” — is well worth reading. Scroll down to the end of the above linked blog article to read Folly’s comment, describing his/her experience as a third party in a criminal forfeiture case. This comment illustrates exactly why the criminal forfeiture laws need to be amended.

As I understand it, Folly’s assets including his/her residence and bank accounts were seized in 2008. Folly and a codefendant were indicted in 2009. After a 3-week trial in 2011, the jury acquitted Folly and convicted the codefendant. The codefendant appealed. Two years after Folly’s acquittal the judge set a hearing on Folly’s assets. A year after the hearing the court finally ruled on Folly’s third party petition, finding Folly’s assets were still forfeitable despite Folly’s acquittal.

[CLICK THE TITLE TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE]

In recent months the mainstream news media has rediscovered the abuses of civil asset forfeiture as an issue of concern. On October 11, the Washington Post published an excellent series of articles on forfeiture abuse “Asset seizures fuel police spending.” Other print media have begun jumping on the bandwagon, publishing their own original stories. See the Forfeiture Endangers American Rights Foundation’s website’s What’s New page for summaries of recent forfeiture articles.

Television has rediscovered the forfeiture issue too, with the most hilarious skewering of civil asset forfeiture ever, by John Oliver on Last Week Tonight, on October 5, 2014. Already, as of today, 3,709,577 people have watched the YouTube video of the episode.

We are grateful for all of the bad publicity civil forfeiture is getting and that people are beginning to clamor for reform, but reforming civil forfeiture (again!) will only cure half the problem.

Criminal forfeiture has become even more abusive than civil forfeiture.

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Category: Third party hearings

The way they are enforcing criminal forfeiture laws against third parties is just plain criminal

Criminal forfeiture laws need to be reformed too