Federal Adoption – Brenda Grantland

Surprise, surprise… DOJ admits Holder policy will have little impact

2015-02-062016-10-27 Brenda Grantland Leave a comment

An article by Matt Sledge and Ryan J. Reilly, posted last night on Huffington Post, corroborates my initial reaction to Attorney General Holder’s policy order limiting Federal Adoption. The article, Justice Department Budget Projects Some Asset Forfeiture Payments Will Rise Despite Reforms, Huffington Post, 2/5/2015, quotes Justice Department deputy assistant attorney general Jolene A. Lauria Sullens as saying Federal Adoption “wasn’t a big revenue for the asset forfeiture fund” and “it was a very small amount of cases that were adopted.”

The Justice Department estimates payments shared with city and state police will actually increase to $500 million in the current fiscal year, which began in October, from $487 million in the previous fiscal year. The department projects these “equitable sharing” payments will fall to $476 million in fiscal 2016.

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The truth about multi-jurisdictional drug task forces

2015-02-022016-11-10 Brenda Grantland Leave a comment

Attorney General Eric Holder’s Policy Order limiting a tiny aspect of the asset forfeiture program — federal adoption — is a hot topic in the news lately. In reality the policy change will not make a dent in federal adoptions because of the multi-jurisdictional task force exemption. A multi-jurisdictional task force is made up mostly of local and state cops, with a federal agent or two to give it that federal connection. See the DEA website page DEA Programs: State & Local Task Forces. Be sure to click on the interactive map on that page to see the multi-jurisdictional task forces operating in your state.

The Holder policy order was partially a clever ploy to appease those clamoring for forfeiture reform. It was also a Trojan horse because it encourages state and local police agencies to form multi-jurisdictional task forces with the federal government if they want to preserve their previously abundant Equitable Sharing revenue streams.

Task forces are governed by contract between participating police agencies. State and local police agencies are created and regulated by statutes and/or ordinances, and answer directly to the local or state government which created them, and the agency’s chain of command answers to the top official of the agency, with internal checks and balances to ensure that they enforce the law they were hired to enforce. The state or local legislature controls their purse strings and that is a big motivator to get them to obey the applicable state or local law.

The fact that the federal government could override that statutorily established chain of command, substituting federal law for the law of the state, county or city that hired them is questionable in itself. That state and local officers’ chain of command could be supplanted by a board of directors created by private contract between law enforcement agencies is a topic of grave concern that warrants discussion.

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Attorney General Holder’s Asset Forfeiture Policy Limiting Federal Adoption Will Not Stop the Abuses

2015-01-172017-07-20 Brenda Grantland 3 Comments

Download “Atty. Gen. Holder order limiting federal adoption” AGassetforfetureorder.pdf – Downloaded 7046 times – 353.91 KB Download “Atty. Gen. Holder press release re: order limiting federal adoption” DOJpress-release-Holder-policy-Fed-Adoption.pdf – Downloaded 10442 times – 103.42 KB

There was widespread rejoicing yesterday when U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder ordered a new policy governing the Asset Forfeiture Program’s “Federal Adoption” program (often known under the broader term, Equitable Sharing).

Immediately after the order was issued, newspapers, non-profit websites, and people on Facebook were celebrating the demise of civil forfeiture as we know it. Breathless articles were published on the internet and widely reposted, reporting the news based on facts gleaned from other newspaper articles – instead of the policy order itself. [Note: You may download Holder’s policy order and the DOJ press release about it from the Download Attachment links at the top of this page.]

As the story spread, exaggerations grew. By yesterday afternoon, the hysteria on Facebook was spreading faster than I could post comments debunking the misunderstandings. Forfeiture victims were asking if they can get their stuff back now.

The problem began with reporters who misunderstood the legal terms used in the order. For example, the web article Amazing! Holder Ends An Asset Seizure Program, which has since been replaced, 1/ said Holder announced the U.S. “was ending the Federal Government’s ‘Equitable Sharing’ program, otherwise known as civil forfeiture.” Some people took that to mean civil forfeiture had been abolished by Holder’s order – it hadn’t. Equitable Sharing is not the same thing as civil forfeiture. And Holder’s order was not really about the Equitable Sharing program, but the subdivision of that program known as Federal Adoption.

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