Holder limits seized-asset sharing process that split billions with local, state police

[G_j]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/holder-ends-seized-asset-sharing-process-that-split-billions-with-local-state-police/2015/01/16/0e7ca058-99d4-11e4-bcfb-059ec7a93ddc_story.html?wpisrc=nl_evening&wpmm=1

By Robert O'Harrow Jr., Sari Horwitz and Steven Rich January 16 at 2:15 PM

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Friday barred local and state police from using federal law to seize cash, cars and other property without warrants or criminal charges.

Holder’s action represents the most sweeping check on police power to confiscate personal property since the seizures began three decades ago as part of the war on drugs.

Since 2008, thousands of local and state police agencies have made more than 55,000 seizures of cash and property worth $3 billion under a civil asset forfeiture program at the Justice Department called Equitable Sharing.

The program has enabled local and state police to make seizures and then have them “adopted” by federal agencies, which share in the proceeds. It allowed police departments and drug task forces to keep up to 80 percent of the proceeds of adopted seizures, with the rest going to federal agencies.

“With this new policy, effective immediately, the Justice Department is taking an important step to prohibit federal agency adoptions of state and local seizures, except for public safety reasons,” Holder said in a statement.

..more..

[Comrade Grumpy]

1. This is really big, good news. This will put the kibosh on "policing for profit."

Holder deserves big kudos for this.

It doesn't end civil asset forfeiture--many states have state forfeiture laws--but it removes a perverse incentive from state and local cops to try to bust people just to get their money. The states typically designate that seized funds go to the general fund or maybe the education fund. What the Equitable Sharing program, which Holder just basically ended, did was give cops a means of circumventing state laws and keeping most of the money for themselves.

[G_j]

3. I agree

it's a huge deal!

[ND-Dem]

2. "since the seizures began three decades ago" THIRTY YEARS OF THIS SHIT

[kelliekat44]

4. Not to mention the money and materials that many cops stole for themselves and did not report. nt