California looked as though it was going to seriously restrain the ability for police and prosecutors to abuse civil asset forfeiture last fall, but legislators ultimately failed at the end. The influence of police and prosecutor lobbying was too strong. Legislation that would have required police to actually attain convictions for crimes before attempting to seize and keep somebody's money or property passed in the state Senate, but failed in the Assembly.
The bill, SB 443, is back for another push for passage. Sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Holly Mitchell, the legislation would require convictions before permanently seizing somebody's property and would increase the evidentiary threshold required to connect the property with the underlying crime.
The previous iteration of the bill forbid law enforcement from bypassing state-level restrictions by participating in the Department of Justice's "Equitable Sharing" forfeiture process unless a person was convicted of a crime. This was an important component of the bill, because the DOJ's rules are laxer and allow police to keep more of what they seize than California's laws permit. Because of the looser rules, use of the DOJ's forfeiture process has skyrocketed in California, particularly in smaller municipalities, while seizures under the state's rules have remained flat. During the recession, as municipal budgets suffered revenue losses in California, law enforcement agencies increasingly turned to asset forfeiture to fill gaps.
Read more:
http://reason.com/blog/2016/06/16/reformers-again-attempt-to-curtail-legal
