A reader can relate to our post on civil asset forfeiture laws:
I’m an attorney living in Indiana. My sister-in-law was recently arrested for calling in a prescription for herself (impersonating a doctor’s office) for a pain killer. She was an addict and needed treatment (which she is receiving now, thank goodness). She was in her car when she picked up the prescription at the drive-thru window of the pharmacy. After her arrest, they began civil forfeiture proceedings to take her car (her dead mother’s car, by the way – with great sentimental value). I read the statute and couldn’t believe how broad it is.
She was lucky; she had money to rent a car for the four months it took her expensive attorney to fight to get her car back. I told her that my reading of the statute made the prospects look awfully grim. As far as I can tell, she got her car back just because they felt like being nice. There was nothing anywhere in the law saying that she had to get it back. I have no faith in our state legislature, of course, but it would be nice if these laws could be re-written to make some kind of sense – only taking property away from the really bad criminals. Someone who has an addiction shouldn’t be in that category.
Update from another attorney:
Here’s where I get pissed about civil forfeiture: It is damn near only used in drug crimes. The don’t forfeit the car when someone commits DUI. But what I wonder is, why not financial crimes?
When HSBC got indicted for laundering money for drug cartels, on day one the justice department should have frozen accounts, seized buildings, phone systems, computers, bank branches, everything that in any way touched on the scheme. CITI? You committed massive mortgage fraud? JP Morgan, you bribed officials in Birmingham? That’s racketeering; we’re taking your computer systems, and seizing accounts that are at all traceable. If there’s a place where civil forfeiture actually makes sense, it’s fraud and financial crimes (what with money being the goal of such crimes), yet forfeiture is never pursued in those cases, and jail is not an option for a corporate defendant, so we are left with a peanuts fine and it’s off to the next scam for the peep.
