Did you know police can just take your stuff if they suspect it's involved in a crime? They can! It’s a shady process called “civil asset forfeiture,” and it would make for a weird episode of Law and Order.
Transcript
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the police they protect us they serve us and they provide us with an endless source of TV show on liners rock paper scissors gun well I know Serena Williams but I know one thing it's all in the wrist who'd want to cut your penis off take a number okay now you laugh but admit it you want to watch the rest of that episode right now now look public trust in the police is one of the most vital elements in a civilized society but for many Americans that trust has been undermined by a procedure called civil forfeiture now I know it sounds like a gwynth paltro euphemism for divorce but but incredibly it's actually even worse than that civil asset forfeiture is really a mechanism by which the uh state and federal government can seize people's property without having to convict them of a crime most people can't afford to hire a lawyer to challenge it it's really legalized robbery by law enforcement and think about it that is a tough crime to report to the police uh give me a description of what the guy looked like well to be honest he looked a lot like the guy currently asking me what the guy looked like and if you think this sounds bad just wait until you see how it looks because the Washington Post recently published a major investigation featuring stories like that of this man who was driving from Michigan to San Francisco with $2,400 in cash that his his dad had lent him to start a new job when he was pulled over in Nevada I gave him my life since in registration and then as he was looking at that information he asked me how much money I was traveling with Lee told him about the money his dad gave him which he kept in the trunk he he told me to turn on my air vents on high and roll up my windows and get out of the car because he was going to run a canine around it Dove didn't find drugs but he did find the $2,400 he said no I'm going to keep the money because I've concluded through my investigation here that you are traveling from Michigan to California to purchase drugs wow there is so much wrong there including the fact that any policeman who genuinely believes you need to travel from Michigan to California to purchase drugs needs to be introduced to the concept of the University of Wisconsin Madison okay it's right there and and the problem is stories like that are are surprisingly common in fact since 9/11 under just one program police have taken $2 and A5 billion dollars in the course of over 61,000 seizures of cash alone from people who and this is the mind-blowing part were not charged with a crime that is the sort of police behavior that we laugh at other countries for along with their accents and silly hats the way civil forfeiture generally works is that if the police believe they have a preponderance of the evidence that suggests your property was or could be used in a crime they may confiscate it and it gets even weirder many folks are unfamiliar with the idea of civil forfeiture which is actually um a a case brought against directly against a piece of property where you don't need to be proven guilty of a crime for your goods to be taken away exactly you don't need to be charged with a crime because it's not you that's on trial it's your stuff that's why these cases have historically had eye-catching names such as and all of these are real United States versus $885 in US currency United States versus an article consisting of 50,000 cardboard boxes more or less each containing one pair of clacker balls and United States versus approximately 64695 of shark fins which must have been an amazing court case and do you see those shark fins in the room right now yes there they are there they are let the record show the witnesses pointed at roughly £65,000 of shark fins guilty guilty and and it's also worth noting that your possessions generally have fewer protections under the law than you do under civil forfeiture laws your property is guilty until you prove it innocent H how can that be possible at this point I'm surprised objects don't have their own civil rights leader like Martin scooter king or Harvey carton of milk now now to be fair civil forfeiture laws have had some positive consequences they've crippled powerful drug traffic organizations thwarted criminals and returned billions of dollars to victims the problem is that many police departments are allowed to keep most or all of the money they seize and knowing that starts to make you wonder about the motivations of these kinds of questions is there any large amounts of cash in the vehicle are there any large sums of money over $5,000 in cash in the vehicle how much money you got large amounts of US currency I'll take whatever cash you got in there and uh is that a slurpie in the cup holder what flavor grape never mind do you know what I will take it I'll take it the question do you have cash in the vehicle is surprisingly common in traffic stops and the police are prepared to overcome any language barrier to ask it t the Nar trucky trailer let's let's be clear he just said Tenny mucho mucho dairo in Su trui trailer which which sounds like an alien's first attempt to communicate with humans after Crash Landing in a Taco Bell in fact in fact let's all just pause for a moment to enjoy that sentence because every single word of it is funny first Tenny pronounced incorrectly mucho one of the few words he knows in Spanish mucho repeated word dairo a famed actor in a rapid shift to English Sue rapid shift back to Spanish trucky trailer trucky trailer now it's magnificent that is magnificent it's a work of art now now this happened in Tennessee a state where local law enforcement authorities are allowed to keep as much as 100% of the proceeds from civil forfeitures a local news investigation found multiple troubling cases of people having money seized such as George Reby who had $20,000 seized after he was stopped for speeding the police officer argued it was drug money despite the fact that rebe had a pretty good explanation I told him I had active bids on eBay that I was trying to buy a vehicle and they they just didn't want to hear it in fact Reby had proof on his computer but the Montery officer Drew up a damning appid David citing his own training that common people do not carry this much US currency and the he tell you that he was trying to buy a car he did but you did not include that in your report if it's not in there I didn't put it in there so why would you leave that out I don't know what do you mean you don't know I expect a better answer from a police officer than a four-year-old who just spilled grape juice on the couch what happened to your drink I I don't know I don't know if if it's not in my glass it's not in my glass I don't know I I don't know and look it's not always just a roadside stop in 2008 police raided the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit during its Funk night because it didn't have a liquor license seizing 44 cars under the argument that simply driving vehicles to the location of an unlawful sale of alcohol was sufficient to seize a car which means you may as well seize any car driven by any teenager on prom night because they are all going to Chad's Place Chad's got the hookup we we actually managed to get the security video of that Detroit raid and you can see the police burst in and arrest people with the Disco lights still swirling in the single funkiest Shakedown in human history they each had to pay $900 to get their cars out of the impound with the exception of the one person who whose car was actually stolen from the lots to which it had been told which seems like the sort of thing the police should be investigating if they weren't too busy raiding Art Gallery Funk nights and at this point you may be thinking well sure the police departments are getting a lot of money from seizing stuff but I'm sure there are limitations on how they can spend it well allow me to take you to a 2012 Columbia Missouri Citizen Police review board hearing how do you decide forfeit your funds you know you know it's usually based on a need um well I take that back CR though I'd imagine you you sign off on yeah it's there's some limitations on it you know it's um actually there's not really on the forfeiture Stu actually there's basically no limitations at all come to think of it there's uh we're essentially Gods we're Gods we're like the anti- Spider-Man great power no responsibility I can't believe this hasn't come up before and look his honesty was not over it's it's we just usually base it on something that would be nice to have that we we we can't get in the budget for for instance so you know we try not to use it for things that we need to depend on you know cuz we need to go ahead and have those purchased but it's kind of like Pennies from Heaven you know it get you a toy or something that you need is the way we typically look at it that's right that's right they buy toys with Pennies from Heaven well they should know those pennies may not be falling from heaven so much as from the pockets of the people there holding upside down and shaking and in terms of what kind of toys police departments buy that really depends for instance in massachus one DA's office used forfeiture money to buy their own Zamboni even though Auditors noted we could not determine where this machine was located or the law enforcement purpose it serves although that last one is obvious just think about it cuz if you are robbing a bank and the police pull up in a Zamboni you're going to give yourself up just out of sheer curiosity and in Texas in Texas one DA's office had an even more imaginative idea and I'll let a concerned citizen at a public hearing tell you all about it with or without a law degree everyone here knows that purchases of kegs of beer margarita machines and bottles of Crown Royal for office parties as was done in Montgomery County don't qualify as expenses for official purposes that that's true in Texas they bought a margarita machine they were literally using this money as their own personal slush fund they were literally it's perfect the analogy it's perfect and look look if the police need money for equipment we should clearly be giving it to them and if they need money for margarita machines they should be paying for that themselves but these civil forfeiture laws have warped law enforcement priorities and perception and nowhere is that more clear than Philadelphia Philadelphia officials over a 10year period have seized more than 1,000 houses about 3,300 vehicles and $44 million in cash in civil forfeitures holy usually when someone describes something taking 3,000 vehicles and 1,000 houses they're talking about a hurricane now one of those houses belongs to the sorelis family and the reason for that seizure seems a little harsh from the outside police arrested their 22-year-old son Yanni on drug charges $40 worth of heroin and claim he was selling drugs out of the Home Police and prosecutors came armed with a lawsuit against the house itself exactly because remember the parents aren't on trial the house is which is clearly ridiculous the only drug containing house that needs a lawsuit against it is this one you're on the edge you're on the edge house you're this close you're this close to losing your job you're good damn it you're good house you're close house you're close but you're good but you're so close but you're so good house and and once their house was seized the Sora of ellises got to experience the final problem with civil forfeiture recourse can be incredibly difficult here in Philadelphia if you have your property taken you can come here to City Hall and go to court room 478 and try to get it back problem is the people that are taking the belongings are also the ones calling the shots inside the courtroom the Sor of ellises showed up to courtroom 478 ready to plead their case to a judge instead they say they faced a prosecutor from the DA's office that's right their first step in challenging the police seizing their property was in a courtroom without a judge hearing their case how can you even still call that a courtroom if you take all the doctors out of a hospital and replace them with otter that's no longer a hospital it's better it's much better but it's not a hospital I don't know what I love it but it's not a hospital in fact recourse is so difficult that most people who've lost St to civil forfeiture just choose to walk away rather than fight so at this point it should seem obvious that the bads may be starting to outweigh the good with civil forfeiture laws so we've really got two choices we can we can take a hard look at reforming them or at the very least we need to reform our Network cop dramas to make them a lot more representative of what is actually happening coming soon Law and Order civil asset forfeiture [Applause] unit get ready to go inside the thrilling world of civil forfeiture knock knock free police head on the ground get off the sofa keep them where we can see him you're under arrest what for you guys got nothing on me not you sofa coming this fall a procedural about law enforcement shadiest procedure rough night huh uh well it's about to get a lot rougher what's 2500 in cash doing hanging out in somebody's glove box huh answer me these cops are determined and they won't stop until they they get everything every last thing you're dirty right drug deal guns what is it I can't help you if you don't talk to me I'm going to beat the out of you detect the proach Civil forfeiture unit brace yourself for hard pounding takedowns resist being arrest send in back up send in back up the defendants are inanimates but the drama is anything but Frisco there's a pile of silver dollars next door that says you did it you will lose and I will [Music] win stay on the streets too long the city leaves a bad taste in your mouth hey I know what'll get it out Law and Order civil asset forager unit I'm going to crumple you up till you look like a cat's