Transaction Search Form: please type in any of the fields below.
Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 8:32 pm
Time: 8:32 pm
Results for civil forfeiture
1 results foundAuthor: American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania Title: Guilty Property: How Law Enforcement Takes $1 Million in Cash from Innocent Philadelphians Every Year - and Gets Away with It Summary: Every year, Pennsylvania law enforcement agencies take roughly $14 million in cash, cars, and homes from property owners and never give it back. These confiscations are authorized by state civil asset forfeiture laws - powerful legal tools that let police and prosecutors seize and keep property that they claim was connected to a crime. But since civil forfeiture is based on the legal fiction that the property itself is "guilty," law enforcement doesn't actually have to charge the property owner with any wrongdoing, much less convict them of a crime. It's enough that someone is alleged to have committed a crime using the property. And because civil forfeitures are technically proceedings against property, not people, property owners aren't afforded the same constitutional protections they'd receive as criminal defendants. This forces property owners to wage complicated and time-consuming legal battles in civil court without the help of counsel or other safeguards. Under state civil forfeiture laws, all the revenue generated from forfeiture goes directly to law enforcement and can even be distributed to police and prosecutors as bonuses. As a result, the agencies making enforcement decisions have a strong financial incentive to pursue as many forfeitures as possible. In Philadelphia, the district attorney's share of forfeiture proceeds is roughly $2.2 million - or 7.3% of its appropriated budget. Assuming forfeiture proceeds are split between prosecutors and police in a similar ratio across the state, DA's offices in other counties aren't far behind. In fact, in four out of the next ten most populous counties, the DA would receive the equivalent of about 5% of its budget in forfeiture proceeds. Details: Philadelphia: ACLU of Pennsylvania, 2015. 15p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 13, 2015 at: http://www.aclupa.org/files/3214/3326/0426/Guilty_Property_Report_-_FINAL.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United States URL: http://www.aclupa.org/files/3214/3326/0426/Guilty_Property_Report_-_FINAL.pdf Shelf Number: 136391 Keywords: Asset ForfeitureCivil Forfeiture |