> There are two avenues available to the government for seizing items that were used to commit a crime, or cash that was made unlawfully. If a person is convicted of a crime, the government can use a legal tool called criminal forfeiture that allows it to confiscate property that was involved. Civil forfeiture, on the other hand, does not require a criminal charge—only a suspicion that a piece of property was involved in a crime, or that it was obtained illegally.
> But neither of those legal processes were used against Clavasquin, his coplaintiffs, and the estimated “hundreds if not thousands” of others just in New York City that they represent in the lawsuit. Instead, they got caught in legal limbo: When their property was classified as evidence after their arrest, slow-moving bureaucracy and red tape turned what should be a routine transaction—getting back personal property after the state no longer has any use for it—into a near-impossibility.
> [...] Even if a person is arrested but isn’t charged with a crime, his or her possessions can be seized. (In certain cases, police can even seize property without arresting its owner.) But the lack of criminal charges don’t make recovery any easier. In fact, in Washington and New York, it lands individuals in another gray area that can be even more difficult to navigate than the maze of red tape that follows the end of criminal proceedings.
Apparently, in addition to the much controversial civil forfeiture (which largely allows the police to confiscate things arbitrarily in a Stop-and-Seize scheme without charges or warrants [0]), the police can also keep your things confiscated without a charge by classifying it as "evidence"...