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>...but I find it funny that 2010 is always the year used when a specific annual amount is cited. That year includes the forfeiture of Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme money which alone makes up some 20%-30% of that annual number.

No, civil asset forfeiture is an ongoing problem and 2010 is not some unusual outlier.

As the original article states:

>...Still, boil down all the numbers and caveats above and you arrive at a simple fact: In the United States, in 2014, more cash and property transferred hands via civil asset forfeiture than via burglary.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-...

Looking more broadly:

>...Since 2000, states and the federal government have forfeited at least $68.8 billion—that we know of. Not all states provided full data, so this figure drastically undercounts property taken from people through forfeiture.

https://ij.org/press-release/new-report-finds-civil-forfeitu...

I didn't say it wasn't a problem, but 2010 is always chosen specifically because of Madoff. Madoff also shows why that burglary comparison is meaningless. There is a long tail to civil forfeitures. You can have forfeitures measured in 9 figures and Madoff's is not the only example of this. There are almost never any burglaries of that value. Also burglaries are basically never justified, but sometimes civil forfeitures are justified. Therefore the total money taken is a worthless metric to compare between burglaries and civil forfeitures.

And to reiterate, I agree with you that there needs to be changes to civil forfeiture. I just think we should be honest about the numbers and reasoning we use in that debate.

>...I didn't say it wasn't a problem, but 2010 is always chosen specifically because of Madoff. Madoff also shows why that burglary comparison is meaningless.

The article addresses this issue:

>..."In a given year, one or two high-dollar cases may produce unusually large amounts of money — with a portion going back to victims — thereby telling a noisy story of year-to-year activity levels," the Institute for Justice explains. A big chunk of that 2014 deposit, for instance, was the $1.7 billion Bernie Madoff judgment, most of which flowed back to the victims.

>For that reason, the net assets of the funds are usually seen as a more stable indicator — those numbers show how much money is left over in the funds each year after the federal government takes care of various obligations, like payments to victims. Since this number can reflect monies taken over multiple calendar years, it's less comparable to the annual burglary statistics. Still, even this more stable indicator hit $4.5 billion in 2014, according to the Institute for Justice — higher again than the burglary losses that year.

>...Also burglaries are basically never justified, but sometimes civil forfeitures are justified.

Criminal forfeitures are done after someone has been convicted and are justified. Civil forfeitures on the other hand are done before anyone has been convicted and the victim doesn't get free legal representation and is assumed guilty until proven innocent. Police agencies have to be funded, but it shouldn't be done by stealing from the public.

That $4.5 number is completely worthless as a comparison to burglaries. It is just the number in the fund at the end of the year. You are basically trying to assume a person's income based off the money in their checking account. It is nonsensical.

I have said elsewhere in this thread that the burden of proof shouldn't be on the owner to prove innocence, but I'm not sure simply changing that turns it into criminal forfeiture. My understanding is that criminal forfeiture only happens when the owner is convicted of a crime. Meanwhile civil forfeiture can happen when the crime is committed by someone else (technically the item being forfeited).

Back to the Madoff example, not all of the money was taken from Madoff directly. Other people benefited from Madoff's crimes without being aware that crimes were being committed. I think it is acceptable for that third party profit to be forfeited despite the owners not committing a crime.

>...That $4.5 number is completely worthless as a comparison to burglaries.

It gives a sense of the scale of the abuse. A number of states refused to give out the data, so it is a low estimate.

>...My understanding is that criminal forfeiture only happens when the owner is convicted of a crime.

Yes, and that is justifiable. Abuses like confiscating a person's money because they went on a domestic airline flight with a large amount of cash are not justifiable.

>...Back to the Madoff example, not all of the money was taken from Madoff directly.

It is a mistake to just focus on a large forfeiture as that is rare:

>...Data from 21 states show half of all currency forfeitures are worth less than $1,300, hardly the stuff of vast criminal enterprises and far less than it would cost to hire an attorney to fight back.

https://ij.org/press-release/new-report-finds-civil-forfeitu...

Would it count as forfeiture for the state, or should it rather be used for restitution to the victims?

That is a false choice. It is both.[1]

>Carl J. Shapiro and various related people and entities have agreed to forfeit $625 million to the United States, all of which will be made available to the victims of the fraudulent investment advisory business which was owned and operated by Bernard L. Madoff

[1] - https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/newyork/press-releases/201...

So let's say the number is 50% lower. That makes it okay? Or 90% lower. Just to be nice.

Bernie Madoff turned himself in and was convicted. Sounds like they could have seized the money some other way.

I said I wanted civil forfeiture reform. However being morally right doesn't justify fudging the numbers. If the number is 50% or 90% lower and that weakens our point, so be it.

If you look at the wikipedia article you'll notice a graph about the equitable sharing agreement. This is an agreement that the federal government has with state and local police where anything seized is shared with the federal government. Madoff's seizer wouldn't be included in that number I wouldn't think, but if it was, 2010 was only slightly higher than 2007, 2008 and 2009.

So the 2010 thing is just a coincidence and either isn't included in the equitable sharing agreement, or if it is, it shows the Madoff seizure is just a drop in the bucket. Either way, it's pretty bad.

The easy fix for civil forfeiture is assign the burden of proof to the state, not the citizen. Some states have done this very thing.

> I believe there needs to be reform of civil forfeiture as much as the next guy

If by "reform" you mean "complete elimination", then I agree.

Civil forfeiture is such a clear and obvious violation of your Fourth Amendment rights. How it lasted more than even a few DAYS before being struck down by even the lowest level courts is beyond me.

Civil forfeiture has its origins in customs law where a ship transporting contraband would be seized along with its contents. This was because in the 1600's to 1800's it wasn't feasible to track down and punish the owners of the goods/ship in a foreign country assuming you could even figure that out.

Of course the practice got expanded to contexts and situations that have nothing to do with smuggling because government will use any excuse to expand its powers.

My first change would be to shift the burden of proof. Right now civil forfeiture includes a presumption of guilt. Switch that to a presumption of innocence and many of these problems would go away. That presumption of guilt is somewhat central to the civil forfeiture process, so whether this a a "reform" or "complete elimination" is a semantic debate. There are certainly some instances in which the forfeiture is just. The previous mentioned Madoff case is one example.