Jarrett Skorup and Kimberly Buddin

In 2019, Michigan will have a divided government — a Republican-majority Legislature with a Democratic governor, attorney general and secretary of state — for the first time in eight years. The time is right for bipartisan cooperation, and civil asset forfeiture reform is a perfect issue to start with.

In 2017, the latest year we have data, law enforcement agencies across the state took more than $13 million in cash or property from Michigan residents suspected of a crime through a process known as civil asset forfeiture. For the majority of the more than 6,000 forfeiture cases, assets were taken from people who were never convicted of a crime. And in about 1,000 of those cases, 736 people were never charged, and 220 were found not guilty. Given these findings, which are part of a Michigan State Police report that includes all 2017 forfeiture cases from every law enforcement agency across the state, it’s clear that civil asset forfeiture laws must be changed.

Ideally, police would hold assets they believe are connected to a crime until a person has their day in court. If the person is found guilty, the property would then be forfeited to the state. If a person is not convicted, the property is returned. But as it stands many people have their property taken without ever having their case heard. According to the State Police report, 75% of the forfeiture cases concluded without a single court proceeding.

That’s because the vast majority of people didn’t contest having their property taken because the value of it wasn’t worth their time and resources to fight it out in court. The typical forfeiture involved money or property worth less than $500. And while there were a few outlier cases with property worth more than $50,000, more than 80% of the cases involved assets worth less than $1,000. Few forfeitures are major drug lords.

The 2017 State Police report also shows that up to 100% of the proceeds taken, which included eight homes, 711 weapons, 8,000 vehicles and $11.8 million in cash, fund the police department seizing the assets. Most was used to buy equipment and vehicles and pay staff.

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The good news is that despite this incentive to seize property, the majority of law enforcement agencies in Michigan do not use civil asset forfeiture at all. More than 60% of Michigan police, sheriff or prosecutor offices processed no forfeitures — even in cases where a person was convicted of a crime. In fact, only five county prosecutors, in all of Michigan’s 83 counties, used civil asset forfeiture.

This suggests that the root of the problem does not rest with the police, but with state law — a law that allows government agencies to take private property without proving a person committed a crime.

The Legislature has slowly worked towards fixing this system. In 2015, it mandated transparency from any agency seizing property. In 2017, it eliminated a “bond requirement” which made people pay 10 percent of the value of assets seized to even start the process of getting their property back. And in 2019, the first bill submitted to the Michigan House, with support from Republican Speaker Lee Chatfield and Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel, would require a criminal conviction for most cases of civil asset forfeiture.

Ultimately, forfeiture is a necessary tool, and can be used properly to fight crime, compensate victims of criminal activity and take resources away from people participating in and profiting from illegal activity. However, it should only be used after a person is given the necessary due process by requiring the conviction of a crime. Michigan deserves better and should join the 15 states that require it.

With a Democratic Governor and Republican Legislature, civil asset forfeiture reform is a perfect bipartisan issue to take up in 2019. The ideal policy would have no loopholes — police and prosecutors should have to prove a person did something illegal and that they gained their assets through this activity before law enforcement gets to keep them.

Jarrett Skorup is director of marketing and communications at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Kimberly Buddin is policy counsel for the ACLU of Michigan. The organizations co-authored a report on civil asset forfeiture in Michigan: www.mackinac.org/forfeiture.