Dozens of police chiefs and sheriffs lined a corridor of the state Capitol Monday afternoon, shaking hands and chatting up representatives as they walked from the elevator to the House chamber.

They want their administrative asset forfeiture back.

Only the Legislature can give it to them.

Supporters say civil asset forfeiture (when police seize property connected to criminal activity) is a powerful tool in fighting and stopping the drug trade.

Opponents say it's an easy way for officers to take someone's property without having to prove much.

For decades in Mississippi, there's been two types of civil asset forfeiture — judicial and administrative.

In rough terms, judicial asset forfeiture requires legal action before a judge to keep the goods. Administrative asset forfeiture requires law enforcement to notify property owners about the seizure.

Supporters of administrative asset forfeiture say property owners have 30 days to contest any seizure in court.

Opponents say many people cannot afford to hire an attorney to get their property back.

The Mississippi Center for Public Policy — which opposes reviving administrative asset forfeiture — reviewed public data on property seizures from the last year and half and found that almost half of all seizures "were valued at less than $1,000."

The center argued that in many instances, hiring a lawyer to contest a seizure would cost more money than the worth of the seized property.

For decades, seizures of $20,000 or less could be handled administratively with a notification. Everything else required judicial asset forfeiture.

Then, in the summer of 2018, the part of Mississippi law allowing administrative asset forfeiture was repealed.

The repeal came from a sunset clause in a bill five years prior.

Few people noticed.

Officers around the state kept seizing property using administrative asset forfeiture.

A few months went by before the Associated Press reported that 60 seizures totaling about $200,000 in property was taken by Mississippi officers without legal authority.

A representative running for state attorney general filed a bill in January that would restore administrative asset forfeiture.

Law enforcement rallies for bill

The call went out Monday that officers needed to come to the capitol and be heard.

"URGENT! CHIEFS NEEDED AT THE CAPITOL," read a bulletin from the Mississippi Association of Chiefs of Police. "...Several groups such as the ACLU and other Libertarian movement types are putting out all kinds of false information about what the law allows law enforcement to do."

Police chiefs Walter Armstrong and R. Luke Thompson stood side-by-side Monday afternoon in a hallway outside House chambers.

Armstrong, of Natchez, and Thompson, of Bryam, are the president and first vice president, respectively, of the Mississippi Association of Chiefs of Police.

Seizing the profits and revenue that fuel the drug trade is an important step in stopping it, Armstrong said, and officers are not trying to run "roughshod over" anybody's property rights.

"We are unified in our stance of making sure we don't get misinformation out in mainstream," Armstrong said.

He unfolded a piece of paper that called for Mississippi to oppose administrative asset forfeiture.

The sheet said Mississippi police had seized items like an Xbox, a lamp, comic books, a lawnmower, a Weed Eater and more. The source of that information appears to be a 2017 article in Reason Magazine.

Armstrong said he was "dumbfounded" by the paper.

"We're not interested in that kind of stuff," he said of the Weed Eater.

At the top of Armstrong's paper was the name "Bomgar," for Rep. Joel Bomgar, R-Madison, a legislator who has been whipping support against the bill.

Armstrong and Thompson said Bomgar has never reached out to them with his concerns.

"We haven't heard a word," Armstrong said. "I've never met him."

Thompson said he's willing to sit down and talk with Bomgar on the issue.

"I'd buy him lunch," Thompson said.

Lawmaker whips support against bill

Bomgar told the Clarion Ledger he's more than happy to pull up a chair.

He said he'd sit down with anyone and talk about civil asset forfeiture and has met with police, sheriffs, prosecutors and other law enforcement to do just that.

Bomgar said he's personally reviewed numerous reports associated with property seizures across Mississippi.

Many property seizures never lead to criminal charges, let alone criminal convictions, he said.

"Virtually all conservative organizations are against this, from the Heritage Foundation to the American Conservative Union," Bomgar said. "...There is universal opposition to this bill."

Bomgar pointed to a 2016 poll by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research that said 88 percent of Mississippi voters — including 89 percent of Republicans — opposed all forms of civil forfeiture.

"Mississippians hate civil asset forfeiture. It is almost universally opposed by average Mississippians who view it as unfair," he said.

According to Bomgar, when police pull over a car and find drugs, random items — like a Weed Eater — can be seized.

“You very often end up with a bizarre series of assets, none of which is directly connected to a drug crime," he said. "But all of which happened to be present in the bed of a truck or a trailer or somehow connected to the individual.”

Bomgar called administrative asset forfeiture the "most egregious form of forfeiture."

"Under administrative forfeiture, your stuff is guilty until proven innocent," he said.

Narcotics chief: We aren't targeting you

John Dowdy, director of the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics, said average Mississippians shouldn't be concerned about asset forfeiture because officers aren't seizing property from innocent people.

“The opponents to this particular piece of legislation are anti-law enforcement," Dowdy said. "They are pro-drug dealer.”

When asked about the seized Weed Eater, Dowdy said he had "heard the same propaganda that's out there about Weed Eaters and this that and the other."

"It is not inconceivable for me that a drug dealer could have taken a shaft of a Weed Eater and unhooked it and shoved the drugs down the shaft and hooked it back together and law enforcement found it and they seized," Dowdy said. "Now am I saying that’s exactly what happened in that situation? I can’t say that because I don’t know the facts of that particular case.”

Dowdy said it's possible civil asset forfeiture has been abused in Mississippi — "it’s probably been abused in every state" — but the Legislature has taken steps in recent years to safeguard the process and make it more transparent, including an online database of seized assets.

And think of the taxpayer, Dowdy said.

Filing a notice is much more efficient than holding a court hearing, Dowdy said, especially because most court hearings are unnecessary.

He estimated that in 99 percent of asset forfeiture cases, "drug dealers" never contest the seizure — so why should Mississippians pay for the legal proceedings if it just ends up in a default judgment?

“You have court dockets across the state that are backlogged," Dowdy said. "Now every asset forfeiture that is done in the state has got to be taken through the court system … You’re just adding to the clog.”

Bomgar countered that civil liberties should not come at the expense of cutting costs.

"It is always cheaper to take somebody's stuff with no due process," he said. "...Our focus should be on: Have we protected the property rights of the individual who had their property seized? Not: How elegantly and cheaply can we keep their stuff by cutting due process out of it?"

Will it become law?

Bomgar has been taking meticulous notes on a clipboard of where each representative stands on the issue. When asked if he expects a vote on the bill, Bomgar didn't answer directly.

"It is my hope and prayer that this bill never comes out of committee," he said.

The bill, House Bill 1104, was filed by Rep. Mark Baker, R-Brandon.

Baker said it was never the intention of the Legislature to take away administrative asset forfeiture, saying it lapsed "through some technicality."

“To me it’s just cleanup,” Baker said. “It’s not controversial. It’s just cleanup.”

If the bill does make it out of the House and Senate, Gov. Phil Bryant will likely sign it. He's already said as much on Twitter.

"I am standing with law enforcement on HB 1104," Bryant tweeted a week ago. "Send the bill to my desk, and I will sign it."

It's unclear how many states have administrative asset forfeiture.

Some states require criminal convictions before seized items can be forfeited.

Some states don't allow police departments to keep the cash they seize. Instead, it's put in a separate statewide fund, which some say reduces the incentive for police to make questionable seizures.

What ever happened to the Weed Eater?

The Weed Eater was seized — along with a 2002 Chevrolet Tahoe, multiple guns, a power drill, $2,415 in cash and several other items — from Robert Sandifer in Richland.

According to a detective's affidavit, police went to Sandifer's home in Richland in June 2017 and found him in possession of alprazolam, meth, hydrocodone, oxycodone and a stolen handgun.

Sandifer was eventually convicted of felony drug possession, his attorney Andy Sumrall said, but he contested the seizure of his property.

Court documents say Sandifer only got the Tahoe and the cash back. The rest of items, including the Weed Eater, went to Richland police.

The Clarion Ledger reached out to the Richland Police Department, which still has the Weed Eater.

"My first thought was, 'Why did I seize a Weed Eater?'" said Russel James, Richland police chief.

James acknowledged a garden tool is not a typical target in drug investigations, but this was a stolen item that was bartered for drugs.

"This was a new, in-the-box item," James said. "The item itself was used to buy narcotics."

James said he does support administrative asset forfeiture, saying it's an important tool to fight drug crime.

But he also sees both sides of the issue.

If the average value of property seized by a department is $1,200 or less, that's a "red flag," James said.

"I'd say you've got a problem," he said. "How can you prove that an amount that small is the fruit of crime?"

A few years ago, James said one of his narcotics investigators reviewed all of the department's asset forfeitures and found the average value of seizures had been upwards of $200,000.

"We seize large amounts of cash on I-20," he said.

At one point, James said Richland police used seized money to build a $4.1 million building and erected a sign nearby that read, "Tearfully donated by drug dealers."

Still, James emphasized that his department is not trying to grab random items or loose cash.

"I'm not for just seizing assets willy-nilly," he said. "But we have a major, major inflow of narcotics into this country."

Contact Giacomo "Jack" Bologna at 601-961-7282 or gbologna@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter.