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When police seize property and cash, we’d much prefer those on the losing end get more due process rather than less, and that’s exactly what Colorado House Bill 1313 accomplishes by requiring all but the largest forfeiture cases go through state instead of federal processes.

We urge Gov. John Hickenlooper not to veto this important bill that also requires law enforcement agencies to disclose their seizure revenue online and document how any of that money was spent. The governor is under considerable pressure to veto this bill from many of the state’s sheriffs, chiefs of police, counties and municipalities.

Civil asset forfeiture came under intense scrutiny in 2014 when The Washington Post launched an investigation into law enforcement agencies that abused the process. Reporters found that if you are suspected of a crime, law enforcement can seize your assets — without a warrant — and keep that money even if criminal charges are never brought. In federal civil asset forfeiture, the onus of proving the money was legally obtained falls on the suspect. In Colorado civil asset forfeiture cases, the onus falls on the state to proceed with a criminal case within a set amount of time to prove the money was tied to illegal activity.

Civil asset forfeiture is a powerful tool to shut down drug operations, human trafficking and sometimes white-collar schemes as quickly as possible. If a federal investigator can’t immediately prove their criminal case, they can at least seriously hamper the operation by taking assets while they build a case.

However, given the lack of due-process protections, use of the tool ought to be limited and oversight robust.

We’re reminded of the case documented by The Denver Post’s Noelle Phillips in early 2015 of a South Dakota couple who had $25,000 taken from them during a traffic stop in Parker. It’s unclear whether the couple ever got their cash back, but the seizure counts as an alarming occurrence given that no criminal charges were ever brought.

HB 1313 would require that any assets seized that total less than $50,000 would have to go through the state process in order for state police or sheriffs departments to receive any share of the funding. That’s a stick to encourage local law enforcement to go the legal route in which Coloradans are better protected.

There are some pitfalls, or unintended consequences, in the bill that lawmakers will need to address in the next half of the 71st General Assembly.

We think if law enforcement is going to be required to use the state process, then lawmakers need to adjust how forfeiture funds are shared at the state level. Currently law enforcement receives around half of those funds, while other state and county entities receive the rest.

We also encourage local law enforcement to document meticulously any revenue they have missed out on by not being able to share in the smaller seizures where the federal authorities chose to take the case through the federal courts. Lawmakers should make it a budget priority to make those agencies whole in the future.

Given the huge margin of support in the House and Senate — only 14 of 100 lawmakers opposed the final version of the bill — we don’t think those concerns warrant a veto of this bill.

Reps. Leslie Herod and Stephen Humphrey and Sens. Daniel Kagan and Tim Neville, the bipartisan team that ushered this good bill through the process, deserve praise for standing up for the property and legal rights of Coloradans.

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