For far too long, police and prosecutors in Indianapolis have been keeping 100 percent of forfeiture proceeds for themselves. The constitution couldn’t be clearer—“all forfeitures” belong to the schools—yet the Indiana school fund hasn’t seen a penny of forfeiture money from Indiana’s capital since before some current students were even born. Meanwhile, police and prosecutors are siphoning off millions of dollars in civil forfeiture proceeds, violating both the Indiana Constitution and the state’s Civil Forfeiture Statute and fueling an increasingly aggressive forfeiture machine.

Now a group of Indiana citizens—two of whom were once unjustly targeted in a forfeiture case—have teamed up with the Institute for Justice to right the ship in Indianapolis. They are asking the courts to compel Indy’s police and prosecutors to follow the law and stop profiting from their forfeiture program. Victory will set a precedent to bind every police department and prosecutor’s office in Indiana. Equally important, it will have a nationwide impact by driving home that police and prosecutors—like everybody else—must follow the law.