All the elements were in place for Alabama lawmakers to hit a legislative home run on civil asset forfeiture reform: Support from lawmakers in both parties, the backing of left- and right-leaning special interest groups, and strong public approval.

In the end, lawmakers were left standing after a called third strike.

"Unfortunate," state Rep. Patricia Todd, D-Birmingham, said.

"It's a complicated issue," said state Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur.

Said Sen. Dick Brewbaker, R-Pike Road: "If you go interview legislators one-by-one, it's hard to find one who will defend our civil asset forfeiture law. There is very little debate on whether the current law is being abused."

Unpopular practice

This spring in Montgomery, state lawmakers considered two reforms aimed at changing state law that allows law enforcement agencies to seize and keep private property even when no one is convicted of a crime.

That Alabama was considering is nothing new. State legislatures throughout the U.S. have implemented reforms in recent years to address what reform advocates believe is a system ripe with abuse.

They are making progress based on public opinion polling from 2016 that shows 84 percent of Americans opposed the taking of private property from someone suspect of being involved in a crime, but who has not yet been convicted.

But the system is strongly backed by law enforcement agencies who often benefit from keeping suspect cash. Law enforcement advocates claim it's an important crime-fighting tool, as it allows them to remove the ill-gotten gains of illegal activity.

They have an important ally at their side: U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the former U.S. senator from Mobile, who has backed federal policy strengthening civil asset seizures.

In Alabama, a civil court determines if the agency involved in the seizure can keep the property. And that determination can be made even if a person is never convicted or even charged with a crime, a fact that has drawn a heavy dose of criticism and analysis.

No conviction, no seizure

The changes came in the form of SB213, sponsored by Orr and state Rep. Arnold Mooney, R-Birmingham. The legislation came in two forms: The first, introduced in January, offered up a sweeping change to how civil asset forfeitures are handled in Alabama.

The original bill included a requirement for a criminal conviction before property could be seized, taking the entire process out of civil courts.

In addition, the legislation prohibited state and local law enforcement agencies from receiving proceeds from federal forfeiture actions. It also required annual, centralized reporting on how law enforcement was utilizing forfeiture assets.

The Orr-Mooney bill, had it been adopted, would have represented a noticeable change: Alabama would have become only the fourth state in the nation to completely abolish the police practice of seizing assets without having a criminal conviction.

The change would have also gone a long way toward repairing the state's reputation in the eyes of criminal justice watchdog groups, such as the libertarian-leaning Institute for Justice. The group, which is backed by conservative heavyweights like David and Charles Koch, tagged Alabama's civil asset forfeiture law as "among the worst in the nation."

"It really boiled down to what measures of due process do we need to make sure are in place before the property can be just seized and forfeited to the government," said Orr. "That was the overall philosophy behind the original legislation."

He added, "When we got into it, and the conviction component, there was substantial pushback."

Police pushback

The chief critics of the legislation were associations representing the state's largest law enforcement organizations: The Alabama Sheriff's Association, the Alabama Association of Chiefs of Police (AACOP), and the Alabama District Attorneys Association.

Their opposition scuttled the advancement of the original version of SB213.

Initially, according to Mountain Brook Police Chief Ted Cook, it appears they might even get to have a say. While the District Attorney's Association was invited to early negotiations on SB213, Cook said that the police chief and sheriff's associations did not join in until the talks headed toward arbitration.

"The vast majority of police chiefs across the state were not in favor of it," said Cook, president of AACOP. "We felt like (the law) had been worked on a number of times over the years, and that it was pretty good."

That sentiment was expressed in a Feb. 12 AL.com Opinion piece written by Brian McVeigh, president of the Alabama District Attorneys Association, and Dave Sutton, president of the Alabama Sheriffs Association.

In it, they claim that Orr-Mooney legislation would "gut what is an effective crime-fighting tool" and make it easier for drug dealers and other criminals to hang onto "their ill-gotten gains."

They also criticized the proposal's intent to divert forfeited assets from local law enforcement coffers into the state's General Fund.

"What incentive would local police and sheriffs have to invest manpower, resources and time in these operations if they don't receive proceeds to cover their costs?" the article states.

'Forfeiting Your Rights'

Criminal justice reform groups, like the Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center and the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, have seized on that statement as evidence that the practice in Alabama represents "policing for profit."

It's not unlike, they claim, the recent revelations that sheriffs are pocketing excess money from feeding jailed inmates for their personal gains.

Said Shay Farey, Alabama policy counsel with the Southern Poverty Law Center: "Undermining any Alabamian's constitutional protections because of budget concerns is unacceptable."

"They've admitted to policing for profit," said Frank Knaack, executive director with Alabama Appleseed. "They said what incentive would we have to go after the bad guys if we cannot profit off the system. We've pointed out that they were not going after bad guys at all, but 25 percent of the cases (involving asset forfeitures) involved people who weren't charged with a crime."

Indeed, SPLC and Alabama Appleseed, have changed the conversation through detailed analysis and powerful testimonies from victims of questionable asset seizures by police. Their revelations are included in a report, released in January, titled "Forfeiting Your Rights."

The report breaks down their findings of court cases in 14 counties during 2015.

According to the analysis, 70 agencies - including police and sheriffs departments, city governments, district attorneys' offices, etc. - were awarded $2.2 million by the courts in 827 cases.

In 25 percent of those cases, as Knaack said, the property owner was not charged nor linked to a crime. And in half of all the forfeiture cases in the state, the amount of cash seized was $1,372 or less.

Such small amounts, SPLC and Appleseed contend, is evidence that law enforcement isn't utilizing civil asset forfeiture as originally intended back in the 1980s, when the aim was to take down powerful drug lords.

Marijuana possession

Barry Matson, executive director with the Alabama District Attorneys Association and Office of Prosecution Services, has characterized the report as "grossly false" with "incorrect facts" about how law enforcement handled the program.

He said in many of the cases cited by SPLC and Appleseed, the seized properties were the result of an informant.

"If you catch a guy with a backpack filled with crack cocaine and cash that is making from selling crack cocaine, and you flip him to help catch someone higher up in the organization, he doesn't get to keep the money," said Matson. "We follow them. There is a process, but he's not charged and if we charge him and he makes bond, (the criminal enterprises) will know he's an informant. It's a safety issue."

SPLC and Appleseed's analysis, however, indicates that 55 percent of the cases where criminal charges were filed, and property was seized, were related to marijuana arrests.

In 18 percent of cases where criminal charges were filed, the groups note, the charge was simple possession of the drug.

Seeking transparency

Despite the findings, law enforcement groups weren't convinced a major overhaul was needed. Instead, all parties involved in negotiations - which included left-leaning SPLC and Alabama Appleseed, as well as right-leaning Alabama Policy Institute - zeroed-in on requiring more transparency.

As the parties squared off, "It was clear we needed to seek a narrower bill, not to repeal forfeiture, but require extensive amount of detailed reporting of the forfeiture activity that goes on," said Artur Davis, senior consultant with The Institute of Justice and former U.S. congressman, who was involved in the negotiations.

A mediator was added to the negotiations, which occurred from February through April.

What surfaced was new legislation requiring the Criminal Justice Information Center Commission to collect and analyze data provided by law enforcement agencies.

The data that was sought through SB213 included:

Name of the agency that seized the property, the location where it was seized and the date it occurred.

The type of property seized, whether it was currency, an automobile or any other type of property.

The type of underlying criminal offense that led to the seizure, and any crime for which the suspect was charged.

The date the forfeiture was ordered.

Whether the forfeiture was multi-jurisdictional, and was sought under federal law the result of a joint investigation.

Matson, with the DA association, said there was no opposition on his end with requiring transparency. "We are all committed to going forward with transparency and all that kind of stuff," he said.

Cook, though, has a different take. He said the legislation did not include funding for the database, and questions existed on which state agency would be charged with maintaining it.

"First and foremost, our position is that it's already an open record," said Cook. "It's all handled through the judges and the courts. If the senators don't think the judges are doing an adequate job of overseeing that, I don't know what else we can do."

Other law enforcement leaders also had doubts. Among them was Mobile County Sheriff Sam Cochran, who said the rewritten SB213 amount to the creation of "more bureaucracy."

Cochran said law enforcement agencies are already required to report how much money and property they obtain during an arrest. He said his agency, every two years, is audited and those findings are documented by the Alabama Department of Examiners of Public Accounts.

"There are all kinds of records there," Cochran said. "It's not like it isn't transparent."

'Poison pill'

Despite the disagreements, a negotiated agreement for SB213 made it to the Senate floor. And in late March, Senators debated it.

"It was a big deal," said Davis. "It would've, for the first time, included forfeiture in that process of data collection. Whenever there is an arrest in Alabama, law enforcement would have had to fill out a report. We would have required, for the first time, comprehensive reporting of that data."

On the Senate floor, Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, interjected. Smitherman, a co-sponsor of Orr's legislation, inserted an amendment that required law enforcement to prove that property seized was used in or was intended to be use in a felony criminal offense.

The amendment, Davis and others have said, amounted to a "poison pill." Davis said the amendment was not something agreed upon by law enforcement during negotiations.

"To inject other issues after negotiations have been completed is bad form, it's bad faith and not surprisingly, law enforcement felt they were blindsided and they withdrew their support."

Said Matson, with the District Attorneys' Association: "Rodger, I think the world of him. He would say the same about us. But I think the amendment, that amendment really spoke to the original bill and not the compromised bill. It was in an odd place."

Farley, with SPLC, disagrees that Smitherman's addition amounted to a "poison pill." She said, "No one owns a piece of legislation but the Legislature. Neither the D.A. nor the advocates should have a final say on that. This was something (Smitherman) did for his district. I cannot see how that was a poison pill."

Smitherman, in an interview last week with AL.com, said he was not part of the negotiations that led up to the Senate debate. He said he added the amendment out of concern over innocent people losing their assets.

"The forfeiture process should not start until the criminal process had concluded," he said.

Orr said he doesn't blame Smitherman for the legislation's defeat. While it passed out of the Senate, there wasn't enough time in the legislative session to renegotiate.

"Anytime there is an unexpected amendment like that, it can certainly be pulled off in the House or in a conference committee," said Orr. "I don't buy the argument that (Smitherman's) amendment torpedoed the bill. You don't have to live with the amendment if it impedes the overall generally-agreed upon bill."

Said Smitherman: "Anytime you have opposition, it will create stumbling blocks. But that's what politics is about. The art of the compromise. We'll get back at it next session."

'Not going anywhere'

Artur Davis with the Institute for Justice, though, isn't as confident that all sides will return to the negotiating table.

"It's entirely possible in the way this ended, that it could be difficult for good faith negotiations to begin again," he said.

Cochran, the Mobile County Sheriff, said he could see civil asset forfeiture becoming a "non-issue," especially if a new swath of elected officials join the Legislature in 2019, who are "more supportive of law enforcement."

But most others, including Matson with the District Attorney's Association, are eager to return to the talks.

"Well get there," he said. "We're fully committed going forward."

Orr said he's going to reintroduce the transparency legislation next year. He said "it's healthy for there to be a level of accountability" in the process, and anticipates talks restarting in the winter.

The SPLC and Appleseed are also likely to be engaged.

"This issue is not going anywhere," said Farley, with SPLC. "There will definitely be legislation again. I think all of those players will be back at the table again."