On
January 16, 2015, Attorney
General Eric Holder made promising changes to the policies regarding
federal adoption of property seized by state or local law enforcement under
state law in order for the property to be forfeited under federal law (“federal
adoption”). Prior to this press release, federal law enforcement agencies could
adopt property seized by state or local law enforcement agencies to
prevent property from being returned to criminals. However, in order to
seize the property, law enforcement officers only need to show that the
property is related to
criminal conduct by the preponderance of the
evidence. Permitting law enforcement agencies to keep these assets potentially
incentivizes many asset
forfeitures. This may explain the findings of a recent Washington Post
investigation, which revealed that law enforcement agencies have seized $2.5
Billion since 2001 from people who were never charged with a crime.
