Thanks to the Alex C. Walker Foundation’s generous $15,000 grant to the Institute for Justice, we are able to continue our aggressive fight against civil asset forfeiture abuse. We are pleased to report that our efforts are making a noticeable impact in combating this serious threat to private property rights.
On the litigation front, we won a quick victory in our Georgia forfeiture case last month when two of the three defendants agreed to comply with state law and disclose their takings through asset forfeiture. IJ and attorneys for the Atlanta Police Department, the third defendant, just recently reached an agreement on takings disclosure, and we are waiting for the judge to sign off on it. We are following up on this win through “litigation by letterhead” whereby IJ lawyers will be contacting various law enforcement agencies throughout Georgia to inform them of the decision in Atlanta and state that we expect them to comply with it by fully disclosing their civil asset forfeiture takings. This has the potential to yield particularly fruitful and exciting results for our ongoing campaign. Agencies that refuse to comply, even in light of our victory, will be ripe for media exposure while agencies that provide documentation will potentially contribute even more outrageous instances of abuse, generating greater attention to this issue. Outside of Georgia, our other litigation continues to move along. We issued an appeal in our ongoing Texas forfeiture case this month and are presently investigating other states with an eye on launching new cases.
Our strategic research team has been particularly productive as of late. We recently placed an updated version of our report, “Policing for Profit,” in the "Journal of Criminal Justice", one of the most prestigious academic journals on criminal justice. This placement in a peer-reviewed publication will lend enormous credibility to our claims on the dangers of forfeiture abuse. IJ also released nationwide polling data showing strong support for forfeiture reform as well as a two-page backgrounder on equitable sharing in California. Equitable sharing, which involves joint task forces between local and federal law enforcement agencies, acts as an end-around existing safeguards against asset forfeiture abuse and is one of the main targets of the current legislative reform effort. Please see the accompanying attachments for full copies of all three documents.
Elsewhere, the federal Drug Enforcement Agency is targeting California landlords who rent space to licensed marijuana dispensaries and is seizing their property through asset forfeiture. IJ Director of Activism and Coalitions Christina Walsh has been working with people on the ground to end this egregious abuse of power. In addition, IJ Minnesota Chapter Director Lee McGrath is working with legislators in Georgia who want to introduce IJ’s model asset forfeiture reform legislation during the next legislative session and generate greater media attention on this issue around the state.
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