For all the talk of deep partisan divides on the Supreme Court, justices found ground for unity last month on the controversial topic of asset forfeiture. Seven of the eight participating justices rejected a Colorado requirement that people must prove their innocence before they can recover assets seized in criminal cases where the defendants were found not guilty.
Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenter. Newly sworn Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate. Otherwise, conservatives and liberals agreed that Colorado’s asset-forfeiture law went way too far in granting government the authority to retain seized assets without due process.
Asset forfeiture is a tricky issue. No one likes the idea of, say, a major drug trafficker getting to keep a mansion, yacht or millions of dollars in probably ill-gotten gains simply because the government couldn’t prove these were the direct proceeds of a criminal enterprise.
But our court system requires a presumption of innocence. The prosecution has the burden of proof, not the defense.
In the Colorado case, two former criminal defendants whose convictions were overturned had to sue the state to recover fees and assets taken during their prosecution.
“Colorado may not presume a person, adjudged guilty of no crime, nonetheless guilty enough for monetary exactions,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the majority.
Numerous states have laws that impose enormous costs and hassles on former defendants seeking to recover seized assets. Police departments and prosecutors’ offices often rely on those assets to fund their operations. Nationally, asset forfeitures in 2014 exceeded $5 billion. …
President Donald Trump stepped into the middle of this debate during a February meeting with law enforcers when a Texas sheriff complained about a Republican state senator who had proposed a bill requiring conviction before authorities could seize a defendant’s money. Trump offered to destroy the senator’s career.
The Conservative Review said Trump’s threat “should scare all of us.” Jacob Sullum, of the libertarian magazine Reason, labeled asset forfeiture “legalized theft.”
It’s a rare day, indeed, when Justice Ginsburg stands with them at the Supreme Court.
— St. Louis Post-Dispatch
