President Trump's recent statements and tweets disparaging Attorney General Jeff Sessions have somewhat obscured how faithfully Sessions has been implementing many of the President's agenda items, including his Law and Order agenda, and that includes the recently announced rollback of obama Eric curbs on civil forfeiture, a practice by which the government can seize the assets of people suspected of crimes even before they are convicted of anything, and often
before they're even formally charged. Here to talk with us about the Justice Department and Attorney General Sessions stands on civil forfeiture are Lewis, really, professor at the University of Print Pennsylvania School of Law, and James Jacobs, a professor at n y U Law School. Lewis, what has Attorney General Sessions announced that's different from what the Obama administration
was doing on civil forfeiture? Yes, good afternoon. Uh. In January two thousand and fifteen, Erik Colder than the Attorney General under the Obama administration, had suspended the Adoptive Forfeiture program, which is a program that allows local officials to seize property and then handed over to the federal government. Which prosecutes the civil forfeiture action and then once getting in a forfeiture then returns up to of the funds to
the local government. This program had been so racked with abuses UM documented in many of the media and the Washington Post series in particular in two thousand four UM that it UM was had to be shelved UM. And interestingly, in March of this year, the Inspector General for the Department of Justice issued a report UM which was highly critical of Civil Forfeiture UM and noted there that the UM government had taken in over the last ten years three point two billion dollars in cash from people who
were never charged with a crime. So this is a program that is racked with abuses, and the announcement by the Attorney General that now it will be boosted again through bringing back the equitable sharing adoptive forfeiture program is really a disturbing announcement and one that is at odds with where are the states are going in trying to
reform civil forfeiture JIM. This is an issue that Republicans and Democrats seem to agree on who supports civil forfeiture except for law enforcement to who get that stream of revenue from it. Yeah, I think that that you're quite
right in what you're saying in the question. I mean that the biggest stituency for this is the law enforcement, especially the state and local police departments, that use this money to to enhance their budgets, allowed them to do things that they otherwise would not have been able to do. So it was very popular with the state and local law enforcement. Had been subject to a lot of criticism
from libertarian Republicans. The Cato Institute was one of the biggest critics over the years of civil forfeiture, and also from civil liberty liberties groups on the left. Well, lewis, what is this likely to engender congressional opposition given that some Republicans are against civil forfeiture at least on the scale it's from practiced in the past. I think it will um and I agree with the comments that there's a lot of support on certain local law enforcement and
state agencies, particularly where they've seen a drop in revenue. Um. What we really have to talk about in the civil forfeiture program is that all the money that is forfeited, and it's a huge amount of money, goes right back directly to law enforcements UM, and so they have a great stake in whether or not civil forfeiture continues UM.
At the same time, they've been criticized in the Inspector General's reports for not keeping careful records, not really advancing criminal prosecutions in the way that they're seizing cash, and that it looks much more alike just an attempt to get money as opposed and posing real civilibities issues. So we've seen bipartisan support for reforming civil forfeiture, both at the federal level and the state level UM, certainly from
both the left and the right UM. And I would also note that Justice Clarence Thomas issued a very interesting statement earlier this year in connection with a case in which the Court did not grant sartiari UM reviewed on a civil forfeiture case. But Justice Thomas took the occasion to say the forfeiture has become widespread, highly profitable. It's led to egregious and well chronicled abuses UM and frequently
targeting the poor and groups least able to descend. So we are seeing will support UM for reform of civil forfeiture, and I think that will be also showing opposition to what the Attorney General has announced. Jim going on what he just talked about the Supreme Court and Clarence Thomas, is this a dangerous move by Sessions in that if there's a challenge to the Supreme Court, it could lead
to an all or nothing decision. Um. That's possible that they might declare certain kinds of civil forfeiture to be unconstitutional without certain kinds of procedural protections. But I don't think it would be the end of civil forfeiture. And it's also important here note that that there's a lot
of federal state uh issues here. So so about half the states have tried to to reign in the the forfeiture aggressiveness of law enforcement, and by and by turning the cases over to the federal government was like an an end run around those state limitations. Um So, in that sense, the the the rules are are in a way undermining the state's capacity to set their own policies on forfeiture. So I think that's very important, Lewis. And about thirty seconds that we have left, is there a
legitimate role for civil asset forfeiture? Well, I think, and this is my own opinion on this, that we have criminal forfeiture in this country, and that is taking away the property that was used in connection with the crime. Once a person has been convicted of a crime, I don't believe that there should be a program that takes away property from a person who is not only not convicted of a crime, but not even charged with a crime,
not even suspected of a crime. Our thanks to Lewis Ruley of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and James Jacobs of n y U Law School for being here today on Bloomberg Law