Civil forfeiture laws throughout the U.S. have been under attack for some time now. In recent years the tide seems to have turned and this scam of the drug wars is hopefully receding into the annals of time. Judges have made rulings allowing civil lawsuits through, forcing law enforcement agencies and municipalities to question whether or not it’s worth it to steal citizens’ money. The Department of Justice has begun to take away some of the financial profit sharing incentives that cities once enjoyed. The best part is that both Republicans and Democrats have been, relatively, on the same page about civil asset forfeiture. Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts just signed a bill eliminating civil forfeiture.
The newly signed law provides sweeping reforms. First and foremost, Nebraska now requires a criminal conviction to forfeit property. The accused must be convicted of an offense involving illegal drugs, child pornography or illegal gambling to lose their cash, vehicles, firearms or real estate. Nebraska joins just nine other states that require a criminal conviction as a prerequisite for most or all forfeiture cases. Following North Carolina and New Mexico, Nebraska is now the third state largely without civil forfeiture. In addition to the criminal conviction requirement, LB 1106 also enacts new reporting requirements for seizures and forfeitures.
This is important. It isn’t a full disincentive to the state since they still allow 50 percent of drug forfeiture funds to be kept by law enforcement—the rest goes to education. However, this law takes away the bigger “equitable sharing” incentive where by participating with federal agencies, local law enforcement could keep upwards of 80 percent of the seizures.
To curtail equitable sharing, LB 1106 bans state and local agencies from transferring seized cash and property under $25,000. The new law does allow transfers to occur if the property was “physically seized by a federal agent” and if the person who had their property seized is “the subject of a federal prosecution.” The only other state that currently restricts equitable sharing is New Mexico, though its anti-circumvention limit is set at $50,000.
Nebraska has made a step in the right direction here today.