Republican Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt known as for reforms to the state’s civil asset forfeiture legal guidelines in his State of the State handle Monday.
“We need to address civil asset forfeiture,” Stitt mentioned. “It’s crazy to me that somebody can be pulled over and have their cash and truck taken for an alleged crime, get acquitted of that crime, but they still never get their property back.”
“That isn’t fair, and we need to make sure it isn’t happening anywhere in Oklahoma,” Stitt continued.
The feedback are notable as a result of Oklahoma is a part of a shrinking group of states that has but to overtake their forfeiture statutes within the face of bipartisan criticisms.
Below civil asset forfeiture legal guidelines, police can seize property they believe of being linked to felony exercise, even when the proprietor isn’t charged with a criminal offense.
Legislation enforcement teams say civil forfeiture is a vital instrument to cripple drug trafficking and different organized crime by focusing on criminals’ money and property.
Nonetheless, civil rights teams say the follow is tilted in opposition to property house owners and creates perverse revenue incentives for police. Investigations have repeatedly uncovered instances throughout the county the place law enforcement officials accused harmless individuals of being drug traffickers for carrying massive quantities of money—which is completely authorized—after which seized their cash. Property house owners are then pressured to go to court docket, the place they bear the burden of proof to display their innocence.
For instance, in 2021, NBC Information reported on the case of two Vietnamese males who had over $130,000 in money seized after they have been pulled over by Oklahoma sheriff’s deputies. The lads have been let free with out felony costs or a receipt for his or her seized money.
“Now I have to prove I’m innocent, and they are the ones who illegally took my money and basically stole some of my money, too,” one of many males advised NBC.
In one other high-profile case, a Burmese refugee named Eh Wah was driving throughout the nation in 2016. Eh Wah was the supervisor of a Christian band that was elevating cash for a Burmese orphanage. When deputies from the Muskogee County Sheriff’s pulled over the band’s tour van, they discovered $53,000 in money that the band had raised.
Regardless of not one iota of medication being present in Eh Wah’s van, the deputies seized the cash, claiming it was drug proceeds. The sheriff’s workplace launched the cash again to Eh Wah two months later, the identical day that The Washington Publish printed a narrative on his case.
Over the past decade, 37 states have handed some type of civil asset forfeiture reform due to tales like these, and 4 states now solely enable forfeiture after a felony conviction based mostly on proof past an inexpensive doubt.
The Institute for Justice, a libertarian-leaning public-interest legislation agency that represented Eh Wah and has challenged forfeiture legal guidelines in a number of states, gave Oklahoma’s asset forfeiture legal guidelines a “D-” grade in its newest survey, citing the state’s low burden of proof to forfeit property, lack of protections for harmless house owners, and robust monetary incentive for seizures.
“Governor Stitt was right. No Oklahoman should lose their property through forfeiture unless they are convicted of a crime. Forfeiture should only be available as punishment for a crime in criminal court,” Institute for Justice senior legislative counsel Lee McGrath mentioned in a press launch. “Oklahoma prosecutors should use forfeiture to confiscate the fruit of crime, but their litigation should be done as part of a criminal prosecution—not separate and crazy civil litigation where cars and cash are named as the defendants.”