Civil Asset Forfeiture Case Study

Introduction A young man by the name of Joseph Rivers boarded a train headed from Los Angeles, California. Joseph brought with him the dream of becoming a video movie producer and a total of $16,000, that he and his mother had scraped together to help start this dream. At a stop in Albuquerque, New Mexico, two men boarded Joseph's train and seized his money, leaving him broke and without the funds to continue on with his trip or return home to Michigan. These men who committed this seemly unjust crime, were federal employees who according to the "civil-asset forfeiture" law, were well within their bounds to do so. (Friedersdorf, n.p.). The federal employees were DEA agents who upon entering the train, singled out and questioned Joseph. They asked where he was going and what he was carrying and with nothing to hide, Joseph complied. The agents saw Joseph's money and started making assumptions. They looked upon Joseph, a young black man with a one-way ticket to a major city and a large amount of cash on hand, and assumed he was partaking in some type of narcotic activity. The agents seized Joseph and his mother's hard earned money right then and there without a single conviction or charge made. The agents left Joseph penniless far from home and informed him, that
Critics including citizens, defense attorneys, and advocates for civil rights adhere to serious instances of abuse where innocent owners have been victimized. The critics come from both sides of the political spectrum, from left leaning groups such as the American Civil Liberty Union and right-leaning groups such as the Heritage Foundation, claiming that civil-asset forfeiture compromises due process protections and encourages law enforcement blunders. It is also claimed that the civil forfeiture avoids proper appropriates between adequate crime control and financial management (Worrell,