Auditors: Kansas should have stricter rules for money seized by police

The state’s auditors recommend that Kansas adopt stricter rules on how money and property seized by police officers can be used after a review of six law enforcement agencies.

Kansas allows law enforcement agencies to seize money and property from people without a warrant if the agency has probable cause that the property, such as a car, is being used for a crime. The process, common throughout the United States, is known as civil asset forfeiture.

A state audit released in July raised multiple concerns about how Kansas law enforcement agencies were using the property seized from suspects. Auditors have drafted legislation to address those concerns.

Kristen Rottinghaus, a state auditor, told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that allowing agencies to use seized property to pay for routine operations increases the likelihood they’ll become reliant on it and creates an incentive for officers to seize property.

The Kansas Highway Patrol used $413,000 in forfeiture proceeds from December 2012 through June 2015 to pay for salaries of officers involved in the forfeiture program.

Senate Bill 4, drafted by the auditors, would bar agencies from using seized property to pay for salary and benefits.

The audit also found that the Salina Police Department was depositing seized money directly into a forfeiture fund as required by law and that the fund lacked proper controls. Members in a special drug task force were allowed to check out large sums of cash for undercover drug buys and other purposes. The audit found that officers did not routinely return unused money.

Sen. Julia Lynn, R-Olathe, said during the meeting that she may propose legislation that directs any money from asset forfeiture into a compensation fund for crime victims to remove incentives for misuse.

Senate Bill 3, also drafted by auditors, addresses a conflict of interest identified by auditors’ review of the Coffeyville Police Department.

Coffeyville relied on the Montgomery County attorney’s private law firm to represent it in forfeiture cases, paying his firm $26,000 over two years. Those payments would have gone to a special prosecutor fund if the county attorney had represented the police department in his official capacity.

The bill would prohibit district and county attorneys from representing law enforcement agencies as private attorneys in forfeiture cases.

Sen. David Haley, D-Kansas City, said the entire civil asset forfeiture system needs to be overhauled. At one point he compared the practice to racketeering.

“This is like gangsters here,” Haley said.

He said he plans to offer a bill that either prohibits law enforcement agencies from seizing property until a person has been convicted or compensates a person for the inconvenience or hardship caused by having an asset seized.

“Just philosophically, I believe only those convicted of the crime charge should be deprived of their property,” Haley said.

“Think about the family car,” Haley said, posing a hypothetical scenario in which police seize a family’s car under suspicion that it’s being used for illegal activity. “And it’s seized and for all that time that one car is unavailable during the trial. Well, how do we reconcile that?”

This story was originally published January 18, 2017 at 3:00 PM with the headline "Auditors: Kansas should have stricter rules for money seized by police."