Return seized property if no conviction

Many states require a conviction before local law enforcement agencies can keep seized cash and personal property believed to be criminal gains. Kansas does not, and could use a law setting that reasonable standard while making it legally easier for innocent parties to reclaim their property.

Yet this problem could be politically difficult to solve, because local law enforcement budgets now rely on such forfeiture proceeds to help pay for investigations, training, drug task forces, and purchases of officer body cameras and other equipment.

“If that money is not there..., we either discontinue the things we are funding out of criminal money, or we have to fund them out of taxpayer money,” law enforcement lobbyist Ed Klumpp told the Lawrence Journal-World.

Action during the current legislative session also seems premature to some, because the Legislative Division of Post Audit is working on an audit, due in May, that could help quantify how much “criminal money” is at stake.

Still, making such forfeiture contingent on conviction is an idea that ought to appeal libertarians and liberals, if not some tough-on-crime types in between.

“When I tell people that in the state of Kansas, you don’t have to be convicted of a crime (to have your property forfeited), people are shocked. This is terrible,” Rep. Gail Finney, D-Wichita, told the Journal-World.

Similarly, Sedgwick County Commission Chairman Jim Howell said during a discussion of legislative issues at Wednesday’s commission meeting: “That someone has not been convicted but they still may lose their private, personal property, whether it be real or personal property – to me, that is not good law.”

No wonder Kansas earned a D-minus in a recent Institute of Justice report, “Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture,” which also cited the state’s “poor protections for innocent third-party property owners.”

Fighting civil asset forfeiture is a priority for the Charles Koch Institute, which has noted the “perverse incentives” it creates for law enforcement to pursue property seizures aggressively.

As Sedgwick County commissioners advocated Wednesday, GOP legislative leaders should find a fix during the current session. One place to start is House Bill 2638, which would require a conviction before forfeiture (but includes an overreaching sweep of all proceeds into the state general fund).

Even in a time of tough budgets, there have to be better ways to fund law enforcement than by seizing and keeping the cash and property of people merely accused of wrongdoing.

This story was originally published February 17, 2016 at 6:07 PM with the headline "Return seized property if no conviction."