Florida law enforcement seized $26M annually through civil forfeiture

(The Center Square) — Over the past five years, law enforcement agencies in Florida have seized an average of $26 million in assets through civil asset forfeiture, which allows the seizure of property even if the owner hasn’t been convicted of a crime.

Under civil asset forfeiture, prosecutors use a lower evidentiary standard in court to prove that property used in the commission of a crime or was from the proceeds of the crime.

According to Florida law, every law enforcement agency in the state must submit an annual report to the Department of Law Enforcement on the agency’s seized or forfeited property under the Florida Contraband Forfeiture Act, detailing all receipts and expenditures.

The statute also states that the DLE must submit its own report to the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability, including a list of law enforcement agencies that fail to comply. Law enforcement agencies are also barred from factoring future seizures into their budgets.

The last report submitted by the Office of the Inspector General in June 2022 showed that over fiscal 2020-21, $27 million in direct forfeitures had been received by law enforcement agencies.

Records for previous years show a similar pattern, with fiscal 2019-20 having over $24 million in revenue from direct forfeiture, while fiscal 2018-19 revenue sat at $26.7 million in direct forfeiture and interest payments.

Past reports also show that during fiscal 2017-18, law enforcement agencies received a whopping $275 million in revenue from direct forfeitures, interest payments, and other agencies. Most of that was from state seizures and not local agencies.

Justin Pearson, the Managing Attorney of the Institute for Justice’s Florida Office told The Center Square that civil forfeiture should not exist and reforms have been undermined by the "equitable sharing loophole."

"The way the equitable sharing loophole works is that in states that have passed reforms, the federal DOJ tells state and local police to ignore those reforms, keep doing things the same way, but then give the forfeitures to the feds to file in federal court instead of state court," Pearson said, adding that the process is called "adoption."

Pearson noted that by filing the forfeiture in federal court — circumventing state protections — state and local police are paid out 80% of the forfeited assets, while the feds keep the remaining 20%.

"The feds call this division of money 'equitable sharing.' Sadly, the overwhelming majority of these proceeds come from people who have not even been accused of a crime, let alone convicted of anything," Pearson said, pointing out that there are two ways to close the loophole.

"Some states have closed it by requiring all equitable sharing proceeds to go into a general fund instead of to the departments who seized the money or property," Pearson said, noting that the other way to close the loophole would be for Congress to pass HR 1525. "This removes the perverse incentive to steal innocent people’s stuff."

The Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration Act would end the equitable sharing program and require seizure proceeds to go to the U.S. Treasury Department. Also, property owners would have to be informed by the government of their intent to forfeit the property within seven days after the owner’s identity was confirmed.