Civil forfeiture involves the government seizing a suspect’s assets or property and attempting to keep it, while the suspect tries to prove his or her innocence.
It’s an option that prosecutors tend to like, but a number of states, including Arizona, have enacted reforms in recent years. There are concerns related to property rights and government overreach.
Bucking that trend is U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who says the Department of Justice will plan to develop policies to increase forfeitures. Sessions says those are appropriate with “care.”
That will contradict policy implemented by then-Attorney General Eric Holder in 2015. We talked about civil forfeiture with attorney Paul Avalar of the Institute for Justice.
