Justice For All - Feb 2015

Logic would dictate the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) would be pleased that small business owners are making cash deposits into a bank since these funds are evidence of taxable revenue.

The Montana Legislature has approved a bill providing a crucial protection to innocent people whose property could be confiscated by overzealous law enforcement.

Michigan, like so many other states, has seen significant abuse of civil asset forfeiture laws by law enforcement. The Detroit Free Press found that law enforcement seized property and cash worth at least $24.3 million in 2013. Many of the property owners were never charged with, let alone convicted of, a crime.

Law enforcement’s main duties are to keep the public safe and protect our persons and property. In many states, civil asset forfeiture creates a perverse incentive which can change the priorities that law enforcement pursues.

William Davis and John Newmer­zhycky were traveling through Iowa in April 2013 on their way to Las Vegas from a World Series of Poker event in Illinois when they were pulled over by Iowa State Patrol in a drug interdiction stop. The state patrolman who pulled them over falsely claimed that Newmer­zhycky, who was driving, failed to turn on his turn signal when changing lanes.

The Wyoming Legislature, in February, passed, with overwhelming, bipartisan support, a strong bill that would have offered strong protections for innocent people whose property has been wrongfully seized by the government through the state's absolutely awful civil asset forfeiture laws. The bill would have required the government to win a criminal conviction before it could seize property believed to be used in crime.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), in a Facebook post on Saturday, responded to President Barack Obama's sharp criticism of Senate Republicans for the delay of a final confirmation vote for his Attorney General nominee, Loretta Lynch.

The federal government and many state governments have slowly been moving away from mandatory minimum sentence for nonviolent offenders. Many of these reforms have been tremendously helpful. But more reforms are necessary to keep big government out of the courtroom.

On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held an important, long overdue hearing on federal civil asset forfeiture laws and the need for reform to curtail or end abuse by the Internal Revenue Service and federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies.

It may sound counterintuitive, but two Republicans in the Illinois House of Representatives with law enforcement backgrounds are leading the charge for justice reform in the Land of Lincoln, guiding legislation through the chamber that will give nonviolent offenders an opportunity to change the direction of their lives.