Justice For All - Feb 2015

Texas has been a national leader on justice reform, passing and implementing landmark programs that have led to significant cost-savings for taxpayers, lower crime, and decreased repeat offender rates. Though the Lone Star State has proven that justice reform works, which is why some lawmakers in Congress are trying to replicate these efforts, it has lagged on another related aspect: civil asset forfeiture reform.

Last weekend, in the final hours of its session for the year, the New Mexico Legislature unanimously passed a sweeping bill, HB 560, that effectively bans the practice of civil asset forfeiture, an egregious tool used by law enforcement in many instances to seize assets from innocent people without ever charging them with -- let alone convicting them of -- a crime.

Under civil asset forfeiture, the government can take someone’s property without convicting them of a crime. The law has its basis in British admiralty law and makes little sense in today’s modern world. While there are has been some discussion of reforming forfeiture at the federal level, the states are leading the charge to reform. However, more reforms are needed at the state and federal level, and can be based on the reforms already implemented in some states.

The New Mexico Legislature passed a sweeping civil asset forfeiture reform bill last week to protect innocent people's property and due process rights. The bill, HB 560, effectively bans the pernicious practice, requiring a criminal conviction before property can be forfeited to the state.

Currently there are 73 federal agencies that have full-time armed officers with arresting authority. According to a 2008 report by the Department of Justice, there were 120,000 full-time law enforcement officers working for federal agencies and 24 different federal agencies employed at least 250 full-time officers. Federal agencies with at least 250 full-time officers included the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Mint, U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Veterans Health Administration.

The American justice system is collapsing under its own weight. Big government policies passed by Congress have led to a justice system that traps nonviolent offenders in an endless cycle. This deprives them of economic opportunities and costs taxpayers billions of dollars each year. The Internal Revenue Service and law enforcement agencies at all levels of government have run roughshod over private property rights and due process through abuse of civil asset forfeiture.

Civil asset forfeiture laws allow the government to seize private property, even when citizens’ haven't been charged with a crime. These laws are a glaring violation of our 5th Amendment right to property and due process. In these cases, law enforcement must only provide probable cause in order to seize property, which, in practice, includes even the most dubious pieces of evidence.

There was an extraordinary sight on the Senate floor early Tuesday evening as five members of the chamber, led by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), engaged in a nearly 40-minute conversation about S. 502, the Smarter Sentencing Act, a bill that would reform mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent offenders.

Last Friday Senator Rand Paul spoke at Bowie State University about the need to reform our justice system. He spoke of the need to reform a system where 2 million American children have fathers in prison, leading to a breakdown of the American family. He spoke of the need to reform a system that too often prevents individuals from gaining employment after their release from prison and instead turns them over to the welfare state. Most importantly, he spoke of real proposals to implement the necessary changes, not vague hopes or dreams.

The momentum for fiscally conservative justice reforms continues to build. On Wednesday, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry expressed support for these efforts, pointing to the accomplishments of groundbreaking reforms in Texas that have been replicated in other Republican-leaning states.