Live from Music Row Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed official guest host Grant Henry in the studio for another edition of Grant’s Rants.
GRANT HENRY:
Every dollar Terry Rowland had saved of his lifetime was stacked into a large Tupperware container: $82,373. At 79, he was aging and worried about keeping cash on hand. So during one of his daughter’s visits – her name was Rebecca Brown – he asked her to open a joint bank account.
Now Rebecca was catching a flight home from Pittsburgh early the next day, and she said she didn’t have time to stop by a bank, so she would just take the cash with her.
She confirmed on a government website that it is legal to carry any amount of cash on a domestic flight. And so she tucked this 82 grand into her carry-on. But just minutes before departure, a DEA agent met her at a busy gate and questioned her about this cash.
He insisted that Rebecca put her father, Terry, on the phone to confirm her story. Rebecca said her father, who unfortunately is suffering from mental decline, was unable to verify some of the details.
She said the DEA agent just handed her the phone, said, your stories don’t match, and we’re seizing the cash. The agent took her father’s entire life savings, all $82,373, right there on the spot. Now, a practice called civil asset forfeiture is what created the scenario for the story that you just heard.
And if you don’t know, civil asset fortune is the practice that allows police to seize your property if they suspect you of a crime, even if you’re never actually convicted of that crime.
And I’m not joking here, you can lose your property without ever being charged with a crime. It happens every year in Tennessee, to the tune of about $15 million, $140,000,000 total since 2009. And Tennessee law enforcement keeps up to 100 percent of the proceeds.
I’ll say that again, each individual police precinct keeps the proceeds of the property seized from potentially innocent citizens. This can create a perverse incentive for law enforcement to pad their budgets to constitutionally suspect means.
And I’m asking, why would we ask them to do that? Why would we even put them through that situation? We need to do better for our police and sheriffs. Tennessee law enforcement should be fully funded through a transparent budget process that is backed by the voice and the will of the people.
And I’m here to tell you all this morning that it’s time to change this practice in the state of Tennessee. The underlying precept of our grand American legal system is that you are innocent until proven guilty.
But for far too long, Tennessee civil forfeiture laws have flipped that presumption of innocence on its head, forcing people to prove their innocence to the government to keep their own property. Now, as early as 2017, Justice Clarence Thomas said the following about civil forfeiture.
‘This system where police can seize property with limited judicial oversight and retain it for their own use has led to egregious and well-chronicled abuses, which threatens individuals, property and due process rights and frequently targets the poor and other groups least able to defend their interests in forfeiture proceedings.
So arguably the most conservative justice on the Supreme Court supports changing our civil forfeiture laws. And listen, understand what I’m saying here. Convicted criminals should have their property taken. I will say that again for clarity.
Convicted criminals should have their property taken. However, seizing people’s property without convicting them of a crime creates perverse incentives and damages community relations. This makes officers’ jobs harder in the long run.
Now, luckily for everybody there’s a bill working its way through the Tennessee General Assembly right now that will correct this problem in our great state. House Bill 2525 Senate Bill 2545. It ensures that individuals’ properties are not forfeited unless they are charged and convicted of a crime.
Convict me of a crime first, then take my stuff. This protects our due process and constitutional rights for Tennesseeans and it allows all forfeiture proceedings to run through a criminal court of record.
Providing transparency and Gideon representation for the indigent and sets us on a path to properly fund our police through a transparent budget process, giving them the resources they need to protect our communities.
House Bill 2525 will be up in the criminal justice subcommittee next week. And I would urge all of you to contact the members of that criminal justice subcommittee and ask them to support this bill.
Changing our civil asset forfeiture laws must be done now because it will safeguard our fundamental due process and property rights. It’s the constitutionally correct thing to do.
Changing these laws now must be done now because it will reinforce Tennesseans’ confidence and trust in law enforcement institutions. It’s the sociologically correct thing to do. And changing these laws must be done now because it will protect the vulnerable individuals least able to defend their rights. It’s the morally correct thing to.
Listen to the full interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Hopefully the bill provides for interest to accrue (paid by the county or state) if the person is not charged with a crime and their money is sitting there for months. Punitive measures.