IJ Lawsuit on Behalf of Innocent Elderly Couple Will Continue
Today, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey signed bipartisan legislation to meaningfully reform Arizona civil forfeiture laws. Under civil forfeiture, law enforcement agencies can seize property merely suspected of involvement in criminal activity. Unlike criminal forfeiture, civil forfeiture allows the government to permanently keep property without charging anyone with—let alone convicting them of—a crime. And Arizona law allows the seizing agencies to keep up to 100 percent of the proceeds from forfeited property.
“Arizona’s civil forfeiture maze is the greatest threat to property rights and due process today,” explained Institute for Justice Senior Attorney Paul Avelar. “HB 2477 makes incremental but important reforms to Arizona’s forfeiture laws to protect innocent property owners and ensure that government powers are not abused.”
Sponsored by Rep. Eddie Farnsworth, HB 2477 overwhelmingly passed both the Arizona House and Senate—only one law maker ever voted against the reforms. Highlighting the broad popularity of reform, HB 2477 drew support from a wide variety of groups, including the Institute for Justice, the Goldwater Institute, Arizona Free Enterprise Club, Arizona Citizens Defense League, ACLU of Arizona, Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice, Los Abogados, Public Integrity Alliance, the Tenth Amendment Center, National Federation of Independent Business, Right on Crime, FreedomWorks, and U.S. Justice Action Network. One recent poll showed that 87% of Arizonans also supported forfeiture reform.
The Governor’s signature comes less than two weeks after the Inspector General at the Department of Justice and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration released bombshell reports criticizing the federal government’s forfeiture practices.
