http://www.forbes.com/sites/institutefo ... n-lawsuit/
Philadelphia Earns Millions By Seizing Cash And Homes From People Never Charged With A Crime
Chris Sourovelis has never had any trouble with the law or been accused of any crime. But that hasn’t stopped the City of Philadelphia from trying to take his home.
The Sourouvelis family, along with thousands of others in Philadelphia, is living a Kafkaesque nightmare: Their property is considered guilty; they must prove their innocence and the very prosecutors they’re fighting can profit from their misery. Now the Institute for Justice has filed a major class-action lawsuit to end these abuses of power.
Back in March, Chris’s son was caught selling $40 worth of drugs outside of the home. With no previous arrests or a prior record, a court ordered him to attend rehab. But the very day Sourovelis was driving his son to begin treatment, he got a frantic call from his wife. Without any prior notice, police evicted the Sourovelises and seized the house, using a little-known law known as “civil forfeiture.”
Law enforcement barred the family from living in their own home for over a week. The family could only return home if they banned their son from visiting and relinquished some of their constitutional rights. Adding to the cruel irony, their son has already completed rehab, ending his punishment by the city. “If this can happen to me and my family, it can happen to anybody,” Sourovelis said.
Under civil forfeiture, property owners do not have to be convicted of a crime, or even charged with one, to permanently lose their property. Instead, the government can forfeit a property if it’s found to “facilitate” a crime, no matter how tenuous the connection. So rather than sue the owner, in civil forfeiture proceedings, the government sues the property itself, leading to surreal case names like Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. The Real Property and Improvements Known as 2544 N. Colorado St.
In other words, thanks to civil forfeiture, the government punishes innocent people for the crimes other people might have committed. Sadly, the Sourovelis family is not alone. Doila Welch faces civil forfeiture of her home, which has been in her family for 17 years, because her estranged husband, unbeknownst to her, was dealing small amounts of marijuana. Norys Hernandez and her sister co-own a rowhouse, but her sister is still barred from living there because Hernandez’s nephew was arrested for selling drugs outside her rowhouse. Welch and Hernandez have not been charged with any crime and both have joined Sourovelis as named plaintiffs in IJ’s class action against the Philadelphia forfeiture machine.
Philadelphia law enforcement has transformed a once obscure legal process into a racket that treats Americans as little more than ATMs. Every year, the city collects almost $6 million in revenue from forfeiture. According to data collected by the Institute for Justice, between 2002 and 2012, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office seized and forfeited over 3,000 vehicles, nearly 1,200 homes and other real estate properties and $44 million in cash. Altogether, Philadelphia has generated a staggering $64 million in forfeiture proceeds, which equals one-fifth of the DA Office’s entire budget. Forty percent of those funds—$25 million—pay law enforcement salaries, including the salaries for the prosecutors who have used civil forfeiture against families like the Sourovelises.
Civil forfeiture is a nationwide problem. But the scale and scope of Philadelphia’s forfeiture machine is practically unrivaled on the municipal level. Kings County, New York, which includes Brooklyn, generated $1.2 million from forfeiture in 2010, even though its population is 1.5 times larger. Los Angeles County also kept $1.2 million in seized assets that same year, despite having more than six times as many people as Philadelphia.
In a statement responding to IJ’s lawsuit, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office claimed it pursues civil forfeiture cases “judiciously.” Yet Philadelphia has filed more forfeiture cases than any other jurisdiction in Pennsylvania, even though they all operate under the same state law. In 2011 alone, the Philadelphia DA filed over 6,500 civil forfeiture cases. Compare that to the second-largest county in the state, Allegheny County (which includes Pittsburgh), filed a mere 200 from 2008 to 2011.
The City of Brotherly Love is particularly aggressive in pursuing homes and other real estate. Between 2009 and 2010, Philadelphia forfeited 90 real estate properties. That same year, Allegheny County did not forfeit a single home or piece of real estate. Nor is that year an outlier. Between 2002 and 2012, Philadelphia forfeited 1,172 real estate properties, while the 66 other counties in Pennsylvania forfeited 56 real properties—combined.
Meanwhile, the owners who want to defend themselves and retrieve their seized property must venture to the Orwellian-sounding Courtroom 478. Despite its name, there are neither judges nor juries in Courtroom 478. Instead, there are only assistant district attorneys and a scheduler, who deal with up to 80 forfeiture cases in a single day.
With the prosecutors running this kangaroo court, the DA’s Office clearly wields enormous power. Poring over 8,000 asset forfeiture cases filed against cash in 2010, the Philadelphia City Paper found that 83 percent were decided on the very first court listing. Of those, a staggering 96 percent of the decisions favored the DA.
Incredibly, property owners battling civil forfeiture have fewer rights than those actually accused of committing a crime. Unlike in criminal cases, the government does not need to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” to prevail. Instead, once prosecutors show merely that there was a link between a property and some alleged criminal activity owners must prove their innocence. Moreover, since these cases are in civil court, owners facing forfeiture do not have a right to an attorney.
Prosecutors further tilt the odds by “relisting” civil-forfeiture cases, forcing owners to trek back to Courtroom 478 again and again and again. If an owner misses just one hearing, the government can immediately forfeit the property. The Sourouvelis family already has been to Courtroom 478 four times, with no end in sight. They still have not seen a judge.
Rochelle Bing, another innocent homeowner, was stuck in legal limbo for more than two years before the DA settled her case. Like Sourovelis, Bing was never charged with a crime or accused of any wrongdoing. Yet Bing or her attorney had to appear at Courtroom 478 at least 23 times before the city allowed her to keep her home.
By filing a class-action lawsuit in federal court, the Institute for Justice is seeking to end the city’s unconstitutional civil forfeiture practices and to force the city to return wrongfully seized property. Philadelphia should not profit from denying due process to thousands of people.
A law that was obviously designed for the purpose of preventing big time drug dealers from profiting from their ill gotten gains is now being used to steal the property of honest, law-abiding citizens without due process in order to create a steady municipal revenue stream...(another insidious and perverse impact of the "war on drugs")
This is legalized state theft, pure and simple...
Forget the torches and pitchforks, let's go straight to measuring out the rope...
