Attorney says there is growing support for taking on abuses in civil asset forfeiture

Attorney Jonathan Wood said in an interview that aired Tuesday on “Rising” that there is growing support for taking on civil asset forfeiture after a series of cases revealed abuses in the practice. 

“I think so,” Wood, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, told Hill.TV’s Buck Sexton earlier this month when asked whether there was a groundswell to take on civil asset forfeitures in states where the practice is legal.

“The best example of that is actually here in Washington, D.C., where we’re talking today. It used to have one of these abusive procedures,” he said. 

“It changed it after an in-depth report from The Washington Post covering it over a year when they took a man’s home, he was 74, suffered from dementia, and didn’t pay a property bill because he forgot,” he said. “The government basically took his home and kicked him out on the street, and kept the entire proceeds from the sale.”

“That outraged the community so much, that the city had no choice but to change its policies,” he said. 

Wood’s comments come after the Pacific Legal Foundation published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal earlier this month, detailing the case of Michigan resident Uri Rafaeli, whose home was seized by Oakland County in 2014 after he underpaid his property taxes by $8.41 in 2013. 

The property was then sold at auction in 2014 for $24,500, but the county did not refund Rafaeli any of the profits collected. 

The practice of civil asset forfeiture is also legal in Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Dakota and Oregon. 

— Julia Manchester