Highway Robbery in Nebraska: Civil Asset Forfeiture Violates Our Constitutional Rights

Every American has the right to carry cash while traveling without fear that law enforcement will confiscate our hard earned money on a whim. “We have to try to convince people that it's contrary to the rule of law: innocent until proven guilty. Police have become road pirates. They forgot that their focus is in the wrong place. We need to help remind them that this is not the way we do things in the United States and certainly not in Nebraska.”

- Former Nebraska State Senator Laura Ebke

Laura Ebke discusses the issue of civil asset forfeiture in Nebraska. Learn more about civil forfeiture at https://ij.org/

In 2016, a Burmese Christian rock band sponsored by the Karen Christian Revival Church in Omaha, Nebraska, was raising money for a Christian liberal arts school in Burma and an orphanage in Thailand. Eh Wah was acting as the volunteer tour manager for the Klo and Kweh Music Team. The band entrusted their cash proceeds to Eh Wah to manage and safeguard.

While traveling through Oklahoma, Eh Wah was pulled over for a broken tail light by Muskogee County Sheriff deputies who claimed a drug-sniffing dog alerted on the car. However, when the deputies searched the car, they found only the $53,000 the band had raised for charity but no drugs or paraphernalia in the car or in Eh Wah’s possession. The deputies seized the donations and charged Eh Wah with a drug felony anyway.

“Muskogee County law enforcement is using civil forfeiture to literally take money from orphans and refugees,” said Institute for Justice Attorney Dan Alban, who represented the group of claimants in the case. “You don’t have to be an orphanage, a church, or a Burmese Christian rock band to be a victim of civil forfeiture, but when even their money isn’t safe, no one’s money is safe from forfeiture abuse.”

Criminal asset forfeiture is when a person is found guilty of a crime and the state takes the property as a result of the crime. For instance, if a drug dealer is found guilty, the state may take the money, the car, and other assets associated with the criminal activity. But what happened to Eh Wah and so many Americans across the country is what is called civil asset forfeiture.

Unlike criminal forfeiture, civil asset forfeiture allows law enforcement to stop someone, conduct a search and then find cash or something of value. They can’t prove the person was dealing drugs but take the cash anyway because they believe the money was the fruit of a crime. In fact, law enforcement may or may not charge the individual with a crime at all. The person is then released and signs a waiver that if they want to lay claim to their lost money and property that they must go to court to fight for justice.

Civil asset forfeiture often occurs on the interstate, especially on I-80 and in Seward County, Nebraska. According to former Nebraska State Senator Laura Ebke someone will get pulled over, “if you look ‘suspicious,’ whatever that means. There’s nothing illegal about carrying cash but they will confiscate it. It tends to be less than $5,000 and it often isn’t worth it to go to court to fight for it, to hire a lawyer, and have to come back to the state where the forfeiture occurred.”

In the case of the Christian charity band, with pressure from the public and press, the district attorney dropped the charges, but argued he believed the officers had probable cause to confiscate the charity donations. That is a problem, because the government should not have the authority to confiscate money or property with mere probable cause.

Attorney Dan Alban explained that the case should never have gone that far. "It seems like the role of a prosecutor is to figure out whether you can meet your burden of proof before you file charges and not after," Alban said. "I think this case would have continued to go on exactly as it had without the press coverage bringing this into the sunlight and without Eh Wah having access to pro bono counsel.”

Unfortunately, too many instances end in innocent Americans deprived of their money and other personal property. In 2014, a Washington Post investigation found that, since the 9/11 terror attacks, police had seized over $2.5 billion in cash nationally without search warrants or indictments. Of those nearly 62,000 seizures, only one in six was legally challenged by defendants, in part because the cost of doing so tends to be high. When defendants did challenge the seizures, the government agreed to return all or part of the money only 41% of the time.

According to statistics compiled by the Institute of Justice:

• 9/10 civil asset forfeitures are uncontested

• 80% of forfeitures aren’t charged with a crime

• 40+ states allow law enforcement to keep part or all of the civil forfeiture proceeds

There is nothing illegal about having cash while traveling. Approximately 95% of all currency in circulation has drug residue on it. Law enforcement should therefore have to prove that any cash found was ill-gotten gains instead of putting the burden on people such as Eh Wah and the Christian charity band to prove their innocence. As the preeminent English jurist William Blackstone wrote, "Better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer." This concept was the unique and humane foundation of the American criminal justice system which has since been corrupted to allow state sanctioned highway robbery. Now the policy is that it is better to punish any and everybody so that the state can financially benefit, even if there is no crime at all.

In 2016, Laura Ebke co-sponsored LB 1106 which would have solved the civil asset forfeiture issue in Nebraska. However, near the end of session, hijinks occurred and an amendment watered down the original bill by allowing counties to participate with federal authorities to violate Americans' Constitutional rights. A solution to this issue welcomes support from across the political spectrum to defend Nebraskans’ rights.

Several counties in Nebraska regularly abuse civil asset forfeiture to pad their budgets. “The Sheriff in Seward County is particularly defensive of the act and believes they’re fighting crime and doing good work,” Ebke said. “We have to try to convince people that it's contrary to the rule of law: innocent until proven guilty. Police have become road pirates. They forgot that their focus is in the wrong place. We need to help remind them that this is not the way we do things in the United States and certainly not in Nebraska.”

The Seward County Libertarian Party is hosting a community discussion with the Seward County Sheriff this Saturday to talk about freedom issues impacting local residents. The Lancaster County Libertarian Party encourages Nebraska leaders to stand with the people and abide by the U.S. Constitution, which requires due process before the law in order to deprive a person of a property interest.

Contact your Nebraska State Senator today and tell them to support Nebraskans' Constitutional rights by abolishing civil asset forfeiture.

# # #

#civilassetforfeiture #highwayrobbery #civilforfeiture #dueprocess #civilrights #roadpirates #constitutionalrights #nebraska #gobigred #thegoodlife #libertarian #libertarianparty