Fourth Amendment Strengthened in Michigan

[XLFD]

Today Governor Snyder signed into law an act that will more easily allow citizens to get back their stuff after State agents (including local police and sheriff departments) seize them. 

The new law was House Bill 4629, sponsored by Rep. Peter Lucido, R-Shelby Township, which passed the Senate 29-8, and previously passed the House 100-7.  The prior process for retrieving was described here by Jarrett Skorup and Nick Sibilla in the Detroit Free Press this April:

"Michigan is one of just a few states in the nation where police can not only take cash and cars from people who have done nothing wrong, but where the owners of this property actually have to pay to get it back.

Thanks to civil forfeiture, law enforcement agencies routinely take property from people without charging them with a crime, much less convicting them of one. Once a property has been seized, the owners then have to pay anywhere from $250 to $5,000 just to begin the procedure to win back what’s rightfully theirs.

Under Michigan law, if your property is seized and valued less than $50,000, you must post a bond worth 10% of the property’s value to start the process of having it returned to you. But if you fail to post that bond within 20 days of the property being seized, it is automatically forfeited to the state.

And if you pay the bond but fail to win the property back in court, you can be ordered to pay the expenses the government incurred during the forfeiture proceedings. These provisions unfairly tilt the scales of justice in favor of the government."

The new law, in a nutshell, gets rid of the 10% bond and the accompanying automatic forfeiture period of 20 days that went with it.  In the past, after authorities may have taken away your life savings even when you had done nothing wrong, you would have to raise up to $5000 in under three weeks for the right to reclaim it. 

And though this is a step in the right direction, the state and federal government still hold a lot of cards when they decide to take your property, whether your a drug kingpin, or just someone who doesn't trust financial institutions with their money and valuables.  The following diagram shows just how hard this process is, even with this reform:

[Brad]

Good....
But what happens if we move toward electronic money (likely), think how easy it would be for banks... or government to seize it.... Time to return to mason jars ...with silver & gold coins.

[Willy]

Thanks for posting this X. This is an amazing  display of over reaching by the Government. I had no idea that this process was so complicated and difficult. If an agency wants to confiscate your property there seems to be no way to get it back if they really want to keep it. There is to much room for corruption and fraud by Government agencies.

[XLFD]

Which is why we must notice and celebrate any time when such bad policy is reigned in, even slightly, as well as report it with disdain when more attacks are made on our liberties.