WELCOME TO
MARYLAND ISSUES

Hogan failed on forfeiture reform

Hogan vetoed a civil asset forfeiture reform bill that had been passed almost unanimously by the State Senate. Senate Bill 528 would have closed the "equitable sharing" loophole that incentivizes Maryland law enforcement agencies to circumvent state forfeiture laws for financial gain. Senate Bill 528 sought to rebalance a system that is prone to abuse. Financial incentives built into civil forfeiture encourage law enforcement agencies to seize property, often on dubious grounds, since typically they get to keep some portion of the proceeds of their forfeitures. Meanwhile, tortuous legal processes make it exceedingly difficult and prohibitively expensive to challenge seizures when they do occur. To prevail in court, property owners typically must prove their own innocence. And if they are too poor to afford a lawyer, they must do so on their own. Innocent people like Randy and Karen Sowers have been forced to fork over half their farm's earnings to the government because of an alleged "structuring" violation. Their business which involved direct-to-consumer sales often led to dealing with large amounts of cash. A bank teller advised them to deposit in increments of less than $10,000 to avoid government scrutiny. This act alerted the IRS which accused them of trying to bypass currency transaction reporting laws. Despite never being accused of earning the money illegally, they were forced to pay the government nearly $30,000 as part of a settlement. While SB 528 would not have solved all these situations, it would have gone a long way to help prevent what happened to the Sowers family to happening to other innocent Marylanders.