Misguided proposal on how to fund DC's Office of the Attorney General

DC has recently created a separate, independent agency for the "State" Attorney General, comparable to how many other jurisdictions have an elected Attorney General, who while representing "the government" also represents "the people," thereby justifying a separate election process.

(Unlike other jurisdictions, criminal prosecution of felony offenses is under the control of the federal government, one of the many artifacts that have derived from the "District" of Columbia ultimately being under control of Congress, as the national capital is not a separate state.

That is a big area outside of the control of the DC Attorney General although my hope is that as the office develops, executes and builds maturity, Congress will cede control of criminal prosecution to the city.)

The first election for Attorney General was held last fall, and Karl Racine won, taking office in January.  Asking for an annual budget increase of $20 million, he argues ("DC's attorney general seeks bigger budget," Washington Post) that now that there is an independent AG office, funding should be increased to support the various areas that the office should address.

While I don't doubt that is the truth, he proposes rather than use general funds appropriated to the office, a budget increase could be funded out of the fines and judgement awards earned by the agency's activities.  Currently those monies go to the general fund.

Seeking funding through a percentage of fines and legal judgments creates the opportunity to misuse the legal process to generate funding, not unlike problems with police departments seizing assets of alleged criminals to fund activities.

DC's Metropolitan Police Department has been a fervent proponent of asset seizures, which sets a troubling precedent for other DC Government agencies.

-- Stop and Seize | Collections | The Washington Post, series on asset seizures by state and local police departments

I'd rather the agency be funded through normal appropriations processes.

DC takes transgressions with civil forfeiture and the practice should be stopped

The current issue of New Yorker Magazine has an incredibly disturbing article about the practice of various police departments concerning civil forfeiture, "Sarah Stillman: The Use and Abuse of Civil Forfeiture."

This is the process of seizing property because it's allegedly used in a crime.

The property is seized, and monetized by the police department, and used to buy equipment, pay salaries, etc.

But the property isn't always owned by the people who have possession of it.

And civil protections that normally pertain to your person (for example the 4th, 5th, and 14th amendments to the US Constitution) don't carry over "to property" when they deliberately severe the connection between person and property as part of the process.

It's a system ripe for abuse, and it is abused.

Most of the article discusses a particularly egregious jurisdiction in Louisiana, which among its many cases, snagged money from a DC restauranteur, Dale Agostini.

But cases in DC and Philadelphia are briefly discussed as well.  In both cases, property was seized because it was "used" in the commitment of a crime--a house seized from the parents because a sone sold about $40 of marijuana to undercover agents; a car seized from the mother because the son, driving the car, was stopped, and he had an unlicensed firearm in his possession.

From the article:

A piece of property does not share the rights of a person. There’s no right to an attorney and, in most states, no presumption of innocence. Owners who wish to contest often find that the cost of hiring a lawyer far exceeds the value of their seized goods. Washington, D.C., charges up to twenty-five hundred dollars simply for the right to challenge a police seizure in court, which can take months or even years to resolve.

The tangled nature of the process became clear when I spoke to Nelly Moreira, a stout, curly-haired custodian who lives in Northwest D.C. Moreira relied on her 2005 Honda Accord to drive from her early-morning job, cleaning Trinity Washington University, to her evening job, cleaning the U.S. Treasury Department. In March, 2012, her son was driving her car when he was pulled over for a minor traffic violation, and, after a pat down, was found to have a handgun. He was arrested, and her car was seized. Moreira, who grew up in El Salvador, explained in Spanish that she received a letter in the mail two months later asking her to pay a bond of one thousand and twenty dollars—which she took to be the fee to get her car back. Desperate, she borrowed cash from friends and family to cover the bond, which is known in D.C. law as a “penal sum.” If she hadn’t, the car would have been auctioned off, or put to use by the police. But all that the money bought her was the right to a complex and slow-moving civil-forfeiture court case. ...

The Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia won the release of Moreira’s car last summer, and in May filed a lawsuit against the city on behalf of approximately three hundred and seventy-five car owners like Moreira. Describing the policy as “devastating for hundreds of families who depend on their cars for many of the urgent and important tasks of daily life,” it called for higher standards of proof and the end of penal-sum fees. At a public hearing on July 11th, D.C.’s attorney general, Irvin Nathan, acknowledged “very real problems” relating to due-process rights. But he warned that millions of dollars raised by forfeiture “could very easily be lost” and “an unreasonable burden” placed on his office if the reforms supported by the Public Defender Service were enacted. He proposed more modest changes that would leave the current burden of proof untouched.

DC City Council should review the Metropolitan Police Department's practices concerning forfeiture.

DC local government has many examples of failing to uphold civil liberties:

-- the Executive Branch has become increasinly obstructive with regard to FOIA requests;
-- a recent issue of the Post has an article about an undercover police officer being assigned to infiltrate protest groups ("Protesters out undercover officer, accuses her of infiltrating group");
-- protestors have been illegally detained as part of demonstrations and the city has paid out millions of dollars in damages for violations of people's First Amendment rights;
-- and now Civil Forfeiture.

It's not the kind of government operation and practice that we should be countenancing.