Cop Theft
By 
OK, I might grant you that “abolish the police” is not a helpful slogan from a political perspective. On the other hand……..
Traffic stops like these, where passing motorists are pulled over, searched and asked to turn over any cash that’s found, are big business in Seward County, population 17,692.
Here, money is routinely seized without anyone being charged or proven guilty of anything. The sheriff’s department has specialized in and perfected the practice, known as civil asset forfeiture, despite a 2016 law meant to ban it in Nebraska.
One out of every three civil forfeiture cases in Nebraska’s state courts happens in Seward County, according to a Flatwater Free Press analysis of a decade of court records and a data request provided by the Nebraska Judicial Branch.
Nearly all begin when a Seward deputy stops a driver on I-80. Nearly all involve an out-of-state driver. And nearly all the seized money ends up in police hands, after drivers – faced with a split-second choice between money or jail – sign the form and abandon their cash.
In the past five years, Seward County law enforcement has hauled in $7.5 million from forfeitures, according to county financial records and Department of Justice annual reports. That’s second in the state only to Lancaster County, which has a population nearly 20 times larger.
Some of that money comes from criminal cases, where a person has drugs or guns in the car and is eventually convicted.
But, in Seward County, much of that money pours in from civil forfeiture cases like Bouldin’s.
Many in law enforcement, including Seward County Sheriff Mike Vance, say civil forfeiture is an important tool to take money, drugs and weapons out of the hands of criminals.
“The point is that we’re trying to dismantle these criminal organizations,” said Amy Blackburn, an assistant U.S. attorney. “You can maybe take off a load of drugs, but if you take off their money, you’re crippling their ability to conduct their criminal activity.”
To defense attorneys and advocates, civil asset forfeiture is little more than a law enforcement money grab. It’s a practice, they say, that allows police and prosecutors to avoid going after drug kingpins and instead prey on individual citizens – who may or may not have done anything wrong.
“Citizens can have their property taken from them without ever being accused of a crime, or convicted of a crime, and that is simply not our American system of justice,” said Louis Rulli, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “It’s led to so many abuses.”