{"id":38870,"date":"2017-06-18T02:00:03","date_gmt":"2017-06-18T06:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=38870"},"modified":"2017-06-08T14:24:05","modified_gmt":"2017-06-08T18:24:05","slug":"meet-the-texas-lawmaker-fighting-trump-on-civil-asset-forfeiture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2017\/06\/18\/meet-the-texas-lawmaker-fighting-trump-on-civil-asset-forfeiture\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Texas Lawmaker Fighting Trump on Civil Asset Forfeiture"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"853\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9bapAHCIPEU\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Published on 7 Jun 2017<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Konni Burton has emerged as the state&#8217;s fiercest opponent of civil asset forfeiture.<\/p>\n<p>When the White House hosted a meeting of sheriffs from across the country last February, President Donald Trump joked about destroying the career of a Texas state senator who supported reforms to civil asset forfeiture laws \u2014 a controversial practice where police can seize cash and property of people suspected \u2014 but in most cases never convicted or charged with a crime.<\/p>\n<p>Though Trump&#8217;s comments were meant to support police, they&#8217;ve had the opposite of their intended impact \u2014 it&#8217;s re-energized the push for reform.<\/p>\n<p>Texas state senator Konni Burton was one of many local lawmakers outraged by Trump&#8217;s comments. She&#8217;s a tea party leader from the Dallas-Fort Worth area who also happens to be pro-life and pro-borders. Burton isn&#8217;t the unnamed state senator Trump offered to destroy, but she&#8217;s emerged as the state&#8217;s fiercest opponent of civil asset forfeiture.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When you give law enforcement the ability to take your property without a conviction that&#8217;s big government,&#8221; Burton says.<\/p>\n<p>Last December, Burton filed legislation that would repeal civil asset forfeiture in the state and replace it with criminal asset forfeiture.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Police can still seize property that they think has been involved in a crime,&#8221; says Burton, &#8220;but for them to keep it \u2026 you have to be convicted of a crime.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Texas has tried for years to reform civil asset forfeiture laws after horror stories began to emerge about the practice.<\/p>\n<p>One of the most horrifying cases occurred in 2005, when cops seized $10,000 from Javier Gonzales who was driving from Austin to the border town of Brownsville to make funeral arrangements for his dying aunt. The cops didn&#8217;t find any drugs or contraband in his car, but they pressured Gonzales to sign away his rights to the cash under the threat of a felony money laundering charge.<\/p>\n<p>Gonzales took the case to court and eventually won his money back in April of 2008.<\/p>\n<p>And in 2012 the ACLU settled a class action lawsuit against the city of Tenaha where cops illegally seized nearly $3 million from traffic stops involving mostly Black and Latino drivers. Victims were told that they could either sign their cash over to the city or go to jail.<\/p>\n<p>Cases like this have earned Texas a D+ from the Institute for Justice for forfeiture laws. Data from the libertarian legal organization shows that the state takes in an average of $41.6 million dollars a year to local law enforcement agencies as a result of these seizures.<\/p>\n<p>Burton&#8217;s bill has bipartisan support, but it faces an uphill battle in the Texas legislature where it&#8217;s faced opposition from &#8220;tough on crime&#8221; lawmakers and law enforcement agencies. Burton says her legislation isn&#8217;t about stopping police from doing their job, but protecting the property rights of all Texans.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Everybody is ready for this to be reformed,&#8221; Burton says. &#8220;You know it&#8217;s just upside down and antithetical to what our country should stand for.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Produced by Alexis Garcia. Camera by Paul Detrick, Austin Bragg, and Meredith Bragg. Music by the Unicorn Heads.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Published on 7 Jun 2017 Konni Burton has emerged as the state&#8217;s fiercest opponent of civil asset forfeiture. When the White House hosted a meeting of sheriffs from across the country last February, President Donald Trump joked about destroying the career of a Texas state senator who supported reforms to civil asset forfeiture laws \u2014 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10,13],"tags":[996,343,1037,98,386],"class_list":["post-38870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-law","category-liberty","category-usa","tag-civilforfeiture","tag-crimeandpunishment","tag-donaldtrump","tag-police","tag-texas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-a6W","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38870"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38871,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38870\/revisions\/38871"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}