7/19/2017

ATTORNEY GENERAL/CRIME/DRUGS/JEFF SESSIONS: “Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ methodical dismantling of the Obama administration’s criminal justice policies rolled forward Wednesday [7-19-17] as the Justice Department announced plans to step up efforts to seize property and money suspected of being used in crime or obtained through illegal activity.
Sessions encouraged a return to the broader use of a controversial type of asset forfeiture where local officials pull the feds into an investigation in order to ease the process of seizing assets from criminal suspects. Critics complain that the practice reverses the typical presumptions in the legal process by allowing law enforcement to take property without proving a crime occurred.
In many cases, suspects never challenge the seizure, but are also never convicted or even charged…
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosentein linked the effort to an all-out push to combat the growing number of deaths due to opioid addiciton.”

-Josh Gerstein, “Sessions to step up drug-war seizures,” Politico, July 19, 2017 12:07pm