Illinois waits for their Gov to sign new legislation to help lower income residents in the fight against asset forfeiture – PB/TK
Illinois Legislature Passes Asset Forfeiture Reform – By CJ Ciaramella / June 27 2017
The Illinois legislature overwhelmingly passed a bill Friday tightening the state’s civil asset forfeiture laws and shifting the burden of proof onto the government to show why it should be allowed to keep seized property.
The vote came on the heels of an investigative report from Reason earlier this month showing lower-income neighborhoods of Chicago were hit hardest by asset forfeiture.
Reason’s report, analyzing more than 23,000 property seizures over the last five years, was cited by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx in a letter to the Chicago Tribune Saturday urging Republican Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner to sign the bill into law. Foxx wrote that civil asset forfeiture’s disproportionate impact on poor and minority communities was an “injustice.”
The bill, approved unanimously in the state senate and with only one dissenting vote in the house, would raise the standard of evidence
Continue to reason.com article: http://reason.com/blog/2017/06/27/illinois-legislature-passes-asset-forfei
