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war. Drug-war forfeiture laws are frequently used to allow those with assets to buy their freedom, while drug users and small-time dealers with few assets to trade are subjected to lengthy prison terms. In Massachusetts, for example, an investigation by journalists found that on average a “payment of $50,000 in drug profits won a 6.3 year reduction in a sentence for dealers,” while agreements of $10,000 or more bought elimination or reduction of trafficking charges in almost three-fourths of such cases.48 Federal drug forfeiture laws are one reason, Blumenson and Nielsen note, “why state and federal prisons now confine large numbers of men and women who had relatively minor roles in drug distribution networks, but few of their bosses.”49

The Shakedown

Quite predictably, the enormous economic rewards created by both the drug-war forfeiture and Byrne-grant laws has created an environment in which a very fine line exists between the lawful and the unlawful taking of other people’s money and property—a line so thin that some officers disregard the formalities of search warrants, probable cause, and reasonable suspicion altogether. In United States v. Reese, for example, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals described a drug task force completely corrupted by its dependence on federal drug money. Operating as a separate unit within the Oakland Housing Authority, the task force behaved, in the words of one officer, “more or less like a wolfpack,” driving up in police vehicles and taking “anything and everything we saw on the street corner.”50 The officers were under tremendous pressure from their commander to keep their arrest numbers up, and all of the officers were aware that their jobs depended on the renewal of a federal grant. The task force commander emphasized that they would need statistics to show that the grant money was well spent and sent the task force out to begin a shift with comments like, “Let’s go out and kick ass,” and “Everybody goes to jail tonight for everything, right?”51

Journalists and investigators have documented numerous other instances in which police departments have engaged in illegal shakedowns, searches, and threats in search of forfeitable property and cash. In Florida, reporters reviewed nearly one thousand videotapes of highway traffic stops and found that police had used traffic violations as an excuse—or pretext—to confiscate “tens of thousands of dollars from motorists against whom there [was] no evidence of wrongdoing,” frequently taking the money without filing any criminal charges.52 Similarly, in Louisiana, journalists reported that Louisiana police engaged in massive pretextual stops in an effort to seize cash, with the money diverted to police department ski trips and other unauthorized uses.53 And in Southern California, a Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department employee reported that deputies routinely planted drugs and falsified police reports to establish probable cause for cash seizures.54

Lots of small seizures can be nearly as profitable, and require the expenditure of fewer investigative resources, than a few large busts. The Western Area Narcotics Task Force (WANT) became the focus of a major investigation in 1996 when almost $66,000 was discovered hidden in its headquarters. The investigation revealed that the task force seized large amounts of money, but also small amounts, and then dispensed it freely, unconstrained by reporting requirements or the task force’s mission. Some seizures were as small as eight cents. Another seizure of ninety-three cents prompted the local newspaper to observe that “once again the officers were taking whatever the suspects were carrying, even though by no stretch could pocket change be construed to be drug money.”55

In 2000, Congress passed the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act which was meant to address many of the egregious examples of abuse of civil forfeiture. Some of the most widely cited examples involved wealthy whites whose property was seized. One highly publicized case involved a reclusive millionaire, Donald Scott, who was shot