News Roundup

Another week of playing catch up...

• Police in Marietta, Georgia have purchased some new gear with the proceeds of asset forfeiture cases. They spent $10,000 acquiring and training in the use of an explosive alternative to the battering ram. Marietta Police Chief Dan Flynn describes the product as a "heavy duty tape" that contains explosives and can be used in doors, windows, and walls. The agency also used $28,000 for two automatic license-plate readers for two of their cruisers. The cameras can scan "thousands of passing vehicle tags per minute" and have drawn the ire of privacy advocates at the ACLU.
• The federal government's $1.2 billion windfall from its case against Toyota will be dumped in the federal Asset Forfeiture Fund. Toyota was penalized for misleading customers and regulators about their vehicles troubles with unintended acceleration. The News-Gazette also notes how much the forfeiture fund's fortunes rest on large fraud cases. Half of the fund's income in 2013 was related to 10 fraud cases and half of its income in 2012 was due to the $2.2 billion received as a result of the Bernie Madoff investigation.
• The San Juan, Texas Police Department spent $2,700 in asset forfeiture revenue to purchase a bomb detecting dog. Seventy-five percent of the cost of the dog was covered by an unnamed grant provided to the department. The department received $87,401 in equitable sharing payments during fiscal year  2013.
• The West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner (UK) is criticizing the use of recovered assets by the West Midlands Police Department. The agency received £1.9 million in seized criminal assets, but only £300,000 was used for community projects. The rest of the money is being used to "drive up performance on asset recovery". Half of the proceeds from criminal forfeitures in the UK is held by the government while the remaining half is split between the courts, the police, and the Crown Prosecution Service. The proceeds from civil forfeitures are split evenly between the government and the police force. 
• Prosecutors in the Phillipines are still battling for control of the proceeds of the so-called pork barrel scam perpetrated by local politicians.
• Jarrett Dieterle, a former intern at the Manhattan Institute's Center for Legal Policy, has published a history of the Lacey Act, the legislation at the heart of the Gibson Guitar Raid three years ago, in the Georgetown Law Journal. The article is available to download in .pdf format.