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Asset forfeiture funds may get more accountability, money diverted to drug courts

Why shouldn't money forfeited by drug dealers be used to finance drug courts and treatment programs? If a local DA misuses asset forfeiture funds, who can prosecute them? Have these monies simply become local political slush funds?Those were some of the questions posed at a June 5 hearing of the Texas Senate Criminal Justice Committee (I was out of town that day and just got around to listening to the asset forfeiture discussion - the video archive is here.)Committee Chairman John Whitimre of Houston first considered the need for an interim charge on asset forfeiture, he said, after receiving immense backlash from district attorneys in 2007 when he proposed taking 10% of forfeiture funds and using them to create drug courts.Whitmire said his staff calculated that local governments currently had around $65 million sitting in forfeiture-generated accounts; Harris County alone has more than a $14 million balance...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on June 16, 2008 (boomark / email).