Background:
Over the past 18 years, the forfeiture process in Utah has gone through various procedural changes along with changes to how funding is to be allocated and used. During the 2015 Utah General Legislative Session, Senate Bill 52 was passed creating additional reporting requirements for state and federal forfeitures. During the 2017 Utah General Legislative Session, Senate Bill 70 was passed building on the reporting requirements found in S.B. 52. The additional reporting requirements imposed by S.B. 52 and S.B. 70 are presented here along with the basic forfeiture reporting requirements that have been in place since 2005. The new legislation aims to improve the current understanding of the characteristics of these cases, including the nature of the alleged offense, type (and quantity) of the property forfeited, and the nature of the case dispositions. The following is a brief chronology of some of the key changes in the use and allocation of forfeiture funding since 2000.
- There were 24 state and local agencies reporting on 225 state forfeiture cases in 2019.
- 67% of all cases were forfeited in Civil Court with the remaining 28.5% adjudicated in Criminal Court and about 5% not identified.
- Enforcement stops were the primary enforcement action (52%), followed by the use of a search warrant (36%), a category called “other offense” (6%), and an arrest warrant (1%).
- Almost all forfeiture cases were the result of alleged narcotic offenses (88%). The narcotics charges include: Possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance (58%), distribution or arranging to distribute (24%), possession/purchase of a controlled substance (5.3%), conspiracy to distribute (<1%), and manufacturing (< 1%).
- Cash was the type of property seized in 87% of state cases reported in 2018, with a median cash value of $1,756.
- Default judgment was the primary reason code underlying the final disposition (51%), followed by guilty plea or verdict in a criminal forfeiture (23.6%), summary judgment (12%) and stipulation of the parties.
- 90 percent of cases reported that a criminal charge was associated with the seizure, with 56 percent resulting in a conviction.
- $1,053,186 in state forfeiture funding was awarded through the State Asset Forfeiture Grant Program (SAFG) from the Criminal Forfeiture Restricted Account (CFRA) in 2019 (FY2020). At year-end 2019, $18 million in state forfeiture funding has been remitted to the Criminal Forfeiture Restricted Account (CFRA) by Utah law enforcement agencies since 2004.