Asset Forfeiture 2020 Report | Department of Criminal Justice

Background:

Over the last two decades, 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.

• There were 23 state and local agencies reporting on 130 state forfeiture cases in 2020.

• 79% of all cases were forfeited in Civil Court with the remaining 21% adjudicated in Criminal Court.

• Enforcement stops were the primary enforcement action (58%), followed by the use of a search warrant (29%), a category called “other offense” (12%), and an arrest warrant (2%).

• Almost all forfeiture cases were the result of alleged narcotic offenses (89%). The narcotics charges include: Possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance (64%), distribution or arranging to distribute (24%), possession/purchase of a controlled substance (6%), conspiracy to distribute (2%), and manufacturing (0%).

• Cash was the type of property seized in 94% of state cases reported in 2020 with a median cash value of $1,188.

• Default judgment was the primary reason code underlying the final disposition (71%), followed by guilty plea or verdict in a criminal forfeiture (16%), stipulation of the parties (5%), and summary judgment (3%).

• 91% of cases reported that a criminal charge was associated with the seizure, with 67 percent resulting in a conviction.

• $1,106,854 in state forfeiture funding was awarded through the State Asset Forfeiture Grant Program (SAFG) from revenue in the Criminal Forfeiture Restricted Account (CFRA) in 2020 (FY2021). At year-end 2020, $19 million in state forfeiture funding has been remitted to the Criminal Forfeiture Restricted Account (CFRA) by Utah law enforcement agencies since 2004.

The data summarized in this section is based on self-reported data pertaining to 130 state forfeited court cases in 2020. Because this section is based on self-reported data, the summarized information is only as accurate as the information reported by each individual agency. Each table below provides the agency responses to individual questions in the state forfeiture reporting form. More cases were tried in civil court in 2020 (79%) compared to 2019 (67%). Ninety one percent of these cases reported that a criminal charge was associated with the seizure, with more than two-thirds resulting in a conviction (67%).

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