Philadelphia’s city government has dropped its attempt to seize two homes using civil asset forfeiture laws.
The city’s seizure of the homes made national headlines and became the basis for a lawsuit that challenges Philadelphia law enforcement agencies’ use of civil asset forfeiture in drug cases.
That lawsuit will continue even though the city has dropped these two cases.
Chris Sourovelis and his family lost their home earlier this year after his son was caught by police selling $40 of heroin.
The case, as has been previously reported, demonstrated some of the worst aspects of Philadelphia’s civil asset forfeiture program.
The city’s police department and district attorneys’ office regularly seizes homes, cars and other property from suspected criminals without any conviction — and in some cases, without any charges being filed.
“I’ve lived in Philadelphia for over 30 years. I never thought it was possible for the police to just show up at my doorstep without notice and take my house when I’ve done nothing wrong,” Sorovelis said Thursday in a statement. “But that’s exactly what happened to me and my family.”
The Institute for Justice, a libertarian law firm that challenges civil asset forfeiture cases across the country, took the case on behalf of the two families. Attorneys working on the lawsuit say the city has set up a “forfeiture machine” to take advantage of the perverse incentives created by the law.
Prosecutors in Philadelphia defend the practice as being a useful tool to fight drug dealers and targets homes and cars because they can be used to fuel the drug trade.
But those seizures also help pad law enforcement’s bottom line.
From 2002 through 2012, law enforcement in Philadelphia seized more than 1,000 homes, 3,200 vehicles and $44 million in cash, according to data obtained by the Institute for Justice through an open records request.
Those assets provided more than $64 million in revenue to the Philadelphia DA’s office, because Pennsylvania law allows local law enforcement to keep the proceeds from forfeited property after it is seized and resold.
