New Jersey

New Jersey earns a D- for its civil forfeiture laws

State Forfeiture Laws

New Jersey’s civil forfeiture laws are some of the worst in the country, earning a D-. In order to forfeit property, the government need only show by a preponderance of the evidence that the property was used in a crime. Innocent owners bear the burden of proving that they had nothing to do with the alleged criminal use of their property. Even worse, Garden State law enforcement enjoys a hefty financial incentive to seize: Local law enforcement agencies retain 100 percent of forfeiture proceeds. And when the state attorney general’s office brings a forfeiture case, it retains 95 percent of proceeds; the remaining five percent it deposits into the Hepatitis Inoculation Fund.

New Jersey agencies have no statutory requirement to track or report their forfeitures. However, it is the official policy of the Division of Criminal Justice that county district attorneys and local agencies report all forfeitures to the attorney general on a quarterly basis. The Institute for Justice submitted New Jersey Open Public Records Act requests to each of the state’s 21 counties and learned that New Jersey district attorneys forfeited roughly $72.6 million between calendar years 2009 and 2013, 79 percent of which came from cash forfeitures. These totals represent forfeitures conducted just at the county level, however—they do not reflect forfeitures conducted at the municipal or state level.

State Law Sources

Standard of proof	Preponderance of the evidence. State v. Seven Thousand Dollars, 642 A.2d 967, 975 (N.J. 1994); State v. $2,293 in U.S. Currency, 95 A.3d 260, 266 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 2014).
Innocent owner burden	Owner. N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:64-5(b); State v. Seven Thousand Dollars, 642 A.2d 967, 974 (N.J. 1994).
Profit incentive	100 percent when forfeiture is pursued by local law enforcement; 95 percent when forfeiture is pursued by the attorney general. N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:64-6(a), (c).
Reporting requirements	None.

New Jersey ranks 36th for federal forfeiture, with over $70 million in Department of Justice equitable sharing proceeds from 2000 to 2013.

State Forfeiture Data: County District Attorney Forfeiture Proceeds

Year	Currency	Vehicles	Real Property	Other	Total
2009	$17,356,606	$2,409,726	$3,395,000	$1,129,687	$24,291,019
2010	$11,748,931	$2,468,033	$236,500	$702,251	$15,155,716
2011	$9,631,874	$1,486,604	$0	$101,018	$11,219,495
2012	$8,504,849	$1,640,893	$0	$126,628	$10,272,370
2013	$10,181,872	$1,145,853	$0	$293,117	$11,620,842
Total	$57,424,132	$9,151,109	$3,631,500	$2,352,702	$72,559,443
Average per year	$11,484,826	$1,830,222	$726,300	$470,540	$14,511,889

Federal Equitable Sharing

Ranking 36^th in the nation on equitable sharing, New Jersey law enforcement agencies made more use of the Department of Justice’s equitable sharing program than did agencies in most other states. Between 2000 and 2013, agencies received $70.6 million in DOJ equitable sharing proceeds, averaging more than $5 million per calendar year. Almost all assets seized and proceeds received—97 percent in both cases—came from joint task forces and investigations, activity largely unaffected by the DOJ’s 2015 policy change. New Jersey law enforcement agencies also received over $38 million in equitable sharing proceeds from the Treasury Department, averaging more than $2.7 million per fiscal year.

Year	DOJ (calendar years)	Treasury (fiscal years)
2000	$3,626,894	$0
2001	$2,029,842	$1,830,000
2002	$1,353,809	$172,000
2003	$1,939,229	$2,161,000
2004	$2,596,303	$2,615,000
2005	$4,502,998	$3,021,000
2006	$4,644,547	$2,453,000
2007	$3,622,276	$997,000
2008	$7,532,310	$2,371,000
2009	$6,770,763	$1,822,000
2010	$8,035,130	$7,893,000
2011	$6,439,456	$5,924,000
2012	$9,083,767	$3,843,000
2013	$8,457,766	$3,187,000
Total	$70,635,090	$38,289,000
Average Per Year	$5,045,364	$2,734,929