None of this matters. The police are definitely not going to be put in jail for doing their job. And seizing "large amounts" of cash falls squarely into their job description.
The department has an army of lawyers who deal with civil asset forfeiture all the time, and they can call in federal assistance if needed. There's a 95% chance the department will keep all of the cash, and in the other 5% they merely keep some of it.
Paperwork won't help because the prosecutors will successfully argue that it could be used for future crimes.
Civil asset forfeiture makes a mockery of the US legal system, but most people don't follow it enough to see just how bad it really is.
Civil asset forfeiture requires some degree of at least suspicion that things are not above board, AND they need to know it’s there. A receipt for a cash withdrawal sitting on top of the stack of cash that 100% shows every dollar came from a legit bank? And it was in a place you didn’t give them consent to search, and you can show there was no probable cause to search?
Someone’s gonna lose their job over that, at least if you have enough lawyers
Where civil asset forfeiture comes in hard core is when you can’t show the source of the money.
It requires no such thing. Police have argued (successfully) many times in many jurisdictions that the mere possession of large amounts of cash is suspicious in and of itself, and being able to show legal sources is pointless because the argument is that it COULD be used for a crime.
The department has an army of lawyers who deal with civil asset forfeiture all the time, and they can call in federal assistance if needed. There's a 95% chance the department will keep all of the cash, and in the other 5% they merely keep some of it.
Paperwork won't help because the prosecutors will successfully argue that it could be used for future crimes.
Civil asset forfeiture makes a mockery of the US legal system, but most people don't follow it enough to see just how bad it really is.