A federal appeals court just restored a New York woman’s chance to win back thousands of dollars that authorities seized in the belief that it was connected to a crime.
This act is called civil asset forfeiture. It allows law enforcement to seize property suspected of being connected to a criminal offense without charging the owner with a crime.
Cristal Starling was, in fact, never charged with a crime when her money was taken. In October 2020, local police in Rochester raided her apartment because her then-boyfriend was suspected of dealing drugs. Police never cited Starling with any offenses, but even after her boyfriend was acquitted, authorities kept the $8,040 they seized.
Starling, who owned a food cart at the time, had planned to use that money to purchase a food truck. She assumed that since it had been proven the money wasn’t connected to any crime, it would be returned to her. However, the Rochester Police Department transferred her money to the Drug Enforcement Administration, where it’s been ever since.
In the years since that incident, Starling has been working on her own to fight against the forfeiture. Without legal assistance, she was able to navigate the process. She notified the Justice Department that she was challenging the forfeiture, but she missed the deadline to file a notice in federal court, which permits the government to move to forfeit her money by default.
So, in February 2022, a district court judge ruled that she wouldn’t be able to salvage her money because she missed that single filing deadline. She wrote letters requesting an extension, but the judge decided she had not demonstrated excusable neglect and awarded her money to the government.
Her case was dead in the water until she partnered with the Institute of Justice, a firm that challenges civil asset forfeiture laws nationwide.
Attorneys with the law firm appealed the judge’s decision, arguing that Starling was held to an unfair and higher standard than usual for someone acting as their own representative in court. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit agreed and ruled the judge’s ruling “defective,” which revived Starling’s case. Now she can make her case in front of a judge in a lower court.
“As was made clear in this case, the lax notice requirements allow the government to start the clock toward default judgment with perfunctory measures, such as ordinary mail, and by posting on a government forfeiture website that the citizenry has no reason to know of,” the Second Circuit wrote.
“And because the typical forfeiture case concerns cash and goods with consequence to the deprived party but which rarely justify hiring a lawyer, a huge number of civil forfeiture cases are fought by claimants acting pro se. All this is driven by incentive: The authorities can pocket what they can seize by forfeit.”
“I’m excited and looking forward to fighting this,” Starling said. “And I’m happy that I was able to push through and persevere through all these filings, all this paper, and all these court proceedings. Nobody should have to fight this hard just to keep what’s theirs.”
Regarding the matter, IJ Attorney Seth Young, added, “The court recognized what has always been abundantly clear about civil forfeiture: allowing police to pocket the money they take from people who have never been charged with a crime encourages police to take more money from innocent people.”
