I remember an interview that NPR had hosted with both a philly DA and a UPenn law professor (Lou Rulli) specializing in civil forfeiture. I remember it because

I remember an interview that NPR had hosted with both a philly DA and a UPenn law professor (Lou Rulli) specializing in civil forfeiture. I remember it because of how thoroughly the law prof eviscerated every defense that the DA put forward in defense of the practice, the episode itself was held in the wake of the Philly DA seizing a grandmothers home because her grandson sold a small amount of marijuana outside of it. The DA was trying to actively avoid answering the question of how evicting an elderly woman on fixed income from her home without due process was legal. It turns out that the Philadelphia Police prior to the current DA specialized in robbing minorities via civil forfeiture, and were some of the most prolific abusers of civil forfeiture in the country, treating the seized money as profit they could use towards their budget, which incentivized them to find victims who couldn’t fight back.