MBN braces to start tracking all forfeitures in state

Starting July 1, the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics will be tasked with keeping up with every asset forfeiture in the state.

That means everything connected to criminal activity taken by every law enforcement agency in Mississippi.

Thanks to the passage of House Bill 812, the bureau will build and maintain a website that will keep up with all seizures in the name of transparency and uniformity. That seems easy enough. But MBN is also tasked with training every law enforcement agency in the state on how to do the paperwork correctly.

The bill comes after a national report from the Institute for Justice gave Mississippi failing grades when it comes to forfeiture laws, saying they are "in dire need of reform, as they leave legislators and the public in the dark about how forfeiture is being used and make it impossible to hold law enforcement accountable.”

Under the new statute, the only entities that can prosecute civil forfeitures are MBN or district attorneys. In some jurisdictions, private attorneys have been hired to handle the heavy lifting.

"What I'm envisioning for both the Bureau of Narcotics and the district attorneys is that there will be a fairly substantial increase in workload as it relates to asset forfeiture work, because any departments that have been using someone other than the DA will now have to start using them or us," said MBN Executive Director John Dowdy. "You're talking 82 sheriffs departments and 200-plus police departments in the state of Mississippi."

The website is required by the statute to keep a record of the agency, a description of each item seized and its approximate value, and copies of various types of paperwork that could be submitted by agencies or the subjects of the forfeiture.

But when lawmakers assigned the new tasks to the bureau, they didn't attach a lot of bells and whistles.

"It's presenting an interesting challenge for us here at the bureau because we only have two staff lawyers, and they handle all of the forfeiture cases for the MHP and the MBN, and pretty much it's a full-time job for them to keep up with the forfeitures they're doing in house," Dowdy said.

They allowed MBN two new slots for attorneys to help with the process but no additional money. The additional manpower and clock time needed will cut into other funds that could have been used to hire additional agents, Dowdy said. Meanwhile, one of the bureau's attorneys will be in charge of the large task of teaching the state's law enforcement the new procedures at their 10 districts throughout the state as the new system is implemented. Once those training dates are set, it will be incumbent upon local agencies to make sure they have their officers there.

"I understand it's slim times and I'm not being critical of the Legislature. We're just trying to figure out how to use whatever existing funds to bolster our legal division to kind of help with the increase in workload that I believe we're going to get starting July 1," Dowdy said.

"Everyone in state government is feeling the crunch right now and I understand that and I'm grateful for what the Legislature did provide for us because they freed up some funds we could use for other purposes, and it's a good trade-off. It's something we have to do, so we're going to make it happen and we're going to put out a product that is good for the state of Mississippi."

Some officials have argued that forfeitures should go to the state and not to individual agencies, but under the new law that won't be an issue. Twenty percent of the proceeds from a forfeiture will go to MBN or the prosecuting DA's office. That could conceivably help the funding issue considering Mississippi interdictions units — including a successful one in Rankin County — have brought in sizable hauls in recent months.

"The ones doing the major seizures, particularly from the interdiction standpoint, are doing it right and having a lot of success and getting a lot of drugs off the road," Dowdy said. "Even with getting the dope off that's going eastbound, if you really want to hurt the dopers you take their money. Like it or not, there's a lot of dope destined for Mississippi but a whole lot more going east of here whether to Florida or Georgia or up the East Coast. The couriers only have a handful of routes and Mississippi is one of the primary routes they go through, so the ability for us to be able to do and inflict maximum damage to the drug traffickers is taking their drugs and taking their money."

Detective Chris Picou, who serves on the Rankin County interdiction unit, said while that prospect makes some people nervous, officers have a burden of proof to show that anything they take is tied to criminal activity. The new process and paperwork doesn't add a lot of time to the work officers are already doing on the street if they've been doing it right, he added.

"People think we're just stopping people and if they have money we're taking it but that's not the case. If we can't connect it back to the drug trade, we don't take it," he said. "As far as 72 hours and getting it to a judge and showing him some of our indicators and getting him to sign a warrant, that's really all that's going to change."

Picou said it's the agencies who have been paying private attorneys by the hour to handle forfeitures who will have a transition to make. Even then, it's a positive for the taxpayers, he said.

"It may end up costing you 10 times what it would cost to let the district attorney handle the case," he said.

Dowdy said once the bureau has accelerated through what could conceivably be a rocky start, the system should be one that Mississippians will be proud of.

"I think the intent and the purpose of creating this new law for Mississippi is going to be good for the state because it's going to create uniformity and transparency. We're getting up to par with the federal equivalent, so I think for the taxpayer they need to understand that's a benefit to them," he said.

Contact Therese Apel  at 601-961-7236 or tapel@gannett.com . Follow her on Facebook  and Twitter .