Citizens Demand Prosecutors Follow State's Civil Forfeiture Law 

We challenged prosecutors in three of Utah’s largest counties who decided that they did not have to abide by a forfeiture reform initiative passed overwhelmingly by Utah citizens in 2000. Under the initiative, civil forfeiture proceeds must go into the state’s education fund or be used to compensate victims of crime. Prosecutors hated this requirement because under the old law, they were able to keep forfeiture proceeds for their own use. Utah law enforcement officials tried to defeat the initiative at the polls, then in court. Both efforts failed. But three district attorneys took their unseemly campaign one step further by refusing to abide by the initiative altogether. Using completely unfounded arguments, the prosecutors diverted close to a quarter of a million dollars in forfeiture funds into their own accounts rather than to the state education fund as required by the initiative.