Overview

This legal treatise on state asset forfeiture law and procedure in California is designed for judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and pro se forfeiture claimants. In determining the scope of subjects to include, care was taken to include the information needed by forfeiture victims who are forced to represent themselves because they cannot afford a lawyer, and criminal defense lawyers who are not familiar with state civil procedure. It also contains practical information on filing fees and free online resources including websites that offer free legal research and practice guides. This book is current, including the changes made by SB 443, effective January 1, 2018.

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9780984785933

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Reviews

California Asset Forfeiture Law & Procedure Review by Isaac Safier, Esq., San Francisco Brenda Grantland is known nationally as one of the foremost experts in asset forfeiture law and has published extensively on federal asset forfeiture law for many years. I had subscribed to her brief bank on her website FEAR.org and used it extensively in my own practice. In this, her latest book, California Asset Forfeiture Law & Procedure, she directs her attention to asset forfeitures under state law in my own state. This is no easy task as the laws and precedent that comprise state asset forfeiture practice are distributed among far flung and numerous legal codes and sections. Thanks to various legislative changes over the years, the legal landscape of state asset forfeiture law in California is a daunting pile to excavate. Grantland's book delves into this tangled web and makes sense of it an a clear, methodical and most importantly, complete way. There is no equivalent compendium or practical guidebook to California asset forfeiture law on the market today. For any law practitioner or attorney who comes across asset forfeitures in his or her practice, this is an important book to have on their shelf and an excellent investment. The book is sufficiently complete to act as a stand-alone guide even to a non-attorney pro per claimant who has never litigated a case. There are sections on legal writing, case citations and full explanations of how to conduct discovery under the California civil code of procedure. Unlike some legal books, there is no vague advice or instructions to look elsewhere for more details on aspects of civil procedure. Every statement or explanation is backed up by a specific cite to case or statute, making this an indispensable legal guide when drafting everything from a claim to a proportionality motion. As a legal practitioner with active asset forfeiture cases I look forward to using this book as a reference and guidebook. Even for attorneys who are deeply familiar with civil asset forfeiture laws and practice, this book has a twofold importance: As a checklist to make sure no option is not explored in a case and no motion is skipped, and as a reference to quickly learn the more tangential and esoteric procedures that are more seldom used. Grantland has done a great service to those opposing asset forfeitures by writing this book.

Author Information

Brenda Grantland is a lawyer located in Mill Valley, California. She started her legal practice in the District of Columbia in 1982 and Maryland (1985). In 1993, she passed the California bar and moved her practice to California. She defended her first forfeiture case in 1983. Forfeiture defense has made up the bulk of her practice ever since. She handles and/or consults on federal forfeiture cases nationwide but also handles state forfeiture cases in California. Brenda got her law degree from George Washington University National Law Center, going to law school at night while working full time at the D.C. Public Defender Service as a law clerk/librarian. During law school she participated in the D.C. Law Students in Court program, representing criminal defendants charged with misdemeanors in D.C. Superior Court. Before law school she worked at Auto Code/Auto Comp Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, writing and editing for Auto Code's official publication of the D.C. Code. Later she joined Auto Comp's team working on a government contract to develop a legal research database (like an early version of Lexis or Westlaw) for the Food and Drug Administration. Compiling and editing the legal digests on food and drug law exposed her to the concept of asset forfeiture and inspired her to apply for law school. Her exposure to forfeiture law during her work on the FDA project segued into her experience at the Public Defender Service, where one of her writing projects was a guide for agency lawyers on return of seized property. After passing the D.C. bar, she left the Public Defender Service and started her solo practice as a court appointed criminal defense lawyer. In her first year in practice she defended her first forfeiture case and won the clients' money back. That case lead to forfeiture referrals from other lawyers and she was able to transition from criminal cases to primarily defending forfeiture cases. In her tenth year as a sole practitioner in D.C., she made plans to move her practice to California, and became a founding member of Forfeiture Endangers American Rights, a nonprofit that educates the public on the dangers of asset forfeiture and advocates for forfeiture reform. In November 1992, just weeks before moving to California, she had the honor of testifying before Congress, during the House Government Operations Committee hearings into the abuses of civil forfeiture laws. Rep. John Conyers, who chaired that committee, introduced a forfeiture reform bill based on FEAR's position paper, which Ms. Grantland wrote. She consulted with the aides for Rep. Conyers, and later with Rep. Henry Hyde, as they drafted and introduced forfeiture reform bills. After eight years of lobbying for forfeiture reform, the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act ( CAFRA ) passed in 2000. In his speech to Congress on the day CAFRA passed, Rep. Hyde thanked Brenda Grantland personally for the work she had done to reform the law.

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