Forfeiture Endangers American Rights ~ 20 Sunnyside Suite A-419 ~ Mill Valley CA 94941 ~ 888-FEAR-001

We proudly welcome you to
FEAR's updated and expanded
Brief Bank II & Private Collection
of Research Materials
updated 5/28/2009

Our collection includes some really excellent new pleadings with cutting edge arguments from leading forfeiture defense attorneys, including:

release of assets to pay attorneys fees
due process notice challenges
pretrial restraint of substitute assets
civil rights suits against renegade forfeiture squads and/or forfeiture prosecutors, and
the invalidity of money judgment forfeiture counts.

Attorneys: please consider donating your pleadings to FEAR's Brief Bank II.

We're starting to get pleadings donated from a wider group of attorneys, including several of the leading forfeiture defense attorneys in the country. As our collection grows we are seeing "canned" pleadings filed by the US Department of Justice in each district raising the same bogus arguments .

The U.S. Attorneys' Office has the benefit of a central database of forfeiture pleadings they can crib from. We now have a comparable database, which is much smaller but growing. If we can get more attorneys to subscribe and contribute their best work, we can even the playing field to some extent.

Best of all, neophyte forfeiture lawyers and pro se claimants who subscribe to the Brief Bank have excellent examples to work from -- and hopefully won't be as likely to make bad law the rest of us have to live with.

FEAR's expanded Brief Bank II & Private Collection now contains:

over 215 motions, pleadings and briefs, and
27 additional documents in the Private Collection -- including seven complete Department of Justice manuals, one totaling over 300 pages; plus Department of Justice manuals released in 2006: Asset Forfeiture Policy Manual (247 pages of case law updates and a completely new section on settlements); Selected Federal Asset Forfeiture Statutes Including Statutes Amended by the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, the Stop Counterfeiting in Manufactured Goods Act, and the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act; and Money Laundering Statutes and Related Materials, Including Statutes Amended by the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act.

All of the materials in Brief Bank II are cross-indexed by issue, pleading type, author, and case name.
All of the Private Collection documents are cross-indexed by issue, author and publication.
The links are working and FEAR's Brief Bank II and Private Collection are now both fully functional.

Check out the issue index of either collection and you'll see the value of this research tool!
FEAR's Brief Bank II - now with over 215 motions and pleadings
    - Brief Bank II - indexed by Issue
    - Brief Bank II - indexed by type of motion or pleading
    - Brief Bank II - indexed by author
    - Brief Bank II - indexed by case name

Private Collection -includes searchable hypertext versions of two 2004 DOJ forfeiture manuals, plus three Department of Justice manuals released in 2006 (in searchable pdf format), including:

FEAR's Private Collection now includes a complete hypertext version of two DOJ forfeiture manuals, "Civil and Criminal Forfeiture Procedure (2004)" and "Selected Criminal Forfeiture Forms (2004)," plus five searchable PDF DOJ forfeiture manuals:

Forfeiture 101 is here!

Announcing the release of the first in a series of FEAR's clear, concise and informative DVD courses on substantive forfeiture law and procedure.

Forfeiture 101 is a Continuing Legal Education DVD course that enables defense attorneys to effectively expand their practices to meet the needs of the vastly increasing number of victims of the government's ever-broadening overreach for assets and money judgments.

Lawyers taking on their first forfeiture case suddenly find that law school never prepared them for the maze of complex proceedings that strictly adhere to Supplemental Rules for Admiralty or Maritime Claims and Asset Forfeiture Actions, further complicated by CAFRA reforms that apply to some forfeiture proceedings and not to others. Forfeiture victims will find this DVD to be a godsend – especially those forced to represent themselves because they can't afford counsel.

This entertaining and informative two-hour DVD serves as a crash (or refresher) course in forfeiture law, as well as an interactive computer research tool. Pop the DVD in your computer and click the menu for the chapter you need to research. As you listen to a narrative overview of the issues, you can pause at any time and note the case and statute citations that appear on the screen accompanying the narration. Forfeiture 101 is the first in a series of FEAR's clear, concise and informative DVD courses on substantive forfeiture law and procedure.

The members-only section of the FEAR website contains scanned in versions of the two most important of the almost-banned DOJ publications, as well as some excerpts from FEAR's Asset Forfeiture Defense Manual. Here is a sampling of the current contents:

The DOJ's Civil and Criminal Forfeiture Procedure - 300+ pages [All parts available in PDF format; Parts I and III available in hypertext (web pages)]

"...Of the five DOJ publications on forfeiture which the government ordered public libraries to destroy last summer (and then retracted its order because of our public outcry) , this almost-suppressed publication is the most important to forfeiture victims and defense lawyers. It contains the Justice Department's official position on the key legal issues the defense commonly encounters in civil and criminal forfeiture cases, and is updated with the changes made by CAFRA (the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000).

"This DOJ publication is a good way to start your research..."

The DOJ's Select Criminal Forfeiture Forms - [26 page introduction available in hypertext and PDF format]

"This almost-banned Department of Justice publication contains some statements about criminal forfeiture procedure which could be very useful to forfeiture victims. I used a quote from the introduction, "Criminal Forfeiture Procedure," to great effect in countering a prosecutor's argument that certain provisions of civil forfeiture law did not apply to a seizure of some airplanes because (he said) they were seized with a criminal forfeiture warrant....

"...nothing I could cite would have had the impact of quoting the Department of Justice's own manuals on the subject."

** The DOJ's Asset Forfeiture Policy Manual, published in January 2006, is a treasure trove of information.

Forfeiture-savvy journalists will have a field day with this! Defense lawyers will love it too.

Although the U.S. Supreme Court held in United States v. Caceres, 440 U.S. 741 (1979) that the government's "official policies" are not enforceable in court in suits brought by private parties, the government's policies are valuable to defense lawyers and pro se litigants, enabling them to make intelligent decisions in settlement discussions and other matters. Also, when the forfeiture prosecutor takes an unreasonable stance in court or in negotiations, it certainly helps to quote the official policy manuals of the DOJ!

Excerpts from FEAR's Asset Forfeiture Defense Manual and related materials, including:

Index to FEAR's Asset Forfeiture Defense Manual - Available here only -- not in the published volume! Purchasers of the Manual should print this out and keep it with the manual for ready reference.

Appendix 1: CAFRA digested by key word- this alphabetized digest of civil and criminal forfeiture procedure is so useful we decided to make it available on-line in our Private Collection. This hypertext version is even better than the hard copy, because it links to the text of the applicable statutes.

Excerpt from Chapter 00 Part A: "Forfeiture Litigation After CAFRA"- this portion of the first chapter of FEAR's manual explains how the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 changed asset forfeiture law and procedure, and why we feel the reform bill did not go far enough to restore Due Process and curb government abuses.

FEAR's Private Collection is also cross-indexed by issue, author and publication.
    - Private Collection - indexed by Issue
    - Private Collection - indexed by author
    - Private Collection - indexed by publication or article

Please donate your original motions, brief, pleadings, memoranda and law review articles to add to our collection.