The roots of the law that allowed the police to take their home ran all the way back to 1970. Prior forfeiture laws only applied to goods that could be considered a danger to society – illegal alcohol, weapons, etc. But with the birth of the modern War on Drugs, lawmakers wanted something with more teeth. Prosecutor Robert Blakely, having worked under Attorney General Robert Kennedy and various Congressmen, provided the teeth. He helped draft a bill for a new legal concept, “criminal forfeiture,” which would allow police to seize the illegally acquired profits of a convicted criminal.
