Resolving Civil Forfeiture Disputes

In February 2014, 24-year-old Charles Clarke was traveling through the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, returning to Florida after visiting relatives.1 He was carrying a large amount of cash— $11,000—, which he normally kept at home due to a lack of bank branches in his area, and which he had taken with him to Ohio because he did not want it getting lost in a family move.2 The cash, he said, came “from financial aid, various jobs, gifts from family, and educational benefits based on his mother’s status as a disabled veteran.”3 As he was about to board the plane, members of a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Task Force seized the money.4 While Clarke did not have anything illegal in his possession, “the task force officers reasoned that the cash was the proceeds of drug trafficking, because Clarke was traveling on a recentlypurchased one-way ticket, he was unable to provide documentation of where the money came from, and they claimed his checked baggage had an odor of marijuana.”5 Despite not having proved he was guilty or even