December 8, 2020

EP. 191 — What Is Civil Asset Forfeiture? with Professor Saleema Snow

If you’re a close listener of Getting Curious, you’ll know that today’s conversation with Professor Saleema Snow, all about the practice known as civil asset forfeiture, is a long time coming. Civil asset forfeiture allows law enforcement to seize and often keep any property they suspect is involved in a crime. Jonathan wants to learn more about this practice: how deep its roots are, how it came to exist across the United States, what it reveals about discriminatory policing, and what it would look like to dismantle this system.

 

Professor Snow is a Professor of Law at the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law where she teaches appellate advocacy and critical race theory. Her scholarship focuses on religious profiling, poverty law, and the intersection of poverty, gender, and access to justice.

 

You can follow Professor Snow on Twitter @SaleemaSnow.

 

Find out what today’s guest and former guests are up to by following us on Instagram and Twitter @CuriousWithJVN.

 

Check out all new Getting Curious merch at PodSwag.com.

 

Listen to more music from Quiñ by heading over to TheQuinCat.com.

 

Jonathan is on Instagram and Twitter @JVN and @Jonathan.Vanness on Facebook.

Transcript

Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness & Saleema Snow   JVN [00:00:00] Welcome to Getting Curious. I’m Jonathan Van Ness and every week I sit down for a 40 minute conversation with a brilliant expert to learn all about something that makes me curious. On today’s episode, I’m joined by Professor Saleema Snow, where I ask her: What is civil asset forfeiture? Professor Saleema Snow is a Professor of Law at the University of the District of Columbia’s David A. Clarke School of Law, an Elected member of the D.C. Bar Board of Governors, and the President of the National Association of Muslim Lawyers. Let’s get started.   Welcome to “Getting Curious,” this is Jonathan Van Ness, I’m very excited for this week’s episode, and this is an episode that we’ve wanted to talk about for a very long time. But we needed to find the perfect guest to talk about it, and we did. So welcome to this week’s episode Professor Saleema Snow. She is the Pr

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