The sessions shown below address activities associated with Using the Forfeiture Laws to Protect Cultural Heritage Resources. There are sessions addressing Introduction, Asset Forfeiture Proceedings, What Can Be Forfeited, Criminal ARPA Examples, ARPA Forfeiture Procedures, and the Summary.
Using the Forfeiture Laws to Protect Cultural Heritage Resources
 | 1. Introduction ( 03:41)DescriptionYou are about to view a presentation on Cultural Resources Protection Law titled "Using the Forfeiture Laws to Protect Cultural Heritage Resources." The presenter is Stefan Cassella. Stefan Cassella discusses the tools that the federal government has available under the forfeiture laws to protect and recover cultural resources and explains the steps for prosecutors to take in deploying those tools in their casework.
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 | 2. Asset Forfeiture Proceedings (10:47)Description: Now, as most asset forfeiture experts know, but for those who are not familiar with the process should know, there are three kinds of asset forfeiture proceedings. There's administrative forfeiture, civil forfeiture and criminal forfeiture, and we'll speak just a few minutes about each of those so that we have an understanding of what the context is.
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 | 3. What Can Be Forfeited (01:58)Description: Now let's talk about ARPA specifically and the kinds of property that we can forfeit. Under ARPA there are basically three federal offenses for which a person could be found guilty or which could serve as the basis for a civil forfeiture action. In layman's terms, let's say that -- the three crimes would be described this way: First, it's a crime to dig up, to remove or to damage archaeological resources that are found on public lands or on Indian land without a permit. The actual removal or damage of the resource. Second, it's a federal offense to buy or to sell the archaeological resource that has previously been removed from the public or Indian land in violation of ARPA or in violation of some other federal law. And the third crime is similar. It is an offense to buy or to sell the archaeological resource that was dug up or removed from the federal land, public land or private land in violation of state law. Notice in that last instance it also includes property removed from private land, and the violation would be of state law. So, you have these three separate offenses, all of which are federal criminal offenses under Title 16 of the U.S. Code.
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 | 4. Criminal ARPA Example (02:21)Description: Some property has been looted from some Indian land. We do an investigation. We identify a defendant, and we cause him to be indicted. We name in that indictment three artifacts that have been recovered by our investigators and the vehicle that the defendant seems to have used to commit the offense. The defendant could agree to the forfeiture of those things in a guilty plea when he pleads guilty to the ARPA offense itself or if he goes to trial we could have a jury or the court, as the case may be, make a finding by a preponderance of the evidence that those three artifacts were indeed looted in the course of the offense for which the defendant has just been convicted or we could have the judge or the jury find that this property was -- the vehicle or the equipment was in fact used to commit the crime.
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 | 5. ARPA Forfeiture Procedures (06:46)Description: Now, I said at the very beginning that there was one aspect of criminal forfeiture under ARPA that's different from criminal forfeiture under almost every other criminal forfeiture statute. Everything I've said up until now about ARPA criminal forfeiture procedure is very much what I would have said if I were talking to you about forfeiture in any other context. ARPA has a peculiar provision, however, and that is it makes the forfeiture discretionary with the court. Almost all other criminal forfeiture statutes make forfeiture mandatory. The court has no choice once the jury or court has found that the property was derived from the crime or used to commit it but to order forfeiture. In an ARPA case, however, the defendant has the right to ask the judge to let him keep the property not withstanding his conviction. That's an oddity in the statute. The statute doesn't give us any criteria that court should use in determining whether or not to exercise its discretion. It simply says that the court has that discretion.
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 | 6. Summary (01:01)Description: Let us conclude with just a summary. We think that it's clear from what we've told you that there is a powerful law enforcement tool here that can be used to recover cultural resources and equipment. It's clear that that tool is not perfect. It's not as broad as it could be. It's not as broad as forfeiture provisions under other aspects of law, but it's nevertheless a powerful tool that can be used in civil cases and in criminal cases when we have convictions and when we don't, and it can be used to recover property to get it back to the people to whom it rightfully belongs. It will take it out of the hands of the wrongdoers and those who have acquired it illegally.
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