ASSET FORFEITURE REFORM TAKES EFFECT

Aims To Reduce Law-enforcement Abuses, Official ''Money Laundering'

A new law taking effect this week, which changes the way federal agencies
can seize personal property, is being hailed as a major step forward in
addressing widely condemned abuses of the forfeiture process by
law-enforcement authorities.

The passage of the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 was the
culmination of a seven-year crusade by Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., the
powerful chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who waged a war of
attrition with the Department of Justice and local law-enforcement
authorities to get the statute enacted.

To accomplish this feat, Hyde had to cobble together an unusual coalition
of liberal and conservative sponsors, including the main players on both
sides of the Judiciary Committee's impeachment brawl last year: Hyde,
ranking Democrat Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, fiery conservative Rep. Bob
Barr, R-Ga., and outspoken liberal Democrat Rep. Barney Frank of
Massachusetts. The bill, H.R. 1658, passed through the sharply divided
Judiciary Committee 27-3 and sailed through the House in July 1999 by a
wide margin of 375-48.

On the Senate side, the bill was then carried by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah,
and Vermont Democrat Sen. Patrick Leahy, where it passed in March under a
unanimous-consent motion. The bill was signed into law by President Clinton
on April 25 and went into effect Wednesday.

The bill also drew support from all quarters of the political spectrum,
including the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Rifle
Association, the American Bar Association, Americans for Tax Reform and the
Marijuana Policy Project.

William Moffitt, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense
Lawyers, said the forfeiture reforms were long overdue.

"Americans have suffered too long as a result of unfair forfeiture of their
homes, autos and other personal belongings near and dear to them," Moffitt
said.

Meanwhile, law enforcement officials are predicting gloom and doom over the
new law's impact.

"This is a horrible bill," said Gene Voegtlin, legislative counsel for the
International Association of Chiefs of Police, in an interview with the
Washington Post shortly after the bill was passed. "We know there have been
high-profile cases of abuse, but these laws aren't about taking property
from innocent grandmothers."

It appears the new law will affect government coffers. An analysis of the
bill's financial effect by the Congressional Budget Office estimated that
governmental receipts deposited into the Assets Forfeiture Fund and the
Treasury Forfeiture Fund would decrease by about $115 million each year,
beginning in fiscal year 2001. That is a sizable chunk of the forfeiture
funds obtained by the federal government each year -- revenue that amounted
to $449 million in 1998, well up from the $27 million garnered in 1985.

The new procedures controlling asset forfeiture created under the reform
package include:

Requiring warrants, or requiring that the government proceed by recognized
exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment, to obtain
property for forfeiture. Eliminating the cost bond requirement, whereby
claimants had to post bond in an amount of the lesser of $5,000 or 10
percent of the value of the seized property (but not less than $250) to
preserve the right to contest a forfeiture.

Shifting the burden of proof in asset forfeitures squarely to the
government by requiring the government to show complicity by a
"preponderance of the evidence."

Providing a uniform definition of the "forfeitable proceeds" of criminal acts.

Expanding the time during which a person whose assets have been seized may
file a claim.

Requiring seizing agencies to comply with strict notice and time requirements.

Allowing for release of seized property in certain hardship cases.

Allowing the appointment of counsel for indigent claimants.

Requiring payments of reasonable attorney fees in cases where the claimants
prevail.

Allowing an action for damages against the government for harm to seized
property while under government control.

In order to get the bill through all of the legislative hurdles, Hyde had
to change strategy by refusing to deal with Justice Department lobbyists,
who had been successful in sabotaging and gutting similar bills on previous
occasions. However, while some observers are applauding the efforts of
Congress to finally address the problem of forfeiture abuse, many are
concerned that the new law doesn't go far enough to stem the abuses by both
local and federal law-enforcement authorities.

"I think it's a good first start, but these are very modest changes
compared to what we really need," said Rachel King, legislative counsel for
the ACLU's Washington, D.C., office. She did clarify that while the ACLU
supported the Hyde bill, the organization's stated position is for the
complete abolition of civil asset forfeiture, and that criminal forfeitures
ought to be conducted with the fullest amount of due process possible.

King noted that while the burden of proof for civil forfeiture proceedings
is for the first time shifted to law enforcement, the "preponderance of the
evidence" standard is much weaker than the "clear and convincing evidence"
standard that was part of the original language of the bill. That change
was enacted as a Justice Department amendment forwarded by Reps. Asa
Hutchinson, R-Ark., and Ed Bryant, R-Tenn., both former U.S. attorneys.

What concerns civil liberties advocates most -- and was never addressed in
the Hyde bill -- is the practice of adoptive forfeiture, where local and
state law-enforcement agencies use the federal government to seize property
to circumvent state laws that dedicated forfeiture revenues to certain
areas of the state budget, such as education. After federal authorities
seize the property, the funds are divided with a portion of the money kept
by the federal agency, and up to 80 percent of the proceeds given directly
to the local departments without regard to the mandated provisions for
dividing forfeiture revenues found in state law. A yearlong series of
reports published by the Kansas City Star has documented the practice
occurring in states throughout the country.

"As long as this provision and opportunity exists for local police
departments, there is going to be strong incentive for police to use
forfeiture to increase their budgets," King said. "Stopping adoptive
forfeiture would drastically change the process and put teeth into the
existing state laws, which are generally stronger than federal law."

Congressional officials told WorldNetDaily compromise on the burden of
proof and adoptive forfeiture provisions was necessary to get the bill
through Congress and to prevent a presidential veto.

"There was no other way to get it done on a consensus basis," said Julie
Katzman, a senior aide to Leahy. "The fact that we got anything done is
extraordinary. We knew it was going to be a tough task, because this cuts
heavily into the revenues of many law-enforcement departments."

Katzman acknowledged that adoptive forfeiture was a significant problem and
said one way states could remove the incentive to use forfeiture to bolster
law-enforcement budgets would be for legislatures to reduce local
departments' state funding dollar for dollar for their forfeiture receipts.

"We shouldn't be facilitating local and state agencies laundering money
through the federal government," she told WorldNetDaily. "It's a problem
that we created, but there is no question that the states could enforce
their own laws to stop this practice."

Katzman said legislation addressing these additional issues would not be
forthcoming this legislative session, and that the question of which party
will control the houses of Congress would factor into future legislation on
the matter.

Another consideration will be that Hyde, the congressional champion of
forfeiture reform, will no longer be chairman of the House Judiciary
Committee after this year due to House Republican rules that limit the
tenure of committee chairman.