HOUSE CLEARS BILL TO CURB SEIZURE OF PROPERTY BY FEDERAL AGENTS

Legislation making it harder for the federal government to seize property
from suspected criminals cleared Congress yesterday, as lawmakers moved to
curb a popular law enforcement tool that they say too often violates the
rights of innocent people.

The measure, adopted on a voice vote in the House, would raise the standard
the government must meet when it tries to take property from private
citizens suspected of drug dealing or other crimes. The Senate has already
approved identical legislation, and the White House has signaled that
President Clinton will sign the bill.

Many lawmakers agreed that civil forfeiture has proved to be a valuable
tool in helping crack down on drug traffickers who use ill-gotten gains to
buy boats, houses and even whole businesses. In 1998, for instance, the
Justice Department seized $449 million of assets linked to alleged criminal
activity.

But an odd coalition of civil libertarians, business executives and
conservatives successfully argued that too many innocent people have been
victimized in the zeal to crack down on illegal drug dealing. They cited a
trail of horror stories, such as the Houston hotel that was confiscated by
federal agents after the local U.S. attorney accused the owners of tacitly
approving drug activity.

Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee and one of
the architects of the bill, hailed yesterday's House vote and recalled that
when he first learned about the nation's civil forfeiture practices, he
considered them "more appropriate for the Soviet Union than the United States."

"Who would have believed that under our current law the government could
confiscate a person's private property on a mere showing of probable
cause?" said Rep. John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), the top Judiciary Democrat, who
has jousted with Hyde on many other issues.

Under current law, federal agents can take suspects' assets without an
arrest and often keep them even after a suspect is acquitted or cleared of
any charges; the burden of proof is on the property owner to show why he or
she should regain the seized assets.

Law enforcement officials have voiced concern about the congressional
campaign to curb those powers, fearing it could undermine their effort to
go after drug dealers. But with momentum building in Congress to reform the
system, Attorney General Janet Reno sat down recently to negotiate a
compromise with a bipartisan group of lawmakers.

Hyde had originally proposed requiring prosecutors to provide "clear and
convincing evidence" that the property they seize is linked to criminal
activity. He also proposed providing indigent defendants with free legal
counsel.

Under the compromise with Reno, prosecutors would have to show that a
"preponderance of the evidence" links seized assets to criminal activity.
Defendants would receive free representation in seizure cases only if they
already have a government lawyer in a related criminal case or had real
property--such as a business or house--seized by the government.

The final measure provides other protections to suspects, such as allowing
a court to release assets during a case if a forfeiture were causing a
property owner substantial hardship. The government must pay property
owners' legal fees if they successfully challenge the seizure of their assets.

The list of civil forfeiture horror stories is lengthy. It took Haleyville,
Ala., doctor Richard Lowe nearly six years and numerous appeals to get back
his life savings of more than $2.5 million after federal agents seized his
account. Lowe, whose family lost money during the Depression, kept nearly
$317,000 in shoe boxes in his house before depositing it in a Roanoke bank.
The bank's president placed the cash in a vault, exchanging it periodically
for cashier's checks, which he deposited in Lowe's account.

After other bank officials reported this pattern to the FBI, federal agents
confiscated the doctor's entire account on suspicions that he was
laundering illegal drug money. Though the bank president told the FBI Lowe
knew nothing about his activities and the government dropped its case
against Lowe a week before his trial, it did not relinquish the money until
the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered it to do so in 1996. During
the legal fight, Lowe was hospitalized for stress and high blood pressure.

Lowe's lawyer, E.E. "Bo" Edwards, said the broad discretion that forfeiture
law provides to prosecutors "encourages them to become greedy, to become
overreaching, and innocent people are injured. That's exactly what happened
here."

Not a single lawmaker spoke out against the bill yesterday, and members
from both sides praised Hyde for his seven-year crusade to overhaul the
law. The once-embattled chairman emphasized that the bitter fight in 1998
over impeachment had not undermined his panel's lawmaking ability, and he
read a lengthy thank-you list that sounded more like an Oscar acceptance
speech than typical floor remarks.

"The Judiciary Committee in this House of Representatives can work together
in a bipartisan fashion to turn out good legislation," Hyde said.