SEIZING AN OPPORTUNITY

One day in 1991, Willie Jones went to the Nashville airport to buy a
plane ticket to Houston. Jones, an African-American and the owner of a
landscaping service, paid with cash. Suspecting he was a drug dealer,
police searched him and his bags. Finding no drugs, they nevertheless
seized the $9,600 he was carrying--which he said he was planning to
use to buy plants. Jones was never charged with a crime, but it took
him two years of legal battling to get his money back.

Civil forfeiture, as it is known, has become a major tool of law
enforcement. Between 1985 and 1998, the value of property confiscated
by the federal government soared from $27 million to $449 million. But
the trend has spawned grave abuses.

So last year the House of Representatives voted to restrict the
federal government's power to seize property from people it suspects
of wrongdoing. Sponsored by Judiciary Committee chairman Henry Hyde of
Illinois, the civil forfeiture bill put needed curbs on police and
prosecutors--such as assigning the government the burden of proving
that the property was used for an illegal purpose, granting free legal
counsel to poor claimants, and dropping the requirement that owners
post a bond in order to challenge a seizure.

Because the bill was opposed by the administration and many law
enforcement groups, it faced an uphill battle in the Senate. After
months of negotiation, however, agreement has been reached by Hyde,
the Justice Department and key senators to enact some reforms.

Under the compromise version, the burden of proof will be on the
government--though the standard it will have to meet is lower than in
the House bill. Indigent owners won't get free legal assistance, but
if they win, the government will have to pay their attorney's fees.
The bond requirement is still out. And reformers blocked
administration efforts to expand the government's snooping authority.

Law enforcement groups may still be unenthusiastic, at best. But this
proposal wouldn't hinder prosecutors from seizing the property of
people actually convicted of crimes, which ought to be the real focus
of their forfeiture efforts.

The resulting measure is far from being a complete remedy for
forfeiture abuses. But, if enacted, it should mean that in the future,
outrages like the one inflicted on Willie Jones will be far rarer.