REVOKE LICENSE TO STEAL

A Bill That Would Make It More Difficult For The Government To Seize
Personal Property Is A Step In The Right Direction

The stories told by victims of civil forfeiture are enough to make
anyone wonder how this can happen in America. Willie Jones, an
African-American gardener in Tennessee, told his to Congress in 1996.

On a trip to Texas to buy nursery inventory, Jones bought a plane
ticket with cash, which meant he fit a drug-courier profile.

He was detained by officers, who checked his record and found that he
had none. Nonetheless, the $9,000 he was carrying to buy shrubs was
confiscated because police said it was drug money; a drug-sniffing dog
had alerted officers to it. No charges were filed against Jones, but
he had to fight the government in court to get his money back.

Jones' case is not the exception.

In case after case, boats, homes and cash have been seized on the
flimsiest of evidence.

The practice, based on an antiquated notion that objects themselves
can be wrongdoers, allows the confiscation of property that has been
used in the commission of a crime.

But the law's aggressive implementation has tarnished justice,
allowing both federal and state policing agencies to fill their
coffers at the expense of citizen due process.

After Congress in 1984 directed that the proceeds from forfeiture be
given to the law enforcement agency that seized it, federal
confiscations skyrocketed. From 1985 to 1999, the value of the
property obtained through forfeiture by the federal government rose
from just $27-million to $957-million.

While the courts have been reluctant to do much more than worry out
loud about the abuses in civil forfeiture, Congress may be ready to
take some action.

A bill that would address some of the worst abuses of civil-forfeiture
law has passed the House and appears to have a real chance in the Senate.

The Senate version of the Civil Forfeiture Reform Act, S. 1931, is
co-sponsored by senators at opposite ends of the political spectrum:
Orrin Hatch, a conservative Republican from Utah, and Patrick Leahy, a
liberal Democrat from Vermont. Both agree the current system is in
need of reform.

Every grade-schooler knows that in the American justice system a
person is innocent until proven guilty.

Well, not in civil forfeiture. There, the owner has to prove a
negative, that the property was not involved in criminal activity. The
bill would reverse this burden and require the government to show that
the property should be forfeited.

Under this tougher standard, police would have to do far more to prove
illegal activity than using dogs to sniff out trace amounts of drugs
on money, which is virtually universal.

Currently, the legal costs of getting a car or boat back can be
greater than the value of the property seized.

In those cases, the government gets to keep the property by default,
not because it was legitimately confiscated. The Senate bill offers
some relief to this by reimbursing the attorney fees of any property
owner who prevails in court.

The House version, sponsored by Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., would go even
further and provide an attorney to those who can't afford one. Both
bills, however, would eliminate the burdensome requirement that the
property owner post a cost bond before contesting the forfeiture.

Both the Senate and House bills also would protect innocent owners,
people who bought or acquired property without knowing it had been
used in a crime.

And, to avoid hardship to the property owner, the bills would allow
judges to return seized property to the owner while the trial on its
forfeiture is ongoing.

While the House bill overall is a stronger strike against the stacked
deck of civil forfeiture, the Senate version is still a giant step in
the right direction. Law enforcement should not be a license to steal.

As Hyde said in a speech supporting his bill: "Due process is overdue
for some protection." The Senate should act soon to provide it.