HOUSE OVERWHELMINGLY BACKS MEASURE TO LIMIT SEIZURE LAWS

WASHINGTON -- Responding to reported abuses of federal laws permitting
authorities to seize property suspected of use in crimes, the House
voted overwhelmingly Thursday to make it easier for citizens not
convicted of crimes to recover property taken from them.

The seizure of private property has become an increasingly popular
weapon in fighting crime--and in generating revenue to fund law
enforcement--since Congress expanded police power to seize assets
during the 1980s as part of the war on drugs.

The annual flow of cash, vehicles, houses, airplanes and other assets
to the Justice Department has surged from $27 million in 1985 to $449
million last year.

Critics assert that weak protection for property owners has allowed
that weapon to be misused. A property owner need not be charged with a
crime before his property is taken and, once police seize the
property, the owner bears the burden of proving it was not used in
law-breaking activities.

"They don't have to convict you. They don't even have to charge you
with a crime, but they've got your property," said House Judiciary
Chairman Henry Hyde (R-Ill.).

He called the current law "a throwback to the days of the Soviet
Union, where justice was the justice of the government and the citizen
didn't have a chance."

The legislation, which does not affect confiscation from people
convicted of crimes, was propelled to a 375-48 approval in the House
by an unusual alliance of conservative constitutionalists and liberal
civil libertarians.

The lead sponsors include some of the fiercest antagonists from the
presidential impeachment battle, including Hyde, conservative Rep. Bob
Barr (R-Ga.), archliberal Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Rep. John
Conyers (D-Mich.), President Clinton's top defender on the Judiciary
Committee.

The measure still must pass the Senate and faces opposition from
police organizations, as well as the Justice Department.

The bill approved Thursday would shift the burden of proof in seizure
cases to require the government to present "clear and convincing"
evidence that property was used for an illegal purpose.

Currently, authorities can seize assets if they have "probable cause"
to believe the assets were used in breaking the law. That is the same
standard of evidence police use to stop and frisk people and the
lowest threshold in criminal law.

Hyde said the low standard of evidence is especially troubling because
local police agencies are allowed to keep up to 80 percent of the
value of confiscated property for their own use.

"It's like the speed trap along the rural highway . . . You don't have
a great chance at equal justice," Hyde said.

Under the measure, indigent people would be entitled to free legal
representation in proceedings to reclaim their property.

A current requirement that property owners first post a bond worth 10
percent of the property taken from them before they can file a
challenge would be dropped. And citizens would be able to regain use
of their property during the court proceedings, if they showed that
they otherwise faced a hardship.

Hyde said the lopsided House vote should help as the measure moves to
the Senate because "it shows there is strength. It is not a bizarre,
off-the-wall idea."

Law-enforcement officials consider vigorous asset seizures a crucial
way to discourage the drug trade because it attacks narcotics dealers'
motive for entering the business: money.

"Yes, there have been high-profile cases where mistakes were made,"
said Gene Voegtlin, legislative counsel for the International
Association of Chiefs of Police. "But these are things that would lead
to frivolous lawsuits and burden the court system."

Myron Marlin, spokesman for the Justice Department, conceded the law
should be changed so property owners no longer must bear the burden of
proving their innocence.

But the department advocates allowing the government to prevail in
asset-seizure cases by meeting a lower standard of proof: the
preponderance of evidence, which means it only must make a better
case--however slight--than the property owner. That is the standard
used in civil lawsuits.

The House defeated a proposed amendment that included that lower
standard.

A Justice Department official involved in enforcement said the tougher
"clear and convincing" standard in the bill would make it especially
hard to seize assets in cases involving suspected money-laundering.

"The whole point of money-laundering is to make it difficult to
establish a connection with the crime," the official said.

News media reports and congressional hearings uncovered a series of
apparent abuses of existing seizure law.

In one case detailed in congressional testimony, a nursery owner had
$9,000 cash confiscated from him in a Nashville airport after he paid
cash for an airline ticket to Houston, thus triggering suspicions he
was a drug courier.

Drug-sniffing dogs suggested there were traces of narcotics on the
money. The nursery owner, Willie Jones, never was charged with a
crime; it took two years of legal wrangling for him to regain the cash.

The Justice Department's Marlin said that more than 80 percent of
federal asset seizures are related to an arrest, although not
necessarily of the property owner.

In about two-fifths of the cases, the property is suspected of being
used in the drug trade. But the federal government also makes wide use
of the laws in seizing property related to the smuggling of illegal
immigrants, money-laundering and other white-collar crimes, Marlin
said.

Hyde said in the floor debate that he was inspired to propose the
legislation after reading a 1993 column by the Tribune's Steve Chapman
describing abuses of the seizure law.

"I must tell you I couldn't believe it. I thought over 200 years ago
we had worked out what due process meant, what equality under the law
meant," Hyde said.