LIMITING POLICE SEIZURES

THE HOUSE OF Representatives took a giant step this week toward
curbing the excessive power of government to confiscate property of
suspects who have not been convicted of a crime.

Existing law, developed over 30 years in the fever of the drug war,
lets police agencies seize any private property -- cash, cars, boats
and homes -- merely suspected of being linked to a crime.

In practice, over-zealous police often bend and break the Fourth
Amendment's vital safeguards against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Many state and local police agencies have followed suit with their own
seizure laws that give cops a license to steal and are an insult to
America's sense of fairness.

In San Francisco, Mayor Willie Brown wants to confiscate cars of
motorists suspected of buying drugs or soliciting prostitutes.

Critics say 80 percent of those whose property is taken are never even
charged with a crime, but few ever get their property back.

On Thursday, an unusual coalition of House conservatives and liberals
passed a sensible measure to limit police power to take property
without due process.

Sponsored by Henry Hyde, R-Ill, conservative chairman of the House
Judiciary Committee, the measure was endorsed by a host of liberal
Democrats.

Hyde aptly likened the present law to ``a throwback to the old Soviet
Union, where justice is the justice of the government and the citizen
doesn't have a chance.''

The bill, which passed 375-48 in the House, would tighten standards
for seizures, placing the burden of proof on the government rather
than on suspects who now must prove their property was not used in a
crime.

The measure would broaden legal defenses, let judges appoint lawyers
for indigent suspects in such cases and allow people to sue the
government if their property is lost or damaged.

The reforms would not ban all seizures, but would give law-abiding
citizens a fighting chance to resist the overwhelming power of
government to run roughshod over their constitutional rights.