FORFEITURE LAW ABUSED

Overzealous Law Enforcement Unfairly Confiscates Property

If Congress members were asleep at the wheel when they gave law enforcement
a new crime-fighting tool in the 1980s, then so were the nation's
newspapers, civil libertarians and others who attempt to guard the public
from government abuses.

Few complaints were heard when Congress met the request of law enforcement
officials for a new law to use against powerful mob bosses and drug lords.
Congress and the public understandably wanted to bring down super-rich
organized crime bosses who used their ill-gotten wealth to make a mockery
of the law.

It turns out that the warnings that the law could be easily abused by
overzealous law enforcement were right. Congress needs to correct the
mistake it made when it passed the asset-forfeiture law.

The forfeiture law gave all levels of law enforcement the right to
confiscate the property of suspected drug dealers and other criminals and
keep those seized assets for their own policing uses.

The law was an effective tool in helping police fight organized crime. That
part is good. But the law also gave law enforcement officials at all
levels -- from the FBI to small-town constables -- so much power that it
lured many officicers, prosecutors and others in the law enforcement chain
of command into using the law far beyond its original intent.

Police have used the forfeiture law as a way to enrich their departments
with seized property. This has led to law-abiding citizens being victimized
by police.

The forfeiture law gives police the right to seize a person's property
without notice or hearing, based only on a police statement of probable
cause that the property has in some way been involved in a crime. The
ownwer of the property does not have to be charged. But the owner of the
property has the burden of proof to show that the seized property is innocent.

Police have abused the law during traffic stops by saying motorists fit an
unknown profile of a drug smuggler. Even when no drugs are found or
charges filed, citizens have had their cars, cash and assets confiscated.
Travelers have had their cash confiscated after police indicated the money
had been in contact with drugs. Experts say that 70 percent of all U.S.
currency has drug traces.

A Detroit woman's car was confiscated and never returned after police
arrested her husband for having sex with a prostitute in the car's front seat.

In Houston last month, the U.S. attorney's office seized an entire motel --
the Red Carpet Inn -- because it was used by drug dealers even though there
were no allegations that the owners of the business had any involvement in
the crimes.

Republican Rep. Henry Hyde, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, was
right, when he said the forfeiture law "is wrong, and it must be changed."
The problem is he said that a year ago and the abused law remains
unchanged.