PROPERTY AND POLICE

Move to Limit Property Seizures Deserves Support

Two state lawmakers have joined together in a bipartisan effort to protect
the rights and property of Coloradans. It is an effort that deserves the
support of anyone who cares about civil liberties and property rights.

State Sen. Bill Thiebaut, D-Pueblo, and state Rep. Shawn Mitchell,
R-Broomfield, are introducing legislation this week to limit the power of
state and local law enforcement agencies to use civil procedures to seize
private property they suspect of being involved in criminal activity.

The idea of taking property as an anti-crime tool grew out of the so-called
war on drugs. Drug suppliers' airplanes, boats, cars and houses were
targeted in an effort to interfere with their ability to distribute their
illicit product. The effort was ethically shaky from the start, but in
seizing a smuggler's boat there is at least an attempt at linking the
property to the crime. That linkage quickly fell by the wayside as
prosecutors and police found in the forfeiture laws a way to augment their
budgets.

As things stand now, the confiscations - which can include houses, land,
cars or personal effects - need not be tied to a criminal conviction.
Worse, because they are done under civil rules, there is no guarantee that
an acquittal will result in the property being returned.

Whatever is seized can then be kept and applied to any use deemed
appropriate for law enforcement purposes, which apparently can be defined
to include anything from keeping unmarked cars for undercover work to
simply selling the stuff and buying pizza.

How much property is involved statewide is unclear. Critics say it runs to
the millions of dollars, but the state has no effective means of tracking
the amount.

This is a program clearly out of control. The idea of funding law
enforcement through what amounts to foraging is offensive both to the
professionalism of the police and to the civil liberties of Colorado
residents. That cops should not work on commission should be self-evident.

The reforms Thiebaut and Mitchell propose come two years after Congress
passed legislation limiting federal forfeitures. The legislation they
propose would shift the burden of proof to the government, require that in
most cases a property owner be convicted of a crime before a seizure could
occur, and raise the legal requirements for those confiscations allowed
before a conviction.

The only thing wrong with their effort is the fact that it is needed.