House Votes on Property Seizures
By CASSANDRA BURRELL - AP
WASHINGTON (AP) - Police would have a tougher time seizing private property with
suspected links to crime under a bill the House passed Thursday.
House members voted 375-48 to set new rules for how the federal government
seizes houses, cars, boats, cash and securities. Police have used civil asset forfeiture
for such things as shutting down drug houses quickly by taking possession of them or
hitting drug traffickers in the wallet even before charges are filed.
During an afternoon of debate, both Democrats and Republicans criticized current
federal laws that allow law enforcement officers to seize property simply because they
suspect it was involved in wrongdoing.
Civil asset forfeiture is a powerful anti-crime tool, but it also is a seductive
opportunity for abuse, they said, especially for law enforcement agencies hungry for money
to supplement tight budgets.
``In many jurisdictions it has become a monetary tail wagging the law
enforcement dog,'' Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., said. Too many innocent citizens have been
deprived of the use of their cash or possessions without due process, said Rep. Henry
Hyde, R-Ill., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. For example, it took
landscaper Willie Jones of Nashville, Tenn., 2 years to recover the $9,000 Drug
Enforcement Administration agents confiscated from him after an airline ticket agent
became suspicious when he paid for a round-trip ticket to Houston with $267 in cash in
1991, supporters said.
``They don't have to convict you. They don't even have to charge you with a
crime. But they have your property,'' Hyde said. ``This is a throwback to the old Soviet
Union, where justice is the justice of the government and the citizen doesn't have a
chance.'' ``Think about that - 80 percent of those whose property are seized are
never even charged with a crime,'' said Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass.
House members disagreed, however, on how to change the law. A bill
introduced by Hyde and the Judiciary Committee's senior Democrat, Rep. John Conyers of
Michigan, would require the federal government to prove with ``clear and convincing''
evidence that the property was eligible for forfeiture if an owner files a legal
challenge. In addition, officers must prove criminality, not simply allege it.
Current law requires property owners to prove they are not connected with the
alleged crime. The legislation also would require the government to provide notice
to owners before seizing property. Owners would have 30 days - compared with the current
10 days - to challenge a seizure in court.
The bill would allow a judge to release property to the owner if continued
government possession would pose a substantial hardship. Judges would be allowed to
appoint counsel for poor defendants, and owners would be allowed to sue the government for
negligence if their property is lost or damaged.
In some cases, owners of seized cash would receive interest if a judge orders
the government to return the money. The legislation would apply only to civil asset
forfeitures, not criminal ones, although civil forfeitures often are involved in criminal
cases. It also would not affect state forfeiture laws. In 1998, about $449 million
in seized property in both civil and criminal forfeiture cases went to the federal
government. Some of the money is sent to state and local law enforcement agencies who
helped in investigations.
The House voted 268-155 to reject an alternative that would have allowed police
to seize property based on a lower standard of proof - a ``preponderance'' of the evidence
rather than ``clear and convincing'' evidence.
But supporters of the Hyde-Conyers bill said the alternative was too weak and
would end up expanding the federal government's power to seize property rather than
curbing it.
The Clinton administration supported the alternative, saying the Hyde-Conyers
bill ``would have a serious negative effect on the federal government's ability to combat
drug trafficking, alien smuggling, terrorism, consumer fraud and many other criminal
offenses.''
No companion bill has been introduced in the Senate.
The bill is H.R. 1658.
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