Pubdate: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA) Copyright: 1999 San Francisco Chronicle Contact: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/ Forum: http://www.sfgate.com/conferences/ Author: Stephen Labaton, New York Times HOUSE PASSES STRICT RULES ON SEIZING ASSETS Both parties want to rein in police power to take property An unusual coalition of liberals and conservatives persuaded the House of Representatives yesterday to approve legislation to make it much harder for federal and state law enforcement authorities to confiscate property before they bring criminal charges in narcotics and other cases. By a lopsided vote of 375 to 48, the House for the first time rolled back nearly 30 years of criminal measures passed at the height of what were then called wars on drugs and terrorism. Those measures substantially broadened the authority of federal and state authorities to seize houses, cars, cash, boats, planes and other assets before obtaining criminal convictions. Without actually threatening a veto, the Clinton administration opposed the legislation, saying it would make it more difficult to combat crime. No similar legislation has been introduced in the Senate, but supporters of the House bill said that its huge victory would put pressure on the Senate to act. The measure -- which raises the legal standard for seizure, expands possible legal defenses and provides lawyers to indigent property-owners involved in such cases -- attracted a remarkable coalition of lawmakers and organizations across a broad ideological spectrum. Representative Henry Hyde, R- Ill., who has spent six years trying to pass the measure, said it ``puts civil liberties back in our judicial system.'' He called the current system of confiscation before conviction ``a throwback to the old Soviet Union.'' After those remarks, the other House Judiciary Committee members who rose to endorse the measure included Representatives John Conyers, D-Mich., Bob Barr, R-Ga., and Barney Frank, D-Mass. What made their alliance so incongruous was the fact that less than a year ago, the four lawmakers were engaged in a bitterly emotional debate over the impeachment of President Clinton, first in the House Judiciary Committee and later on the floor of the House. Hyde, the conservative chairman of the committee, and Frank, one of its ranking liberal Democrats, are often foils in law enforcement matters. But yesterday, they were not only unified in their support of the measure, but also in accord in denouncing an administration-backed weaker substitute that the House rejected. Frank was joined in denouncing both current law and the administration's measure by Barr, another traditional political opponent, who said the existing law has ``become the monetary tail wagging the law enforcement dog.'' ``Balancing the important needs of law enforcement means striking the criminal where it hurts, in the pocketbook, but not with a blunderbuss,'' said Barr. But opponents of the measure said it goes too far. ``Let us not turn back the clock on the war on drugs,'' said Representative Jim Ramstad, D-Minn., a supporter of the alternative bill that failed. With a growing number of cases of innocent people seeing their assets seized, the lawmakers adopted a bill that would require the government to prove ``by clear and convincing evidence'' that the property was subject to forfeiture because of illegal use. Under current law, the burden of proof lies with the person whose property was seized, and the government has to show only ``probable cause'' that the property is subject to forfeiture, a fairly easy standard to satisfy. In recent years, public sentiment on the issue has begun to turn, as reflected by the breadth of the coalition pushing for the measure: the American Bar Association, the National Rifle Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans for Tax Reform, the American Bankers Association, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the United States Chamber of Commerce, and pilot, boating, hotel and housing organizations. Faced with that coalition and powerful anecdotal evidence of abusive government conduct, critics of the new legislation were unable to counter the growing perception that federal forfeiture laws are being stretched beyond reasonable limits. Among the examples cited during the congressional debate was the case of a landscaper, Willie Jones, who went to a Nashville, Tenn., airport with $9,000 in cash to travel to Houston to buy nursery stock. He was detained at the ticket desk after paying for his plane ticket in cash, and he had the rest of his cash confiscated after officers told him that anyone carrying that much money had to be involved in drugs. Perhaps the most compelling example of abuses of the law was the seizure by the U.S. attorney's office in Houston of the Red Carpet Motel last year. There were no allegations that the hotel's owners had participated in any crimes. But prosecutors claimed the management had failed to implement ``security measures'' dictated by law enforcement officials, including raising room rates to make them less affordable to criminals. In California, legislators are considering two bills to increase the use of civil asset forfeiture. One, pending in a state Senate committee, would subject individuals who may have profited from white-collar crimes such as embezzlement to property forfeiture in the same way drug suspects forfeit homes and cars. Another bill would make it easier for police to seize personal property from anyone facing pornography charges, not just those who profit from pornography. - --- MAP posted-by: Don Beck