The Public Policy: Render Not Unto Seizure
Bovard, James
THE PUBLIC POLICY by James Bovard Render Not Unto Seizure T he Justice Department last year confiscated 42,454 cars, boats, houses, stacks of cash, and other items of private property—booty...
...Ed Bryant (R-Tenn...
...Ramstad said he had been told by lawmen that, if Hyde's bill passed, "the so-called buy money to enforce drug laws would essentially dry up, because much if not most of the buy money comes from forfeiture of these assets...
...54 September 19 99 The American Spectator based solely on statistics that show rising drug use among children...
...Customs Service Assistant Commissioner Bonni Tischler assured the senators that "we're proud of our successes on this front, and were proud of our responsible, professional, and efficient use of seizure methods...
...Justice now portrays what most would consider minimal decency— compensating those whose property it wrongfully seizes—as if it were a significant reform...
...Yet Rep...
...0 n July 21, the Senate subcommittee on criminal justice oversight held a hearing dominated by friends of forfeiture...
...John Sweeney (R-N.Y...
...Afterwards, Hyde's bill passed by 375 to 48...
...Hyde's bill would allow judges the option of appointing counsel for indigent citizens who seek to challenge forfeiture actions...
...As recently as 1995, a federal court lambasted Justice for refusing to pay interest on returned money, even after a federal judge ordered it to put the money (held for five years) into an interest-bearing account...
...has been pushing to reform forfeiture since 5993...
...warned that limiting forfeiture power would mean "removing the teeth from the most valuable tool in what seems to be a losing war against drugs...
...During the floor debate on Hyde's bill on June 24, Hutchinson complained: "How does disarming law enforcement fit into the war on drugs...
...Thus, because all members of Congress mustbe presumed to wish that abuses did not occur, it is unfair and irrational to actually consider seizure abuses when seeking to reform the law...
...They merely provide photo opportunities for police and prosecutors nailing petty offenders...
...fretted that "frivolous claims would be encouraged by this legislation...
...Hatch may be trying to figure out how the bill might affect his quixotic presidential campaign...
...Law enforcement lobbies pulled out all the stops to fear-monger on this issue...
...The vast majority of people whose property is seized is never formally charged with a crime...
...Richard Fiano, DEA chief of operations, assured the senators that "DEA's asset forfeiture actions all take place within a legal framework with built-in protections for the innocent...
...Yet sting operations that require this "buy money" have never crippled a single major drug cartel...
...The American Spectator • September 1999 55...
...Hutchinson's substitute bill, to expand government confiscatory power, was defeated by a vote of 268 to 155...
...While reform advocates pointed to the margin as indicative of irresistible support, the bill now faces a doubtful future in the Senate...
...and backed by organizations ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to the National Rifle Association...
...So we either find drugs on the person or money on the person, depending which way they are going...
...Often forfeitures are based on the word of confidential informants (frequently ex-convicts), who receive up to 25 percent of the value of any property the government seizes based on their accusations...
...Jim Ramstad (R-Minn...
...seemed to oppose reform The GOP must choose between law and enforcement...
...But it was a wrongful Customs seizure of S357,000 from a Syrian-American at the Los Angeles airport that spurred a June 1998 Supreme Court decision that was the sharpest rebuke yet to federal forfeiture efforts...
...and Rep...
...This year, he finally got his bill through the House—aided by a diverse band of co-sponsors including Rep...
...Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y...
...Clinton administration officials implied that, unless the government continues seizing private property on the slightest pretext, public safety will be jeopardized...
...forfeiture routinely involves collusion between multiple law enforcement agencies to evade restrictions on their power...
...One of its proposals is for the government to "pay interest on any money seized and later returned, or pay damages on any property seized and returned...
...raised the caliber of the debate with a gem of congressional logic: "The abuses that exist, and they do, they represent the straw man in this debate because indeed we all want to do away with the abuses...
...The House of Representatives has rebuked the administration and its allies on the issue by a surprising margin, yet the Senate seems far more seizure-friendly...
...In the longer run, the battle over forfeiture will draw a line—between politicians who grant any claim made by law enforcement and those who remember that they were not elected merely to be shills for government employees devoted to plundering the citizenry...
...Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the Judiciary Committee and a senator who has often served the FBI's interests...
...Henry Hyde (R-Ill...
...Johnny Mack Brown, a Greenville County, South Carolina sheriff who testified on behalf of the National Sheriffs Association, denounced the House bill as "reprehensible" and "an entitlement program for lawyers...
...And the White House is doing all it can to expand federal power in this area...
...Rep...
...John Conyers (D-Mich...
...Some of the opponents of Hyde's bill were indignant that the House would even stoop to consider such a bill and mention some well-known forfeiture outrages...
...Rep...
...explained why money was so often seized from those with no drugs on them: "The way the system works in this is when there are couriers...they either have the money or they have the drugs, but they do not have them both...
...Sweeney pleaded with his colleagues: "Can we not strike a balance between free enterprise and criminal enterprise...
...introduced a substitute "reform" bill that would have actually greatly increased the government's power to confiscate property...
...cautioned that the House bill "may undermine the use of forfeiture law in the war against drugs, child pornography, money laundering, telemarketing fraud, terrorism and a host of other crimes...
...Thus, the fact that someone is caught with lots of money but no drugs miraculously proves that they are a drug courier...
...THE PUBLIC POLICY by James Bovard Render Not Unto Seizure T he Justice Department last year confiscated 42,454 cars, boats, houses, stacks of cash, and other items of private property—booty valued at nearly $605 million...
...Thus, decreasing a DEA agent's power to seize your car is the equivalent of taking away his sidearm...
...The Customs Service responded to the Supreme Court decision by announcing new, higher targets for confiscating cash from outbound travelers...
...Yet studies have shown that up to 7o percent of all currency bears some type of drug residue...
...Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark...
...Gilbert Gallegos, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, pleaded, "Do we continue to stand up and fight those who peddle drugs to our kids and our grandkids or will we decide to surrender an important crime-fighting tool to critics of the civil forfeiture act...
...Barney Frank (D-Mass...
...Treasury Undersecretary James Johnson told senators that the Treasury forfeiture fund had paid for the explosive-detection canine teams that swept Littleton High School in Colorado, and for a program in 27 cities to target illegal sources of guns used by young people...
...The Justice Department is now pitching bones to the reformers...
...In criminal cases, the government must prove a person guilty beyond a reasonable doubt...
...Most who defended the status quo did so, at least implicitly, on the grounds that the war on drugs is being won largely thanks to forfeiture...
...Last December, the agency confiscated $19,000 from a professional basketball player who was stopped and searched while driving in Ohio...
...Bill McCullom (R-Fla...
...The Clinton administration is striving to recast forfeiture as an apple pie issue...
...JAMES BOVARD is the author of Freedom in Chains: The Rise of the State and the Demise of the Citizen (St...
...The short-term fate of forfeiture reform could be in the hands of Sen...
...Rep...
...Hyde's bill would shift the burden of proof to the government in forfeiture cases, abolish the requirement that people post cash bonds before suing to regain their property, and institute other procedural changes to make the system more equitable...
...Sen...
...Most of Hutchinson's substitute bill was written by Justice Department lawyers...
...Since 1980, the appropriations for the Justice Department have increased fourfold and Treasury appropriations have more than doubled, yet apparently this is not enough...
...In civil asset forfeiture, the only thing federal agents need is a hearsay accusation, mere gossip, or rumor...
...Now Congress and the Clinton administration are battling over the scope of government's power to confiscate private property...
...Opponents complained that this would mean forcing taxpayers to bankroll attorneys for every drug cartel chieftain in the hemisphere...
...Strom Thurmond (R-S.C...
...The cost of hiring a lawyer to fight a seizure is widely estimated to be at least S5,000 — often more than the value of the goods seized...
...Martin's Press...
...Federal agents can seize a person's property by invoking more than two hundred different federal statutes involving everything from wildlife to carrying cash out of the country to playing poker for cash with friends and relatives...
...Hyde's bill evoked hysteria among American law enforcement...
...a drug-sniffing dog alerted a state highway patrol officer to the money in the car, which bore traces of cocaine.(The DEA was brought in because state law did not allow the highway patrol to directly confiscate the money...
...Presumably, wrongful seizures by government agents were not the "criminal enterprise" Sweeney had in mind...
...Bob Barr (R-Ga...
...This battle also highlights a major fault line within the Republican Party, between those who cater to law enforcement and those who believe government power must be limited...
Vol. 32 • September 1999 • No. 9
