WASHINGTON -- Sometimes waiting for justice is like watching rust form on an abandoned automobile. But thanks to a tough investigative reporter, it finally arrived, in one instance at least, restoring our faith in what journalism is supposed to be all about.
After years of teeth gnashing, the Congress has done something about a sanctified practice that has been the utter antipathy of justice and democratic principle: the program of seizing assets under the mere suspicion that they have been ill gotten.It now will be far more difficult for the federal government to use the asset forfeiture law to confiscate property before bringing their owners to trial. Hopefully congressionally adopted reforms will stop the abuse that has resulted in a steady pattern of government victimization.
The law has been a favorite tool of law enforcement agencies that have used the money to fight crime, mainly the drug trade, with seized assets totaling more than half a billion dollars a year. Unfortunately in many of the cases, those whose assets were confiscated never were charged with any crime and had to spend years getting their property back.
In one notorious example, duplicated a hundred times, a doctor's life savings of $2.5 million were seized because of a bank practice that made it look as though he was laundering drug money. The doctor was completely unaware of what was happening and even when the bank president told authorities of his utter innocence, it took years to get the money returned through a court order.
Like most flawed programs, the asset forfeiture plan was well intentioned and supposed to be used to help police fight crime by using the assets of criminals. But the lack of proper administration and the temptation of easy money to finance police needs so great that the law was ready made for abuse and that is exactly what happened. Bewildered citizens found themselves trying to prove that not only were they innocent but so was their property.
Then Andrew Schneider, a hard-nosed young investigative reporter, who already had won two Pulitzer Prizes, began looking into growing complaints of these dramatic violations of civil liberties. He found literally dozens of hair-raising examples of abuse. His startling revelations in a series produced for Scripps Howard Newspapers brought about the first real awareness of how badly the program was being operated.
One of these, a nurseryman from Nashville, who regularly bought plants and other stock with cash on the West Coast, raised suspicion when he paid cash for an airplane ticket to Los Angeles. Dogs allegedly sniffed drugs on the money and it was confiscated. The nurseryman, an African-American businessman named Willie Jones, became the model for injustice under the forfeiture act. Jones never was charged with any crime, but it took him years to get back the money he needed desperately to stay in business.
It mattered little that drugs are so pervasive in American society that almost all money is tainted. Schneider's work became the pattern for other exposes and helped provide the impetus for reforming the law.
Acting on these revelations, Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., now chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, first introduced legislation to reform the law seven years ago. It has attracted a hugely diverse group of supporters including the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Rifle Association , the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Bankers association and others.
While the government still can seize suspected property, it will be able to do so only after the proper due process, something that has been almost entirely absent from the current law. The burden of proof will now lie with the government and higher standards will be applied for seizures before a conviction.
The new law also expands legal defenses, awards lawyers' fees to those who successfully challenge confiscation of their property and even provides government-paid legal fees for those made indigent by the loss of their property.
Adoption of the law resulted from a compromise with the Justice Department, which adamantly opposed more sweeping reform. Prosecutors will now have an easier time confiscating property after criminal convictions and new procedures will be set up to permit federal courts to enforce judgments against foreign nations.
While most of the reform groups hailed the passage, they also noted that it was not as tough as they wanted. Proponents actually were calling it just "a first step," making it clear they would renew efforts to further curtail the practice. Whether or not successful, they should thank Schneider and others who took up this cause and ultimately brought a measure of justice.