EDITORIAL: Forfeiture reform moves forward

A U.S. House committee this week unanimously advanced legislation to reform the nation’s civil asset forfeiture laws. The move is long overdue.

Under civil forfeiture statutes, law enforcement officials may seize houses, cars, cash and other valuables from people who are never charged with a crime, let alone convicted of wrongdoing. The agencies are often allowed to keep all or some of the proceeds generated by the sale of the assets, creating an incentive for officials to pursue such cases.

The laws were intended to ensure that drug kingpins didn’t enjoy their ill-gotten gains. But the tactic has become increasingly common with even small-time suspects. Innocent owners who seek the return of their property face a difficult and expensive challenge and must prove the property is “innocent.”

Nevada has had a handful of high-profile forfeiture injustices in recent years. In 2015, for instance, Elko County sheriff’s deputies pulled over a man driving a motorhome on Interstate 80 for a routine traffic violation and found $167,000 during a search of the vehicle. They took the money though the driver was never even issued a traffic ticket.

A federal appeals court later ruled the search was unconstitutional and ordered the money returned, with attorney fees. Most victims of such abuses aren’t so fortunate.

Several states in recent years — including Nevada — have made changes to their forfeiture laws. The Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration Act would do the same on the federal level. The House Judiciary Committee, absent even a lone “nay” vote, has now forwarded the legislation to the floor. It would implement a number of safeguards:

■ The bill ensures that the money generated by such activity goes into the U.S. Treasury’s general fund rather than the bank accounts of the agencies that seize the property. This takes away the “for-profit” incentive.

■ It provides additional protections for innocent owners of property used by another person to commit a crime. Such owners would enjoy the presumption of innocence, forcing the state to prove its case.

■ The proposal would eliminate so-called “equitable-sharing” policies that allow state and local law enforcement to avoid more restrictive state forfeiture protections by piggy-backing on federal agencies.

■ Finally, the bill moves federal forfeiture actions into the federal courts and out from under the administrative state. According to the Institute for Justice, few victims ever get a day in court because “up to 98.6 percent of property seized” is forfeited by “bureaucrats” in “administrative agencies.”

The fact that a House committee on Wednesday passed this bill without dissent during these times of hyperpartisanship stands as a testament to the widespread support for these reforms. The Republican majority should allow a vote on the FAIR Act and send the legislation on to the Senate.