An affront to due process

Maybe, just maybe, Nevada lawmakers noticed what happened in Nebraska last week. Let’s hope, anyway.

The Cornhusker State on April 20 became the 10th state to require that law enforcement secure a criminal conviction before initiating forfeiture proceedings against an individual’s assets. If that seems like common sense, it is.

But in many states, including Nevada, police and prosecutors routinely use a tool known as civil forfeiture to seize money, cars, homes and other property from men and women who are never charged with wrongdoing, let alone convicted of a crime. Innocent or third-party owners who seek to contest such actions must navigate a complex legal maze, an expensive and time-consuming endeavor that often costs more than the value of the property itself.

Even worse, law enforcement agencies in many areas are allowed to keep a portion — if not all — of the proceeds generated by the property they seize, creating an incentive to pursue forfeitures at the expense of other priorities.

Civil forfeiture statutes proliferated during the 1980s and were implemented to ensure that drug lords and other crime barons didn’t profit from their ill-gotten gains. But in the past few decades, their use has exploded, leading to a number of high-profile instances in which innocent citizens were deprived of their property on a mere suspicion of wrongdoing.

Recall the controversy in Winnemucca, where at least two drivers last year sued local police after they were stopped on Interstate 80 for minor traffic offenses only to have thousands of dollars in cash they were carrying confiscated on the side of the road. The drivers were never charged with crimes.

The new Nebraska law not addresses such injustices, it includes provisions making it more difficult for police agencies to use federal law to circumvent tougher state statutes limiting agency profits from seizures.

Police and prosecutors defend civil forfeiture as a useful crime-fighting tool. But the same could be said of warrantless searches or mandatory surveillance cameras in private residences. In fact, civil forfeiture is an affront to due process and private property, vital concepts embedded in the Bill of Rights.

Nevada lawmakers had a chance to rein in forfeiture abuse during the 2015 session, but law enforcement lobbyists succeeded in neutering legislation similar to that just passed in Nebraska. Perhaps as more and more states move forward in this area, Nevada legislators will find the backbone to do the right thing and join them.