Government should stop seizing property of the innocent

On April 10, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, R, signed into law a sweeping reform package that effectively ends her state's practice of taking property merely suspected of involvement in illegal activity. This process, which governments frequently engage in without a criminal conviction or even charges being filed, is commonly known as civil asset forfeiture.

As positive as Martinez's action is, civil forfeiture remains a major problem in the U.S., and only a few states are currently working to fix it. As the Institute for Justice's Darpana Sheth noted in testimony last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, "Federal and state government can still take property for civil forfeiture without even charging, much less convicting owners of a crime."

Civil asset forfeiture has been the subject of several local and national journalistic investigations. It became an even more popular cause recently when HBO comedian John Oliver did an entire 16-minute segment on it for his show Last Week Tonight. Oliver focused on how police departments across America have been seizing and keeping money from people who are never even charged with crimes — in some cases with total freedom to use it to supplement their or the government's budget.

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