Police and other government agencies claim civil asset forfeiture is needed to “take the profits out of crime,” as the U.S. Department of Justice has put it. But all too often this power has been abused by targeting innocent people who are never even charged with a crime – much less convicted – and using the money to pad law enforcement budgets.

Thankfully, public pressure in response to some high-profile cases of abuse has prompted governments to roll back the practice. New Mexico essentially abolished civil forfeitures last month. At the federal level, the Justice Department adopted a policy in March restricting asset forfeitures, and the Internal Revenue Service announced in October that it would no longer employ civil forfeitures without evidence that the targeted money had been obtained illegally.

Unfortunately, mere policy changes are not enough protection for innocent citizens since they can be changed on a whim or simply ignored, as a recent IRS case illustrates. Last year the IRS seized the entire bank account of more than $107,000 from Lyndon McLellan, owner of a gas station, restaurant and convenience store in Fairmont, N.C. The agency never accused him of a crime, but, like many small-business owners who regularly make smaller bank deposits, Mr. McLellan was flagged for potential “structuring,” whereby someone tries to get around federal rules requiring banks to report transactions larger than $10,000 by breaking a larger sum into several smaller transactions.

Despite its new policy, the IRS and the Justice Department filed a civil forfeiture complaint in federal court in December, and in March offered to return half the money. Fortunately, the agency finally relented and agreed to drop the case two weeks ago.

“It took me 13 years to save that much money, and … fewer than 13 seconds for the government to take it away,” Mr. McLellan said in a statement for the Institute for Justice, which represents him.

“This case demonstrates that the federal government’s recent reforms are riddled with loopholes and exceptions and fundamentally fail to protect Americans’ basic rights,” said IJ attorney Robert Everett Johnson. “No American should have his property taken by the government without first being convicted of a crime.”

We heartily agree, which is why we strongly encourage California and other states to adopt civil asset forfeiture reform legislation, such as New Mexico’s House Bill 560, and urge Congress to pass Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul’s proposed Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration Act, S.255.