James Fisher

The News Journal

New legislation to replace Delaware's civil asset forfeiture laws with statutes requiring a criminal conviction before police can sell seized property earned praise Wednesday from several watchdog groups.

Sen. Colin Bonini, R-Dover, and Rep. Paul Baumbach, D-Newark, described the proposal in a Dover news conference on Wednesday. The bill they touted would outright end the state's civil asset forfeiture regime, which provides a legal way for police to confiscate property — and cash — from people stopped on suspicion of committing drug crimes.

Civil asset forfeiture doesn't require a criminal conviction, or even an arrest, in order for police to make seizures. As long as officers can show probable cause the property is linked to illegal drug activity, they can seize it. The News Journal has reported that police have seized $5 million in assets and cash since 2012 under the state forfeiture laws, and a special committee of prosecutors and police officials that decides how the money is spent is exempt from the state's sunshine law.

If this new legislation is made law, Bonini said, a conviction would be required to permanently seize someone's assets.

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"In America, the government should not be allowed to take your property unless they can prove you did something wrong," Bonini said Wednesday. "I think this really touches people's sense of what the relationship between government and people should be about.”

Their legislation is also sponsored by Sen. Bryan Townsend, D-Newark, and 12 other cosponsors, Bonini said. He said the bill was largely modeled on new laws in New Mexico, which banned civil forfeiture last year.

Watchdog groups that have panned Delaware's civil forfeiture laws came out in force Wednesday to praise the forthcoming bill, SB 222. "We need to re-build the confidence of the public that law enforcement is acting in the public interest," said John D. Flaherty, a director of the Delaware Coalition for Open Government. "This bill, if enacted into law, will help do that."

Police and prosecutors have defended civil forfeiture as a useful, perhaps indispensable, tool in battling drug dealing. "It is a tool that law enforcement uses to take drugs off the streets," Delaware State Troopers Association President Tom Brackin said last year.

SB 222 still provides routine ways for authorities to seize property subject to forfeiture: by getting a search warrant, or if the state believes waiting for the full forfeiture process would "result in the removal or destruction of the property." But in general, under the proposed law, "proof of a criminal conviction" is required for the state to permanently take the property away from its former owner.

The bill would also eliminate the Special Law Enforcement Assistance Fund, where forfeiture proceeds are now funneled to. Although police departments are supposed to tell the state auditor how they're spending money in that fund, there are no records of any such disclosures in recent years, The News Journal reported in February.

Under SB 222, forfeiture proceeds would simply go into the state's general fund.

SB 222 has backing from Democrats and Republicans in both the House and Senate. One of its main sponsors, Bonini, is a GOP candidate for governor; another main sponsor, Townsend, is a progressive Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress.

"SB 222 addresses an issue that we believe both conservatives and progressives can agree on," said Jill Fuchs, president of the League of Women Voters of Delaware. "It speaks to the fundamental issue of fairness while giving police the tools they need to seize assets from those who are proven to have committed criminal acts."

Contact James Fisher at (302) 983-6772, on Twitter @JamesFisherTNJ or jfisher@delawareonline.com.