THE AWFUL SUPREME COURT PRECEDENT THAT HELPED CREATE TODAY'S ASSET FORFEITURE NIGHTMARE.

• Author: Root, Damon
• Position: LAW - Bennis v. Michigan

CIVIL ASSET FORFEITURE is one of the most destructive and flagrantly unconstitutional government practices occurring in the United States today.

It lets law enforcement agencies seize cash, cars, homes, and other property from innocent people who have been neither charged nor convicted of any under-lying crime. The property is then either sold, with the government pocketing all or most of the proceeds, or put to use by the agency that took it. Either way, the police profit from their own policing. All this, even though the Constitution clearly forbids the government from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

How did we get here? The U.S. Supreme Court deserves a share of the blame. In 1996, the country's highest court issued a far-reaching opinion in Bennis v. Michigan. At issue was the seizure of a Pontiac automobile driven by a man named John Bennis, who was arrested in the car with a prostitute and later convicted of gross indecency. The seized car was jointly owned by John and his wife Tina.

Tina sued to stop the forfeiture proceedings, pointing out that the state had taken her property for a crime she did not commit. But the Court saw things differently. "An owner's interest in property," wrote Chief Justice William Rehnquist, "may be forfeited by reason of the use to which the property is put even though the owner did not know that it was to be put to such use."

Civil asset forfeiture has only become more common in the...