ONTARIO SHOULDN'T IMPORT A LAW THAT'S OUT OF CONTROL IN THE U.S.

Worried about the growing wealth and power of organized crime? Jim
Flaherty, Ontario's attorney general, says he's got a solution. It's
called civil asset forfeiture -- a police power invented in the United
States and promoted internationally by the American government and
American police. It works in the U.S., Mr. Flaherty claims. So the
provincial Tories are bringing it here.

But here's something strange: It seems that Americans themselves don't
think this American idea is so terrific after all. In fact, events just
last week confirm that Americans increasingly see this police power as
a serious threat to property rights and civil liberties.

The name may be dull, but civil asset forfeiture is a power that puts a
thrill in police hearts. Under ordinary law, police can only seize
property they think was obtained through crime after they charge
someone with the crime -- and they can only keep the property if that
person is found guilty in a criminal trial.

Civil asset forfeiture lets the police avoid the fuss and bother of a
criminal trial. All the police have to do to seize property is show
that it is linked to crime -- using a civil standard of proof which is
far lower than the criminal standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt."
They don't have to lay criminal charges or prove anything in a criminal
court. In fact, a study in the U.S. found that criminal charges are
never laid in 80 per cent of civil forfeitures.

And if charges are laid but the defendant is found not guilty? The
police can still take his property. You can see why civil asset
forfeiture makes the police giddy as schoolgirls.

It gets worse. Under U.S. federal laws, the onus has been reversed. The
police only have to show the slimmest evidence that property is
connected to crime to take it. To get it back, the owner has to go to
court and show -- according to a higher standard of proof -- that the
property is not connected to crime. The expense alone forces most
people to give up.

A forfeiture can't even be stopped if the owner of the property didn't
know it was linked to crime. Imagine a 75-year-old grandmother whose
son lives in her house. Unknown to her, he is selling drugs. She loses
her house. Fanciful? No. It happened.

Just as hideous are the effects of this power on police behaviour. Most
laws turn forfeited property over to police budgets, giving cops a huge
incentive to focus on crimes that might net seizures, rather than on
less lucrative violent crimes.

The most infamous example of this incentive at work was the killing of
Donald Scott. In 1992, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department got
a tip that Scott was growing fields of marijuana on his $5 million
ranch in Malibu. The police surveyed the land by helicopter but saw
nothing. They also had the ranch appraised.

The police then raided Scott's home in a military-style assault. His
wife screamed. Scott came running with a gun. The police shot him dead.

No drugs were ever found, and an investigation concluded there were no
reasonable grounds for the raid. The police did it for the money.

Henry Hyde, a senior Republican congressman, wrote that "(Civil asset
forfeiture) has allowed police to view all of America as some giant
national K-Mart, where prices are not just lower, but non-existent -- a
sort of law enforcement 'pick-'n-don't pay.' "

The injustices of civil asset forfeiture sparked a movement to abolish
or at least curtail the power. It bore fruit earlier this year when
Congress scaled back federal forfeiture laws, with some protection for
innocent owners and other changes.

And last week, Americans voted on the issue in three state referendums.
In Massachusetts, a change to forfeiture laws which was a small part of
a larger, unpopular proposal was rejected. But in Utah, 69 per cent of
voters agreed to raise the standard of proof required for forfeiture to
"clear and convincing evidence" and to use forfeited property to fund
education, not police. And in Oregon, voters barred police from taking
property without obtaining a criminal conviction.

Asked to comment on these results, a spokesperson for Jim Flaherty's
office said, "Actually, I'm not aware of that."

Perhaps the attorney general's office might want to get aware. And
perhaps Mr. Flaherty might tell Ontario why he is importing a dangerous
idea that is increasingly feared and rejected in the very country that
invented it.