By Patrick Wilson
The Virginian-Pilot
RICHMOND
A Senate committee on Tuesday
killed a bill that would prevent police from seizing assets in a criminal case
unless a defendant were convicted or entered a plea agreement.
The measure (HB1287) passed the
House of Delegates 92-6 earlier this month and passed the Senate Courts of
Justice Committee 11-2 last week.
However, the Senate Finance
Committee killed it Tuesday, and Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment, R-James
City County, said it would be studied by the State Crime Commission.
"I'm very
disappointed," said the bill's sponsor, Del. Mark Cole, R-Spotsylvania,
outside the hearing room. "I think that was just an excuse to kill the
bill."
Police are allowed to keep
property seized from suspects in drug investigations, sometimes even if a
conviction is never obtained. From 2008 to 2013, Virginia law enforcement
agencies seized more than $57 million through the state civil asset forfeiture
process.
Some offenses that have been
added to the law recently, such as human trafficking, require a conviction in
order for police to seize property, Cole said.
His bill would make the law
uniform by requiring a conviction for asset forfeiture in all criminal
investigations. Defendants also would have a chance to exhaust appeals before
their assets were seized.
"I think it's just
fundamentally wrong for the government to be able to take someone's property
who has not been convicted of a crime," Cole told the committee.
"Can you give us an
example? I think I understand what you're saying," said committee chairman
Sen. Walter Stosch, R-Henrico County.
"Somebody could be accused
of dealing drugs," Cole said. "Not even charged. But a civil
proceeding could be brought against their assets without them having been
convicted, and their assets could be taken."
Stosch and Norment voted to
kill the bill, as did Sens. Kenny Alexander, D-Norfolk; Frank Wagner,
R-Virginia Beach; Chuck Colgan, D-Prince William County; Janet Howell,
D-Fairfax County; Dick Saslaw, D-Fairfax County; John Watkins, R-Powhatan
County; and Bill Carrico, R-Grayson County.
Voting for the bill were Sens.
Emmett Hanger, R-Augusta County; Steve Newman, R-Lynchburg; Ryan McDougle,
R-Hanover County; Jill Holtzman Vogel, R-Fauquier County; and Frank Ruff,
R-Mecklenburg County.
Police and prosecutors opposed
the bill, while several conservative and liberal groups backed it. A letter in
support of the bill on Monday was signed by Claire Guthrie Gastanaga of the
Virginia American Civil Liberties Union, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax
Reform and two officials with the Institute for Justice, a civil liberties law
firm.
