US Congress Senate Bill 642 (Prior Session Legislation)

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Spectrum: Bipartisan Bill
Status: Introduced on March 15 2017 - 25% progression, died in committee
Action: 2017-03-15 - Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
Pending: Senate Judiciary Committee
Text: Latest bill text (Introduced) [PDF]

FAIR Act Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration Act of 2017 This bill modifies general rules governing civil forfeiture proceedings to: (1) ensure that a person contesting a civil forfeiture has legal representation without regard to whether the property subject to forfeiture is being used by such person as a primary residence; (2) increase the federal government's burden of proof in civil forfeiture proceedings to clear and convincing evidence; (3) require the government, in addition to showing a substantial connection between the seized property and an offense, to establish by clear and convincing evidence that the owner of any interest in the seized property used the property with intent to facilitate the offense or knowingly consented or was willfully blind to the use of the property by another in connection with the offense; and (4) expand the proportionality criteria used by a court to determine whether a civil forfeiture was constitutionally excessive. To remove incentives for carrying out civil forfeitures, the bill requires proceeds from the disposition of seized property to be deposited into the General Fund of the Treasury, rather than to Department of Justice accounts for law enforcement activities. The bill adds a mens rea requirement (i.e., a knowing violation) to the prohibition against structuring financial transactions to evade reporting requirements. A court shall conduct a probable cause hearing to determine if there is a violation of the prohibition against structuring transactions to evade reporting requirements involving a monetary instrument and to return such instrument if probable cause is not established.

FAIR Act Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration Act of 2017

Sen. Rand Paul [R-KY]	Sen. Mike Lee [R-UT]	Sen. Mike Crapo [R-ID]	Sen. Angus King [I-ME]
Sen. Tom Udall [D-NM]	Sen. Martin Heinrich [D-NM]	Sen. Ron Wyden [D-OR]	Sen. Jeff Merkley [D-OR]

Date	Chamber	Action
2017-03-15	Senate	Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.

HB1555 (Same As) 2017-03-31 - Referred to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations.

Type	Source
Summary	https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/642/all-info
Text	https://www.congress.gov/115/bills/s642/BILLS-115s642is.pdf