Thanks to the hard work of criminal defense attorneys, civil rights groups and some motivated legislators, Minnesotans now no longer need to fear the troubling practice known as civil forfeiture. That’s because this past week, the governor signed a law that would eliminate civil forfeitures and require criminal convictions before a person’s property could be taken away by law enforcement authorities.

Civil forfeiture refers to the practice where police can (and do) take property of almost any kind (cars, homes, big screen TVs, etc.) if they believe it was connected to a crime. For example, if police believed that a certain item of property was either the instrument used to facilitate a drug crime or the result of the profits of the drug crime, then they had the right to seize the item, no questions asked.

That’s because the law as written had a glaring loophole that permitted forfeiture without criminal conviction or even criminal charges. That’s right, a person could have his or her property taken without ever even being charged with a crime. The law said that if the person wanted his or her property back, he or she would need to prove that the property was not related to a crime, placing an unfair burden of proof on the victim of the forfeiture.

Thankfully, the new legislation signed this week by the governor, SF 874, should lead to some important changes. For instance, the government will no longer be allowed to confiscate property in cases where there has been no criminal conviction. Additionally, the law corrects the bizarre burden of proof standard currently in use, shifting it back where it belongs: on the government. Now law enforcement authorities will need to show that the property was used for criminal purposes rather than forcing victims to disprove it.

Though there was opposition from law enforcement about changing the law, the measure eventually passed with wide support through both houses of the Minnesota legislature. Many believe that the resistance from law enforcement had to do with the massive amount of money various police departments were earning as a result of the state’s forfeiture laws. In Minnesota, police departments are allowed to hold on to up to 90 percent of the proceeds from the sale of the forfeited property. This can add up fast, and studies have shown that in the past decade or so police departments across the state made more than $30 million from the sale of forfeited goods.

This financial incentive was leading to more and more outrageous examples of forfeiture, with people who were never charged with crimes or those who had been acquitted still having property taken by police. Given the hassle and expense involved in getting it back, many people simply gave up, never bothering to challenge the forfeiture in court.

Thankfully, the new laws should help reverse a troubling trend in the state and put Minnesota back on the right side of property rights issues. The new measure affirms what many have always understood: people should be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Source: “Minnesota Now Requires A Criminal Conviction Before People Can Lose Their Property To Forfeiture,” by Nick Sibilla, published at Forbes.com.