<P> Civil asset forfeiture or occasionally civil seizure, is a controversial legal process in which law enforcement officers take assets from persons suspected of involvement with crime or illegal activity without necessarily charging the owners with wrongdoing . While civil procedure, as opposed to criminal procedure, generally involves a dispute between two private citizens, civil forfeiture involves a dispute between law enforcement and property such as a pile of cash or a house or a boat, such that the thing is suspected of being involved in a crime . To get back the seized property, owners must prove it was not involved in criminal activity . Sometimes it can mean a threat to seize property as well as the act of seizure itself . </P> <P> In civil forfeiture, assets are seized by police based on a suspicion of wrongdoing, and without having to charge a person with specific wrongdoing, with the case being between police and the thing itself, sometimes referred to by the Latin term in rem, meaning "against the property"; the property itself is the defendant and no criminal charge against the owner is needed . If property is seized in a civil forfeiture, it is "up to the owner to prove that his cash is clean" and the court can weigh a defendant's use of their 5th amendment right to remain silent in their decision . In civil forfeiture, the test in most cases is whether police feel there is a preponderance of the evidence suggesting wrongdoing; in criminal forfeiture, the test is whether police feel the evidence is beyond a reasonable doubt, which is a tougher test to meet . In contrast, criminal forfeiture is a legal action brought as "part of the criminal prosecution of a defendant", described by the Latin term in personam, meaning "against the person", and happens when government indicts or charges the property which is either used in connection with a crime, or derived from a crime, that is suspected of being committed by the defendant; the seized assets are temporarily held and become government property officially after an accused person has been convicted by a court of law; if the person is found to be not guilty, the seized property must be returned . </P> <P> Normally both civil and criminal forfeiture require involvement by the judiciary; however, there is a variant of civil forfeiture called administrative forfeiture which is essentially a civil forfeiture which does not require involvement by the judiciary, which derives its powers from the Tariff Act of 1930, and empowers police to seize banned imported merchandise, as well as things used to import or transport or store a controlled substance, money, or other property which is less than $500,000 value . </P>

The fifth amendment governs the police power to search and seize and individual