Mark down this day - Democrats and Republicans in Harrisburg are in agreement on something! What they appear to have reached bipartisan concord on is reform of the commonwealth's civil asset forfeiture law.

A state Senate committee is due to look at a bill this week that would eliminate what some have described as "state-sanctioned theft."The way civil asset forfeiture works in Pennsylvania is that money and other goods that prosecutors suspect are the ill-gotten gains of criminal activity can be seized. Even if no charges are ever brought, the property does not have to be returned.Originally hatched as a way to go after big-time drug dealers, most of the assets seized have been a couple hundred dollars here and a couple hundred dollars there.But most people do not have the time or resources to fight their way through the court system to get a few hundred dollars returned to them, so the money stays in the offices of prosecutors, even if an individual is found to have done nothing wrong, or there is insufficient evidence to charge them.Both the left-leaning American Civil Liberties Union and the libertarian-leaning Institute for Justice agree that the law is draconian.The proposal being examined in Harrisburg would require a conviction for someone's property to be permanently taken from them, and that any money that is taken be earmarked for general fund accounts, rather than prosecutors' offices.The bedrock of American justice is a presumption of innocence.Absent a conviction, fairness demands that people should be allowed to have their property returned to them.- The (Washington) Observer-ReporterThe foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.