How the government presumes people are guilty when it steals their assets

I was just talking to the kids the other day about the presumption of innocence inherent in the American justice system — and I said that this presumption is an absolute necessity when you have the vast weight of the government, punitive powers and all, arrayed against you.  In this context, I mentioned pre-trial asset seizures and said that they should be unconstitutional, because they’re (a) premised upon a presumption of guilt and (b) they impair the defendant’s right to counsel of his choice by making him broke before trial.

And that’s pretty much what this article says.  Now we can only hope that the Supreme Court is capable of reaching a sensible outcome on this one.