and it is used often to supplement, rather than recover, the Government's revenues. (11) Civil forfeiture statutes and precedents incorporate certain protections for property owners that, although limited, erode the nature of the proceedings as truly in rem and betray the punitive character of civil forfeiture. (12) The tortured status of civil forfeiture in current law, in which the fiction of the property as the defendant is sustained, yet the interests of property owners are, to a limited extent, nonetheless recognized, is the inevitable result of grandfathering civil forfeiture into a constitutional system that otherwise secures the rights of the accused. (b) Sense of Congress It is the sense of Congress that the Constitution authorizes and obligates Congress to prohibit the use of civil asset forfeiture by the States. 202. State civil asset forfeiture (a) In general Property owned by a person may be forfeited to a State pursuant to a civil proceeding only after— (1) criminal conviction of such person for violation of State criminal law