Pubdate: Sun, 16 Jul 2000
Source: Kansas City Star (MO)
Copyright: 2000 The Kansas City Star
Contact:  1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, Mo. 64108
Feedback: http://www.kansascity.com/Discussion/
Website: http://www.kcstar.com/
Author: Karen Dillon, The Kansas City Star,  This article is an update to the KC Star's TO PROTECT AND COLLECT Series
Related: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n682/a02.html

LEGISLATORS WRESTLE WITH ASSET FORFEITURE POLICY, LAWS

CHICAGO -- As hundreds of state legislators from around the country gather 
here this week, some are talking about finding ways to stop police from 
evading state forfeiture laws.

Some want to tighten their laws to prevent police from using federal law 
enforcement agencies to improperly keep millions of dollars in seized drug 
money.

Others represent states with November voter initiatives that would keep 
seized money out of police coffers.

"Clearly, asset forfeiture is something that needs to be revisited by 
legislators throughout the country," Louisiana state Rep. Kip Holden, a 
Baton Rouge Democrat, said Sunday. "It's going to be a big debate. It's 
going to be a very complicated procedure."

The lawmakers are in Chicago through Thursday for the National Conference 
of State Legislatures, which will address myriad state and federal issues. 
More than 5,000 legislators and their staff are expected.

Holden is chairman of the organization's Law and Justice Committee, which 
sponsored one of the forums Saturday that kicked off the convention. 
Holden's forum focused on police circumvention of forfeiture laws and was 
prompted by information in a two-day series published in May in The Kansas 
City Star.

Most states have laws that block seized money from going directly back to 
police because they don't want police profiting from crime fighting, The 
Star found.

The series also showed that police in more than two dozen states often hand 
off property and cash they seize in drug cases to

a federal agency, such as the Drug Enforcement Administration. The agency 
keeps a cut, usually 20 percent, and returns the rest to police.

At the request of the organization, Craig Nienaber, The Star's projects 
editor, presented the series' findings during the Saturday forum.

Two panelists, Steve Kessler, a New York criminal defense attorney, former 
prosecutor and national expert on state and federal forfeiture laws, and 
Gene Voegtlin, legislative counsel for the International Association of 
Chiefs of Police, spoke on the subject.

Missouri state Sen. Harry Wiggins, a Kansas City Democrat, also spoke about 
the problem in Missouri and his bill to correct it.

The host organization has a policy meant to discourage police from avoiding 
states' laws when seeking asset forfeiture.

After hearing the panelists and the questions raised by a dozen 
legislators, Holden said Sunday he would request that the issue also be put 
on the agenda of the organization's December meeting.

He said it would be important to have attorneys general, district attorneys 
and state judges represented in December, as well as members of law 
enforcement and the federal government.

Holden said he believed the American Bar Association also should be involved.

"The ABA should be in the forefront of dealing with this issue..." he said.

Voegtlin, legislative counsel for the police chiefs' association, said 
during the Saturday forum that forfeiture is an important law enforcement tool.

"Forfeiture in the views of our members is probably one of the most 
effective weapons that law enforcement has in the war against crime," he 
said. "Nothing, I think, makes more sense than for law enforcement...to be 
able to take the proceeds out of the hands of drug dealers and the 
associates of that money."

Voegtlin said, however, the need for an aggressive fight against crime 
appears to be swinging back from the 1980s, when federal laws were passed 
that allowed police and federal law enforcement to share forfeited drug money.

"Back in '84 and in the early '90s, the nation was in the midst of a pretty 
massive crime wave," Voegtlin said. "I think that everything that could be 
done to empower law enforcement to protect the citizens was being done.

"Now we have years of declining crime rates and people feel safer in their 
homes. Perhaps there is beginning to be some feeling that perhaps the 
criminal justice system needs to be reined in."

Kessler, who has published two treatises on forfeiture law, said if local 
and state police were made to follow state laws, forfeiture would radically 
change.

But he said that would be difficult because forfeiture has become 
"unquestionably the largest, most lucrative business in the United States."

At the forum, he discussed a case in Arkansas in which the state police 
seized $3.2 million and handed it off to the federal government, expecting 
to get 80 percent back. State law would have allowed the agency to keep 
$250,000. The rest would have gone to a statewide law enforcement fund.

But the prosecutor took the case to the state Supreme Court, which ruled 
that the police could not keep the money they wanted. The agency appealed 
to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case.

"This is a fight between law enforcement agencies," Kessler said. "And it 
is not that uncommon."

He pointed out that in some Texas counties and Southern states, sheriff's 
salaries are based on the proceeds of forfeiture. Across the country, the 
operation of law enforcement drug task forces depends on that money.

"An old adage is police should not eat what they kill," Kessler said. 
"These are not isolated incidents. The best way to reduce the abuse related 
to civil forfeiture is to defuse the incentive.

"As long as the mouse gets to keep the cheese, then the corruption within 
the system, through no fault of law enforcement, will remain," he said.

Forfeiture is easier under federal law than under most state laws, Kessler 
said, which is why police often ask a federal agency to "adopt" a seizure. 
Most state laws carry strong protections for citizens' property.

For example, some states require a conviction or at least evidence of a 
felony crime before a judge can order property forfeited. Federal law does 
not have such a provision. Kessler said that in 80 percent of federal civil 
forfeiture cases, a person's property is taken without a conviction.

Federal law also allows a law enforcement agency rather than a judge to 
declare property forfeited, Kessler said, and that's what happens in a 
great majority of federal cases.

To reach projects reporter Karen Dillon, call (816) 234-4430 or send e-mail 
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