Pubdate: Tue, 16 Jan 2001
Source: Kansas City Star (MO)
Copyright: 2001 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
Bookmark: MAP's link to all of Karen Dillon's outstanding forfeiture articles:
http://www.mapinc.org/authors/dillon+karen
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/af.htm (Asset Forfeiture)

GOVERNMENTS ATTEMPT TO CHANGE FORFEITURE TACTICS OF POLICE DEPARTMENTS

Just a year ago, federal agencies were helping local police keep
millions of dollars in drug money they seized, with few questions
asked. Outside of law enforcement circles, few people even knew it was
happening.

That has changed.

Reform efforts became widespread last year, and forfeiture critics
promise more this year to fix what they call a corrupting conflict of
interest for law enforcement.

"It has become a hot issue finally," said Brenda Grantland, a
California lawyer and president of Forfeiture Endangers American
Rights, a nonprofit group seeking to reform laws. "It has taken us
many, many years. The momentum has changed, and it's in our favor."

For more than a decade, state and local law enforcement agencies have
found a way to keep drug money they seize even when state laws
prohibit that.

It works this way: Police seize drug money, but instead of going
through state court, as most of their laws require, they hand it off
to a federal agency. The agency keeps part of the money and returns
the rest to the police department.

The Kansas City Star checked more than two dozen states earlier last
year and found that police in every one of them had used the federal
government to circumvent their own laws.

Some believe the police arrangement with federal agencies gives police
a financial incentive to seize drug money, which can lead to abuses
such as racial profiling and illegal searches. It also diverts money
away from education and other areas for which lawmakers want forfeited
drug money.

Opposition is bounding from state to state.

In two states voters passed ballot initiatives in November prohibiting
police from keeping cash and property they seized. An initiative was
attempted in a third state but failed.

At least two other states attempted and failed to enact reform bills,
and both appear ready to try again this year. Lawmakers in other
states also are reviewing forfeiture laws.

The issue will be addressed in several other arenas this
year:

A reform bill will be introduced in Congress, which last year passed a
watered-down forfeiture bill that failed to address the police handoffs.

President-elect George W. Bush plans to appoint a national commission
to review the forfeiture issue and several other aspects of the
criminal justice system.

Some law enforcement agencies already have stopped evading state
forfeiture laws. For example, after coming under increasing public
criticism, the Kansas City Police Department said it would follow state law.

Forfeiture reform is part of a larger movement opposing the war on
drugs. Seizures have been a major way for law enforcement agencies to
raise the money needed to fight the war.

Critics are questioning the billions of dollars being spent on the war
and the hundreds of thousands of nonviolent offenders it has sent to
prison.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently outlawed roadblocks set up to check
for drugs, which Grantland described as "forfeiture traps."

"For a long, long time people said, 'I think the drug war has to be
great, because I'm against drugs,' " Grantland said. "Now people are
looking at it in a more educated fashion, and they are seeing it is
not working, and it is costing a lot of money. It's causing police
corruption and taking away everybody's constitutional rights."

Many in law enforcement argue, however, that the war on drugs is
necessary and that local and state police need the forfeiture funds to
carry it on without a taxpayer burden.

"If you take the forfeited proceeds, you fund things that would have
been paid by tax dollars," said Brad Slater, Weber County sheriff in
Utah, where voters passed a reform measure in November.

"Secondly, you've taken away the revenue stream for the illegal
operations."

In The States

Several states expect to see reform efforts in coming
months.

Lawmakers in Missouri, which has one of the nation's most
comprehensive laws, will once again try to fasten the hatch on police
unilaterally transferring money to federal agencies.

Last year a bill that had passed the state Senate died in the House in
the last few minutes of the session. The bill has been re-introduced
by Sen. Harry Wiggins, a Kansas City Democrat.

Some legislators expect the Wiggins bill to pass early in the session.
Other reform bills have been filed as well. Hearings will be held
today on Wiggins' bill and a similar bill.

In Kansas, where almost no debate has occurred previously, some
lawmakers are predicting fireworks in the current session.

A bill has been drawn up to tighten accounting by police of forfeiture
proceeds. Some lawmakers, however, want to redirect the money to
education and to require convincing evidence that a crime occurred
before property is forfeited.

Current Kansas law allows law enforcement and prosecutors to keep all
forfeited money.

"Essentially this whole business of them keeping the money is a
conflict of interest," said Rep. Ralph Tanner, chairman of the
Education Committee.

Tanner, a Baldwin City Republican, said he planned to introduce a bill
soon but realized it would be a hard fight to reform the law. He said
he expected opposition from lawmakers who believed that "druggies are
bad" and that anyone suspected of using drugs should have their
property confiscated.

"You have law enforcement who will say we already have a pretty good
law," Tanner said.

Tanner's bill has attracted interest from Sen. John Vratil, a Johnson
County Republican and the newly appointed chairman of the Judiciary
Committee.

"I think it is a current issue and deserves attention," said Vratil,
who is considering public hearings.

In New Mexico, a drug policy committee appointed by Gov. Gary Johnson
also has recommended forfeiture reforms. Johnson has told legislators
he wants a bill filed this session.

In California, Sen. John Vasconcellos is "giving very, very serious
consideration" to reintroducing a forfeiture reform bill, said
spokesman Rand Martin.

The bill passed the Legislature last year but was vetoed by Gov. Gray
Davis. "The senator is not one who is willing to give up after one
veto," Martin said.

Some law enforcement agencies are beginning to fight back to keep drug
money they seize.

In Oregon and Utah, lawmakers are feeling the angst of law enforcement
agencies almost two months after voters overwhelmingly passed
forfeiture reform initiatives.

Among other provisions, the initiatives prohibit police from
unilaterally transferring money to the federal government.

In Utah, police are heavily lobbying lawmakers to try to get the
measure repealed or softened, arguing that voters did not understand
the implications.

"I would disagree that the voters have spoken," Slater, the sheriff,
said.

Law enforcement's reaction against the initiatives has been intense in
Oregon, where a task force is meeting to write legal guidelines to put
the initiative into effect.

In addition, the Lincoln County Interagency Narcotics Team has filed a
lawsuit asking that the initiative, a constitutional amendment, be
declared unconstitutional.

Forfeiture "is an important tool for law enforcement," said Rod
Bovett, assistant Lincoln County counsel. The initiative also has
several unintended consequences, such as cutting police money for DUI
investigations, he said.

The U.S. Department of Justice also is studying the initiative to
determine how it can continue the forfeiture arrangement federal
agencies have with state and local police.

Leslie Westphal, assistant U.S. attorney in Portland, Ore., says she
expects the number of forfeitures her office handles for state and
local law enforcement to increase because the state measure generally
requires a conviction and federal law does not.

Several involved in drafting legal guidelines expect a
fight.

Many Oregon law enforcement task forces depend solely on forfeited
funds for their operating budgets, Rep. Floyd Prozanski said.

For example, a task force in Lane County had to raise about $500,000 a
year in forfeited funds to fight drug crimes.

"It was not our intent to do away with forfeiture as a tool to deal
with criminal wrongdoing," Prozanski said. "But at the same time it
was our perspective that programs should not be funded based on the
amount that is being forfeited."

The group that organized the initiatives plans to lobby in Utah and
Oregon to preserve the measures, said Bill Zimmerman, executive
director of the Campaign for New Drug Policies.

The group also will study whether to put similar initiatives on the
ballots of other states in 2002, Zimmerman said.

Many say the only way to stop police from evading state law is for
Congress to shut down the financial incentive from the federal side.

A bill that U.S. Rep. Karen McCarthy, a Missouri Democrat, plans to
introduce would require money the Justice Department returns to a
state to be spent according to that state's laws.

The bill will be difficult to pass. The House last year attempted to
pass such a reform, but it never got off the floor. It never got out
of draft form in the Senate.

McCarthy has the backing of Rep. Henry Hyde, said Phil Scaglia, one of
her spokesmen. Hyde, an Illinois Republican, pushed last year's reform
bill and is considered an authority on forfeitures. His office did not
return phone calls in recent weeks.

In the next few months Bush is expected to appoint a national
commission to examine law enforcement concerns, including the
forfeiture controversy, police brutality and the high number of
first-time offenders imprisoned for using drugs, a spokesman said.

The commission is being compared to one that President Lyndon Johnson
appointed in 1966 and that resulted in sweeping changes in law
enforcement. It was the last time a president convened such a group.

[sidebar]

NEW JERSEY LAWSUIT SEEN AS TEST FOR LEGALITY OF FORFEITURES

A lawsuit filed last year in New Jersey has become a test case to
determine whether forfeitures are unconstitutional.

The Institute for Justice, a libertarian group that litigates cases
involving individual rights, filed the lawsuit to challenge whether
Americans' property can legally be taken.

Carol Thomas' 1990 Thunderbird was seized last year when her
17-year-old son borrowed the car and sold marijuana to an undercover
agent.

Cumberland County narcotics task force detectives seized the car even
though no drugs were found in it and Thomas did not know her son was
using it to sell marijuana. At the time, Thomas had been a deputy for
the Cumberland County Sheriff's Department for seven years and had
served on the task force.

"The direct financial incentives at the heart of forfeiture
dangerously transform law enforcement from the administration of
impartial justice to the pursuit of profit and property," Scott
Bullock, one of the lead plaintiff attorneys, wrote in a paper
describing the case. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake