Pubdate: Mon, 02 Dec 2002
Source: Charleston Daily Mail (WV)
Contact:  2002 Charleston Daily Mail
Website: http://www.dailymail.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/76
Author: Kasey Warner
Note: Warner is the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia.
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n2161/a11.html?2076

DRUG DEALERS ARE THE PREDATORS ON TODAY'S SOCIETY

In his Nov. 26 letter, Robert Sharpe criticized law enforcement officers as 
"financial predators" when using asset forfeiture laws in drug cases. He 
whines about forfeitures based on "vague allegations, without bothering to 
charge owners with a crime." Hogwash. Pursuant to federal statutes, the 
United States must prove in court that property to be forfeited is either 
the proceeds, or was used to facilitate the commission, of an illegal act. 
Moreover, an "innocent owner" can challenge the forfeiture in court.

Asset forfeiture is not the summary disposition Sharpe alleges.

See Title 10 of the US Code, Sections 981-985 and title 28, US Code Section 
524.

The authority of governments to take criminals' ill-gotten gains or items 
used to commit crimes is not new. When property is obtained by violating 
the law, the law recognizes no right of the criminal to possess that property.

Legally, the criminal has lost nothing, because criminals are not entitled 
to ownership of "criminal" property in the first place. And this makes sense.

Why should the good citizenry allow Sammy Cravens to keep seized currency 
and a vehicle he admitted were obtained as a result of, and used in, his 
drug dealing? There is a certain degree of poetic justice underlying the 
return of a drug dealer's money and vehicle to law enforcement to use in 
their dangerous and often thankless job of fighting drugs.

I don't apologize one iota for augmenting taxpayer dollars with 
forfeitures, which the U.S. Supreme Court has called "powerful weapons in 
the war on crime. . . ."

Sharpe also criticizes the war on drugs and suggests drug decriminalization 
because law enforcement has not eradicated all drug use.

We should turn our head to rape, robbery, and murder because those crimes 
also continue? Baltimore's "progressive" former mayor stopped their drug 
enforcement efforts based on Sharpe's logic and quickly turned that city 
into the nation's drug hellhole.

His successors realized his error and now face a much more difficult task, 
re-engaging drug dealers with the vengeance needed for simple metropolitan 
survival. Law enforcement, by itself, can never succeed completely against 
drugs, but statistics, experience and common sense tells us that law 
enforcement efforts against illegal drugs are much-needed and highly 
effective deterrents.

The rest of the solution will be found in reducing drug demand through 
increased education, parental involvement, and community and faith-based 
initiatives.

Rest assured that extraordinary local, state, and federal agents will 
continue to work together -- sharing their resources, expertise, knowledge, 
skills, and forfeited drug property -- in the fight against this cancer in 
our society.

Kasey Warner Charlestson

Warner is the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia.
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