Pubdate: Wed, 27 Mar 2002
Source: Alameda Times-Star (CA)
Copyright: 2002 MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.mapinc.org/media/731
Website: http://www.timesstar.com/
Author: Josh Richman
Note: Lisa Friedman contributed to this story.

COURT BACKS DRUG EVICTIONS

Top Jurists Rule For Housing Authority Over Oakland Tenants 

Public housing tenants can be evicted for their relatives' or visitors' drug
activity on public property even if the tenants didn't know about it, the
U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in an Oakland case. 

The ruling spelled final defeat for four elderly Oakland Housing Authority
tenants whose case wended from the streets of Oakland to the nation's
highest court. Although the court voted 8-0 to uphold the law allowing these
evictions, housing authority officials said Tuesday that it's unclear
whether the four actually will be kicked out. 

"We were on the side of the angels but the gods don't appear to be with us,"
said San Francisco attorney Paul Renne, who argued the tenants' case to the
high court. 

But Oakland Housing Authority attorney Gary Lafayette said the ruling "gives
this agency and other agencies the opportunity to fully respond to drugs and
problems associated with drug activity in public housing," ensuring safe and
decent housing for law-abiding citizens. 

At issue was the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development's "one
strike" policy, holding tenants responsible for their visitors' drug
activity on or near public property. The residents in this case were: 

Pearlie Rucker, 66, who lived with her daughter, her two grandchildren and
her great-grandchild. Her daughter was found with an open alcohol container
and cocaine three blocks from the apartment. 

Willie Lee, 74, and Barbara Hill, 66, each of whom lived with a grandson who
had marijuana in a public housing parking lot. 

And Herman Walker, 78, who is disabled. His home health care worker brought
crack cocaine into his home. 

The housing authority moved to evict each tenant, and they sued to keep
their homes. A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit appellate court upheld
the eviction policy in February 2000, but that ruling was withdrawn six
months later when the court voted to rehear the case with an 11-judge panel,
which ruled in the plaintiffs' favor in January 2001. 

Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote Tuesday's opinion overturning the 9th
Circuit ruling. Congress has incorporated exceptions for lack of knowledge
into other laws, he noted, but didn't do so in this one.

The 9th Circuit was wrong to find a plain reading of the law brings absurd
results, he wrote. The law doesn't require eviction, he noted -- it entrusts
that decision to local housing authority officials who can gauge how much
drug-related or violent crime the area has, the offense's severity, and
whether the tenant took all reasonable steps to prevent it. 

"It is not 'absurd' that a local housing authority may sometimes evict a
tenant who had no knowledge of the drug-related activity," Rehnquist wrote
- -- regardless of knowledge, a tenant who can't control a household member's
actions which threaten other residents' health or safety is a threat unto
him- or herself. 

Nor does this violate tenants' Constitutional right to due process of law,
he wrote. "The government is not attempting to criminally punish or civilly
regulate respondents as members of the general populace. It is instead
acting as a landlord of property that it owns, invoking a clause in a lease
to which respondents have agreed and which Congress has expressly required."

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush

Renne called the ruling "not surprising based on the tone of the oral
arguments." He said it's "another example of the double standard that exists
if you are poor and there are drug problems." Nobody will evict Florida Gov.
Jeb Bush from the governor's mansion because of his daughter's prescription
drug abuse, he noted, or kick President Bush out of the White House because
of his daughter's underage drinking. 

The Oakland Housing Authority has withdrawn the eviction action against
Rucker but could refile it, while the actions against the other three have
been on hold pending Tuesday's ruling. 

Oakland Housing Authority spokeswoman Lily Toney said the housing authority
is considering the four cases and will make a decision "within a day or
two." Lafayette said it might take a few weeks. 

Catherine Bishop, an attorney with the National Housing Law Project in
Oakland, noted the Supreme Court didn't consider the legislative history
behind the law because they found the law's wording unambiguous. 

"My feeling is they didn't quote it (the legislative history) because it was
too powerful for them."

Low-Income, Poor People

"This particular legislation was enacted and only was enacted because we're
talking about low-income and poor people, people who don't have a voice in
this country," Bishop said. 

She urged people to think what would happen if similar no-fault language
were attached to homeowners' income tax deduction, so a homeowner whose
relative engages in drug activity would lose the deduction. "How do you
think the U.S. Supreme Court would've analyzed that legislation? Or would
that legislation ever even be enacted?" 

Richard Rothchild, director of litigation for the Western Center on Law &
Poverty, called the case's result "pretty awful. What it means in practice
is that the housing authorities are given freedom to evict the frail and
elderly." 

Nancy Ferris, spokeswoman for the National Low Income Housing Coalition,
said "it's going to mean an increase in people with not a lot of resources
becoming homeless." 

Asked whether public housing will be safer because of the ruling, she said,
"I don't know. I just think it's a shame when low income people are
sacrificed in the name of some vague security interest." 

Toney rejected such predictions: "We don't think the ruling is going to
result in a lot of evictions. We're just going to continue to do what we've
been doing, providing as best we can a safe environment for all of our
residents." 

Justice Stephen Breyer did not take part in Monday's ruling because his
brother, Charles Breyer, was the U.S. District Judge in San Francisco who
originally presided over the case.
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