Pubdate: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 Source: Oregonian, The (OR) Copyright: 2000 The Oregonian Contact: 1320 SW Broadway, Portland, OR 97201 Fax: 503-294-4193 Website: http://www.oregonlive.com/ Forum: http://forums.oregonlive.com/ Author: Robin Franzen DRUG-FREE-ZONE LAW CHALLENGED IN FEDERAL COURT The Suit Seeks To Eliminate One Of Portland's Key Strategies For Battling Street-Level Drugs A Northeast Portland man arrested numerous times for trespassing in Portland's drug-free zones after being banished from them has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to throw out the landmark law creating the zones. He says it's unconstitutional. If successful, Glenn White, the plaintiff, will have eliminated one of the city's key tools in fighting street-level drug dealing in hard-hit areas such as Old Town. The 8-year-old law -- popular with drug-weary residents but criticized by civil rights advocates -- allows officers to issue 90-day civil exclusions to people they think have committed drug offenses inside the zones, even if those people aren't charged with a crime. Officers have issued about 1,000 such exclusions in the past 18 months alone. This isn't the first such suit: In January, a federal judge tossed out Cincinnati's drug-free-zone law, saying that, among other things, it violated people's rights to freely speak, associate with others and travel. That law was based largely on Portland's. The Portland suit alleges violation of those same rights, but it is broader in that it also includes the rights to worship and protest. Robert D. Newell, the Portland lawyer representing White, said the lawsuit is intended to challenge all exclusions issued without judicial review. Since 1997, Portland police have issued exclusions without charging the person with a crime, meaning judges rarely, if ever, scrutinize those police actions to ensure that officers aren't overstepping their authority. This is a key difference from Cincinnati, which limited the issuance of exclusions to people who were being charged with a crime. "I think that makes Portland more vulnerable," Newell said, adding, "Police are issuing these in ways that would offend most people." Within two weeks, Newell plans to file a motion for a preliminary injunction that, if granted, would prevent the city from enforcing its drug-free-zone law while the federal case is pending. He said the city's appeals process for exclusions was insufficient to protect the rights of banished people because appeals are heard by a city hearings officer, not a judge. The city attorney's office had no comment Friday. White is a recovering addict with two drug possession convictions on his record. He contends the zones give police license to harass low-level suspects. Police arrested White 18 times for trespass in 1999 after police concluded he had violated his exclusion order. He seeks unspecified financial compensation for time spent in jail on trespass charges. Although the Cincinnati decision is not binding on the U.S. District Court for Oregon, "it could have some influence," Newell said, "and we hope that it would." Newell's firm, Davis Wright Tremaine, agreed to take the case after consulting with public defenders who unsuccessfully tried to attack the validity of the zones within the context of criminal trespass trials. "We wouldn't have taken it," Newell said, "if we didn't think we'd win." - --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk