Pubdate: Wed, 05 Apr 2000 Source: Orange County Register (CA) Copyright: 2000 The Orange County Register Contact: P.O. Box 11626, Santa Ana, CA 92711 Fax: (714) 565-3657 Website: http://www.ocregister.com/ Section: Local News Page: 8 Bookmark: MAP's link to California articles is: http://www.mapinc.org/states/ca Related: "$4 Million Award To Millionaire's Family" -- April 4 issue DRUG WAR TOLL Not everyone will count the $5 million of taxpayers' money just awarded to the family of Donald P. Scott of Malibu as part of the cost of the war on drugs. But it should be included as part of the price society pays for keeping prohibitionist policies in place - and the money could be viewed as only a small part of the cost. Mr. Scott, who was 61 at the time, was shot to death by a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy in October 1992. The deputies, along with officers from other local and federal law enforcement agencies, raided Mr. Scott's 200-acre ranch in hopes of finding evidence of marijuana cultivation. When Mr. Scott emerged sleepily from his bedroom carrying a pistol during a forced entry by officers, deputies opened fire. No drugs were found on the property. A later report by the Ventura County District Attorney noted that although Mr. Scott's property was in Ventura County, Ventura law enforcement officials had not been notified about the raid. The report concluded that the raid was almost certainly a coordinated multi-jurisdictional effort to seize Mr. Scott's property under federal asset-forfeiture laws. That kind of abuse of laws that allow the property of those accused of violating drug laws to be seized without a conviction (or in some cases even formal charges being filed) was not uncommon in the early 1990s. Mr. Scott's case and others led, after several years, to the passage of asset-forfeiture reform in the House this year. But reform cannot bring Mr. Scott back to his wife and four children. The award to his family - $4 million from Los Angeles County and $1 million from the federal government - will cost taxpayers money. But the real cost is the loss of trust in law enforcement and the concept of the rule of law that cases like this have helped to feed. - --- MAP posted-by: Eric Ernst