Pubdate: Tue, 26 Mar 2002
Source: The Monitor (TX)
Website: http://www.themonitor.com
Feedback: http://www.themonitor.com/letters.shtml
Address: 1101 Ash Avenue McAllen, Texas 78501
Contact:  2002 The Monitor
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SPOILS OF (DRUG) WAR FORFEITURES PROVE TOO LUCRATIVE FOR POLICE

Not since Edward Teach first prowled the high seas in pursuit of merchant 
ships as a "privateer" for the British crown has a war on commerce been so 
profitable.

What separated him from today's drug warriors, though, is that Teach 
eventually crossed the line into out-and-out piracy as the notorious outlaw 
Blackbeard, ultimately to be hunted down and killed. The agencies that 
prosecute America's war on drugs need fear no reprisal. They seize and 
benefit from substantial loot - houses, boats, cars, planes, etc., along 
with wads and wads of cash - with the law's full blessing.

And they don't even have to prove the guilt of the alleged drug dealers 
whose ill-gotten gains have been impounded. Needless to say, no one who 
hoisted the Jolly Roger over the Spanish Main ever had it so good.

In Colorado, two state lawmakers are introducing a measure to rein in this 
forfeiture power when wielded by law officers in that state. The move 
follows legislation by Congress a couple of years ago limiting federal 
agents' ability to seize assets.

Forfeiture power, initiated on the hopeful premise it could undermine drug 
traffickers by depriving them of their lucre, has become a cynical game on 
the part of government. The ability to take possessions of alleged 
wrongdoers - it doesn't even have to involve the drug trade; it could be 
used against anyone presumed to be involved in any felonious activity - has 
turned into not only an unjustifiable penalty but also a reliable, and 
relied-upon, source of revenue for law enforcement.

One lawmaker says police have seized cars, cell phones, jewelry and guns 
and then used them in subsequent undercover work - or sold the property and 
used the proceeds for pizzas, parties and, in the case of one police 
department, an aquarium.

The pending Colorado legislation would redirect the property and proceeds 
from forfeitures toward services such as treatment programs and to innocent 
co-owners of the seized property, such as family members. Indeed, there 
have been cases around the country in which children were deprived of their 
homes because dad was thought to be a dope peddler.

The reason authorities have been able to get away with it is that the 
assets are disposed of under civil rather than criminal laws, meaning the 
state has less to prove in court than it does in pressing criminal charges 
against the suspects themselves.

That also means that even if the property's owner is tried and acquitted, 
he doesn't necessarily recover his belongings because it's a separate legal 
action. Often, the legal costs in fighting the civil case are prohibitive 
and sometimes, by the time the criminal case is resolved, the property as 
been auctioned off - with proceeds going to the local constabulary.

Accordingly, the legislation aims to shift the burden of proof for civil 
forfeitures to the government and to raise the legal standard for seizures 
prior to a conviction. It would require that, in most cases, a property 
owner be convicted of a crime before any forfeiture. Texas and other states 
should follow Colorado's lead and protect property from being seized in 
cases where no crime has been proved.

Law enforcement agencies' resources should not derive from arrests that 
didn't even result in a conviction. That, in effect, penalizes the 
innocent. Let's not sully law enforcement's noble mission by reducing it to 
thinly veiled piracy.
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