ASSET FORFEITURE TAKES A BIG HIT IN CALIFORNIA!

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LAWMAKERS REVOKE COPS' ASSET-SEIZING POWERS

  WIDESPREAD ABUSE LEADS LEGISLATURE TO LET THE LAW REVERT TO 1988 RULES,
WHICH REQUIRE A CONVICTION.

By GARY WEBB
Mercury News Sacramento Bureau

SACRAMENTO -- Stung by evidence of widespread abuse, the California
Legislature decided Friday night to kill the state's asset-forfeiture law,
which for four years has allowed police to take money and property from people
who were merely suspected of dealing drugs.

Starting next year, police will be required to obtain drug-trafficking
convictions in most cases before they can keep seized property.

``The way the asset forfeiture law was being applied was an assault on
individual property rights and not necessarily on drug dealers,'' said
Assemblyman John Burton, D-San Francisco, who led the fight to reform the
forfeiture law. ``I think we have solved a significant problem here.''

With the repeal, California becomes only the second state in the nation to
revoke the vast seizure powers police agencies were granted in the 1980s when
the ``war on drugs'' was at its height. Missouri lawmakers scaled back their
forfeiture laws this spring after evidence of police abuses surfaced.

The outcome was a stunning defeat for California law enforcement agencies, who
until a few weeks ago were almost assured of getting the controversial law
made permanent. Last year, police said keeping the law -- which has produced
at least $180 million for police and prosecutors since 1989 -- was their No. 1
political priority.

But lobbyists and lawmakers said a recent Mercury News series on forfeiture
abuses changed everything.

``I think the accuracy and the detail of the series outlining the abuses was
the turning point in the negotiations,'' said Margaret Pena, a lobbyist for
the American Civil Liberties Union, which has been pressing for reform of the
forfeiture statutes for several years. ``For once the Legislature has put the
concerns of innocent people who have been abused by the police above the
interests of law enforcement.''

Some lawmakers complained their telephone lines were tied up for hours by
callers urging forfeiture reforms.

Attorney General Dan Lungren, in a news conference early Friday, accused the
press of being duped by drug lawyers. He described lawmakers who supported
forfeiture reforms as advocating a ``cease-fire'' in the drug war.

REPORTS CALLED `DISTORTED'

``Unfortunately, the white powder bar has done a great job of getting this
issue represented in the press in very distorted fashion to suggest that
somehow there are wide-scale problems with this law,'' Lungren said. ``That
is, in fact, inaccurate. That has not been true since the law took effect.''

Lungren, who favors expanding the forfeiture laws, said there were few
``troublesome'' cases among the 16,000 forfeiture actions filed by state
prosecutors in the last four years -- less than one-thousandth of 1 percent,
he said.

The Mercury News investigation, which examined more than 250 court cases in
five counties, found dozens of instances in which property was taken from
people who had never been convicted of drug trafficking or who had their cases
dropped. The law was intended to take profits away from major drug dealers,
but records show property seizures were often aimed at the poor, casual drug
users and people who speak no English.

Burton, chairman of the Assembly Rules Committee, attempted to change the law
to allow forfeiture claimants access to up to $10,000 of their own funds to
hire a lawyer. Since forfeiture is a civil, not criminal, proceeding,
claimants have no right to have a court-appointed lawyer. The Mercury News
found that many people whose assets were seized were forced to represent
themselves.

Burton's bill, AB 114, also would have prohibited police from seizing items
worth less than $1,500 and required law enforcement to file criminal charges
before assets could be seized.

Law enforcement agencies objected strongly to allowing forfeiture claimants
access to money to hire lawyers, saying it would give ``millions of dollars to
drug lawyers'' and allow drug dealers to keep $40 million a year.

By early this morning, Burton's bill, backed by an unusual coalition of
conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats, had not come up for a vote.
Because no new forfeiture bill was approved, the current law expires Dec. 31,
and forfeitures will then be governed by a 1988 law that requires criminal
convictions in most cases.

``I tried to work with (law enforcement) on it, but they kept saying they'd
rather let the (current law) die,'' Burton said. After reading the 1988 law
that will govern asset forfeitures if the current law isn't renewed, Burton
said he was happy to oblige.

``The '88 law doesn't have some of the protections that mine does, but at
least they've got to get a criminal conviction before they can take
anything,'' Burton said. ``I couldn't get my bill out of committee with a
conviction requirement in it.''

Only cases involving the seizure of more than $25,000 in cash will not require
convictions. But in those cases, prosecutors must provide clear and convincing
evidence that the cash is drug-tainted -- a much higher level of proof than
what is currently required.

Negotiations between Burton and law enforcement broke down Wednesday after
anonymous leaflets written by prosecutors began circulating through the halls
of the statehouse, depicting Burton as a friend of drug dealers. Burton
stormed out and told reporters he wouldn't continue the talks until he got a
public apology.

`OVERZEALOUS COPS' BLAMED

Assemblyman Richard Katz, the Los Angeles Democrat who wrote the 1989 bill
that gave rise to many of the abuses, acknowledged the law had caused some
unintended problems, which he blamed on ``overzealous cops.''

Katz said the 1992 killing of Donald Scott, a Ventura County millionaire who
was gunned down by police during an asset forfeiture raid that found no drugs,
was ``a prime example'' of law enforcement gone awry.

``But I think generally asset forfeiture has been one of the most successful
weapons in the war on drugs,'' Katz said. ``Rather than lose the law, I think
the problems could have been worked out.''

Sen. Ken Maddy, R-Fresno, one of the Legislature's staunchest supporters of
asset forfeiture, said Friday that he would try again next year -- an election
year -- to get the forfeiture law reinstated.

But Burton said that as long as he runs the Assembly Rules Committee, which
decides the fate of thousands of bills every year, that is unlikely to happen.

``They're not going to get anything else on this for as long as I'm here,''
Burton vowed.

San Jose Mercury News
