mirror of
https://github.com/nhammer514/textfiles-politics.git
synced 2024-12-29 09:16:21 -05:00
74 lines
4.3 KiB
Plaintext
74 lines
4.3 KiB
Plaintext
Ending the Abuse
|
||
|
||
While defense lawyers talk of reforming the law, agencies that initiate
|
||
forfeiture scarcely talk at all. // DEA headquarters makes a spectacle
|
||
of busts like the seizure of fraternity houses at the University of
|
||
Virginia in March. But it refuses to supply detailed information on the
|
||
small cases that account for most of its activity. // Local prosecutors
|
||
are just as tight-lipped. Thomas Corbett, U.S. Attorney for Western
|
||
Pennsylvania, seals court documents on forfeitures because ``there are
|
||
just some things I don't want to publicize. the person whose assets we
|
||
seize will eventually know, and who else has to?''
|
||
|
||
Although some investigations need to be protected, there is an
|
||
``inappropriate secrecy'' spreading throughout the country, says Jeffrey
|
||
Weiner, president-elect of the 25,000 member National Association of
|
||
Criminal Defense Lawyers. // ``The Justice Department boasts of the few
|
||
big fish they catch. But they throw a cloak of secrecy over the
|
||
information on how many innocent people are getting swept up in the same
|
||
seizure net, so no one can see the enormity of the atrocity.'' //
|
||
Terwilliger says the net catches the right people: ``bad guys'' as he
|
||
calls them. // But a 1990 Justice report on drug task forces in 15
|
||
states found they stayed away from the in-depth financial investigations
|
||
needed to cripple major traffickers. Instead, ``they're going for the
|
||
easy stuff,'' says James ``Chip'' Coldren, Jr., executive director of
|
||
the Bureau of Justice Assistance, a research arm of the federal Justice
|
||
Department.
|
||
|
||
Lawyers who say the law needs to be changed start with the basics: The
|
||
government shouldn't be allowed to take property until after it proves
|
||
the owner guilty of a crime. // But they go on to list other
|
||
improvements, including having police abide by their state laws, which
|
||
often don't give police as much latitude as the federal law. Now they
|
||
can use federal courts to circumvent the state.
|
||
|
||
Tracy Thomas is caught in that very bind. // A jurisprudence version of
|
||
the shell game hides roughly $13,000 taken from Thomas, a resident of
|
||
Chester, near Philadelphia. // Thomas was visiting in his godson's home
|
||
on Memorial Day, 1990, when local police entered looking for drugs
|
||
allegedly sold by the godson. They found none and didn't file a criminal
|
||
charge in the incident. But they seized $13,000 from Thomas, who works
|
||
as a $70,000-a-year engineer, says his attorney, Clinton Johnson. // The
|
||
cash was left over from a Sheriff's sale he'd attended a few days
|
||
before, court records show. the sale required cash -- much like the
|
||
government's own auctions. // During a hearing over the seized money,
|
||
Thomas presented a withdrawal slip showing he'd removed money from his
|
||
credit union shortly before the trip and a receipt showing how much he
|
||
had paid for the property he'd bought at the sale. The balance was
|
||
$13,000. // On June 22, 1990, a state judge ordered Chester police to
|
||
return Thomas' cash. // They haven't. Just before the court order was
|
||
issued, the police turned over the cash to the DEA for processing as a
|
||
federal case, forcing Thomas to fight another level of government.
|
||
Thomas is now suing the Chester police, the arresting officer, and the
|
||
DEA. // ``When DEA took over that money, what they in effect told a
|
||
local police department is that it's OK to break the law,'' says Clinton
|
||
Johnson, attorney for Thomas.
|
||
|
||
Police manipulate the courts not only to make it harder on owners to
|
||
recover property, but to make it easier for police to get a hefty share
|
||
of any forfeited goods. In federal court, local police are guaranteed up
|
||
to 80 percent of the take -- a percentage that may be more than they'd
|
||
receive under state law. // Pennsylvania's leading police agency -- the
|
||
state police -- and the state's lead prosecutor -- the Attorney General
|
||
bickered for two years over state police taking cases to federal
|
||
court, an arrangement that cut the Attorney General out of the sharing.
|
||
The two state agencies now have a written agreement on how to divvy
|
||
the take. // The same debate is heard around the nation. // The hallways
|
||
outside Cleveland courtrooms ring with arguments over who will get what,
|
||
says Jay Milano, a Cleveland criminal defense attorney.
|
||
|
||
``It's causing a feeding frenzy.''
|
||
|
||
--- Renegade v6-27 Beta
|
||
* Origin: Shark's Mouth 313-658-1110 750 MEGS Dual Amiga/IBM (23:313/108)
|
||
|