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1991-08-17
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Message #16733 - U_BBS
Date : 12-Aug-91 12:36
From : Unknown
To : All
Subject : "War On Drugs" Atrocities: The Forfeiture Laws/03
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AREA:U_BBS
@SPLIT: 14 Aug 91 16:44:20 @120/183 535 03/03 +++++++++++
@PTH 1:120/183.0@fidonet
"inappropriate secrecy" spreading throughout the country, says Jeffrey
Weiner, president-elcet 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
Bereau 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 untial
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 lattitude as the federal law. Now they can use federal courts to
circumvent the state.
Tracy Thomas is caught in that very bind.
A jurisprudence ersion 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 Sherrif's sale he'd attended a
few days before, court records show. the sale required cash -- much
like the government's own auctions.
Duting 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 prcessing as a federal case, forcing Thomas to
fight another level of government. Thomas isd 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 fofeited goods. In federal court, local police are
guaranteed up to 80 percent of the take -- a percentage that may be
more than they'd recieve 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
divy 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."
------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Shawn Valentine Hernan |Wizard-wanna-be | STOP
Computing and Information Services|Systems & Networks |the war on
drugs!
University of Pittsburgh |valentin@unix.cis.pitt.edu| It is a
(412) 624-6425 |valentin@PITTVMS.BITNET | WITCHHUNT!
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