NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #30/NN_1992_30.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/9376

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From: [e-mail] (Rich Winkel)
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Subject: Drug Laws: Presumed Guilty (6/6)
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Date: 16 Dec 92 09:15:11 GMT
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FORFEITURE THREATENS CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS
LAST PART: REFORMS

     The bottom line in forfeiture ... is the bottom line.

     And that, say critics, is the crucial problem.

     The billions of dollars that forfeiture brings in to law enforcement
agencies is so blinding that it obscures the devastation it causes the
innocent.

     A 10-month study by The Pittsburgh Press found numerous examples of
innocent travelers being detained, searched and stripped of cash. Of small-time
offenders who grew a little marijuana for their own use and lost their homes
because of it. Of people who had to hire attorneys and fight the government for
years to get back what was rightfully theirs.

     Attorney Harvey Silverglate of Boston says: "There is a game being played
with forfeiture. They go after the drug kingpins first, then when everyone
stops looking, they tum the law and its infringement of constitutional
protections against the average person."

     Many people who have watched seizures and forfeitures burgeon as s
law-enforcement tool say change must be made quickly if the traditional
American system of justice, based on the constitutional rights of its
citizenry, is to remain intact.

---

NO. CRIME, NO PENALTY

     When Nashville defense attorney E. E. "Bo" Edwards cites remedies, he
lists first the need to make forfeiture possible only after a criminal
conviction. Edwards heads a newly created forfeiture task force for the
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

     As the forfeiture law now stands, property owners who never were charged
with a crime or were charged and cleared still can lose their assets in a
forfeiture proceeding.

     Under forfeiture, the government must only show that an item was used in a
crime or bought with crime generated money. The government doesn't have to
prove the property owner is the criminal.

     Changing the law to allow forfeiture only after a property owner's
criminal conviction would ensure the government proves its cases beyond a
reasonable doubt, Edwards says.

     The legal fiction "of property violating the law, that 'property' can do
wrong, is ludicrous and offensive to the American scheme of government," says
Edwards. "Arresting a plane, for instance, when there is no proof the pilot
broke any laws is not only an abuse of our judicial system but a moronic
game."

     The narrow legal view holds that because forfeiture usually is a civil
case, it involves monetary penalties and not punishment, like jail, that takes
away personal freedoms.

     Taking that narrow view, it seems unnecessary to include the due process
protections of criminal court such as the presumption of innocence I - because
the potential penalties never would be as severe as those in a criminal case.

     But prosecutors and appeals courts who say forfeiture is not a punishment
are "denying reality," says Thomas Smith, head of the American Bar
Association's criminal justice section.  "The law was enacted to punish, and
if you ask anyone who has lost a house or a bank account to it, they will tell
you it is punishment."

     Allowing forfeiture only in the event of a conviction also would eliminate
the risks owners are exposed to when they face a criminal charge against them
in one courtroom and the civil forfeiture case in another.

     Under criminal and civil proceedings, the defendant has a constitutional
guarantee that he needn't testify to anything that may incriminate him.

     But because a person may face two trials on the same issues, it raises the
possibility that a civil forfeiture case could be brought in the hope that
information divulged there could later shore up an otherwise weak criminal
case.

---

ILL-DEFINED PROCEDURES

     The gusto for seizure is weakening the traditional protections that
surround police work. The definition of "reasonable search and seizure," for
example, has been stretched to include tactics that some believe aren't
reasonable at all.

     The U.S. Supreme Court this June said it is legal for police - wearing
full drug-raid gear and with guns showing to board buses about to depart a
station and ask random passengers if they will consent to a search.

     In his dissent, Justice Thurgood Marshall branded the tactic coercive and
in violation of the Fourth Amendment. "It is exactly because this choice' is
no 'choice' at all that police engage in this technique," he wrote.

     Training films for state police or drug agents in Arizona, Michigan,
Massachusetts, Texas, Louisiana, New Mexico and Indiana show that drug searches
involve much more than a visual scan or quick hand search.

     Officers in the films obtained by The Pittsburgh Press didn't just look.
They opened suitcases in car trunks and pulled out back seats, side door panels
and roof linings. In several of the films, they went so far as to remove the
gas tank. When they're done, they may or may not put the car back together. The
owner's ability to collect damages will depend on the protections offered by
state law.

     Grady McClendon had to fight in court for nearly a year to get back about
$2,300 taken by police in Georgia following a highway search. His money was
seized after police said they'd found cocaine in the car. Lab tests later
showed it was bubble gum, but for 11 months police held McClendon's money
without charging him with a crime.

     During the search, McClendon says, "they made us stand four car lengths
away. If I'd have known that, I wouldn't have said yes, because I couldn't see
what they were doing in the dark. That isn't what I expected in a search."

---

NO ACCOUNTING FOR MONEY

     The public is often left in the dark about how the proceeds of forfeiture
are spent.

     A Georgia legislator who this year drafted a law that added real estate to
the items that can be taken in his state, also inserted a "windfall" provision
for funds.

     Under the provision, once forfeiture proceeds equal one-third of a police
department's regular budget, any additional forfeiture money will spill over to
the general treasury.

     State Rep. Ralph Twiggs says he worried that once police began seizing
rea) estate it would bloat their budgets, especially in Georgia's many small
towns. '41 was looking at all the money going into the federal program and I
was thinking ahead. I don't want gold-plated revolvers showing up."

     Gold-plated revolvers may be an extreme worry. But as it now stands, it is
very hard to determine how police spend their money.

     The money or goods returned to local police departments through the
federal forfeiture system do not have to be publicly reported. Congress, in its
zeal to pass this feel-good (drug) law," says Philadelphia City Council member
Joan Specter, "apparently forgot to require an accounting of the money.

     "The happy result for the police is that every year they get what can only
be called drug slush funds," says Specter.

     A department that receives forfeiture funds from cases it pursued through
federal court or with the help of a federal agency is merely required to assure
the U.S. attorney in writing that it will use the money for "law enforcement
purposes." And even that minimal requirement wasn't met in Philadelphia.

     The Philadelphia police didn't file the forms last year, says Specter,
and used the money to cover the costs of air conditioning, car washes,
emergency postage, office supplies and fringe benefits.

     "That would be fine," she says, "except that the intent of the federal law
was for the money to go back into the war on drugs."

     It also meant Philadelphia city council "made budgetary decisions in the
absence of complete information."  At a time when $4 million in forfeiture
funds was on hand or in the pipeline for Philadelphia, the city's chemical lab,
where drugs are analyzed, had a backlog of more than 3,000 cases, she says. The
lab bottleneck caused court delays and prolonged jailing of suspects before
their trials began, Specter says.

     The Philadelphia Police Department had estimated $1.2 million would
double the lab's capacity, but the forfeiture funds were spent elsewhere. "Who
should be setting the priorities?" she asks.

     Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania echoed his wife's view in an address
to colleagues in the U.S. Senate. The absence of public accounting by the
police who received federal shared funds, he says, "is a glaring oversight in
the law, which ought to be corrected."

     What legislators have done, says Chicago defense attorney Stephen Komie,
"is emboldened prosecutors and police to create this slush fund of
inappropriated money for which nobody votes a budget."

     The federal forfeiture fund itself, which has taken in $1.5 billion in
hte last four years and expects to get another $500 million this year, had
its first standard audit only last year.

---

CIRCUMVENTING STATE LAW

     The relationship between state and federal forfeiture systems is thorny in
other respects. Washington, D.C., helps local law enforcement do end runs
around state law.

     The process is formally known as "adoption" - and U.S. Rep. William
Hughes of New Jersey, who devised it, now says he made a mistake that he would
like to undo.

     In adoption, a U.S. attorney's office will take over prosecution of a case
developed entirely by local police.  Theoretically, local law enforcement
officials go to federal prosecutors because the federal government has more
resources available to dissect complicated criminal enterprises and its
jurisdiction reaches beyond state lines.

     But more often, The Pittsburgh Press review of forfeiture found, the cases
are passed along because local police find state laws too restrictive in what
can be seized and how much money police can make.

     If local departments choose to use the federal system, "then it seems to
me it's entirely appropriate for us so long as the resources are there and what
not - to help in that process," says Associate Deputy Attorney General George
Terwilliger 111, the head of forfeiture for the Justice Department.

     "But I don't know that we'd encourage it."

     But his department clearly does.  The Justice Department's "Quick
Reference to Federal Forfeiture Procedures" says on Page 203 that "adoptive
seizures are encouraged."  Hughes says including "adoption" in his
legislation "was a mistake," because it has become a way for police to game the
forfeiture system.

     When he introduced legislation that would have ended federal adoption,"it
went nowhere, because law enforcement rallied and convinced everyone they
needed those cuts of the pie."

     Local police have started using the federal courts to do end-runs around
state laws that earmark forfeiture money for the likes of schools instead of
cops, or else guarantee police less money than they would get in federal court.
There, the cut for local law enforcement can be as much as 80 percent of the
value of forfeited items.  But it's not always money that propels police into
federal court. It can also be differences over prosecution.

     In Allegheny County, for instance, District Attorney Robert Colville will
not pursue a forfeiture unless he first wins a criminal conviction against the
property owner on a drug charge.  Local police know that and avoid Colville's
office and go to federal court - when they aim to seize items from owners who
aren't even charged with a crime, Colville says.

     The departments argue their approach is legal, "but for me, legal isn't
necessarily fair," Colville says.

     "It was never intended states would be able to use the federal process to
avoid state policy. (Former Attorney General Dick) Thornburgh in particular"
has supported adoption. "We want to clean that up," Hughes says, adding that
"for the chief law enforcement office of the country to permit that process" of
end-runs is "absolutely wrong."

---

SHORT-SIGHTED SOLUTIONS

     Colville also believes the law's requirement that the money go for
enforcement purposes restricts other, equally beneficial, uses. He would like
to use more money for drug prevention and rehabilitation programs uses that are
strictly limited under federal sharing rules.

     For example, federal guidelines permit forfeiture funds to be used to
underwrite classroom drug education programs but only if they're presented by
police in uniform, Colville says.  He'd like to send in health officials
as well, to "get a different, equally important message across.

     "I've come to the belief as a prosecutor that aggressive prosecution alone
won't solve the problem. Guys I arrested 25 years ago when I was a policeman
I still see coming back into the system. We need to address under lying social
and economic problems He has advocated using forfeiture money for the likes of
summer jobs programs in drug-plagued neighborhoods, an idea rejected by the
federal government.

     Hughes, the New Jersey congressman, says he regrets earmarking all the
federal forfeiture funds for law enforcement purposes, but cannot find support
for changing the stipulation.

     He originally thought police would need every dime they took in to pay for
complicated investigations and assumed the forfeited goods would just cover the
cost. Once the kitty grew, he figured, then money could be set aside for areas
such as drug treatment.

     But the coffers grew much faster than expected and now it is proving hard
to get police to give up the money "we never dreamed we would be seizing $1
billion. Now the coffers are overflowing, but using the money in different ways
is a touchy point at Justice."

     Not even appeals from Louis Sullivan, secretary of Health and Human
Services, compel a change. During an inter-view in Pittsburgh last week,
Sullivan said he has asked that forfeiture funds go partially toward drug
rehab but Justice turned him down repeatedly.

     Justice recently turned down a proposal from Jackson Memorial Hospital, a
cash-poor public hospital in Miami, to use $6 million seized during a south
Florida money-laundering case to build a new trauma center.

     The hospital is known in the industry as a "knife-and-gun-club" because of
the volume of shootings and stabbings it handles. Police investigate nearly 85
percent of the hospital's cases.

     In its proposal, Jackson suggested training medical staff to spot injuries
that are the result of a crime, adding on-call photographers who would
specialize in taking pictures of victims for use during trials and improving
preservation of damaged clothing, bullets and other pieces of evidence.

     The idea had bipartisan support from Miami's congressional delegation,
Metro-Dade police and the U.S. attorney's office in Miami.

     The memorandum from Justice rejecting the idea came from Terwilliger,
who wrote that seized money must go to official use which "typically, has
included activities such as the purchase of vehicles and equipment," including
guns and radios.

     But, says Hughes, "if the purpose is to deal with the drug problem
effectively, Justice's reluctance to consider new ideas - particularly when it
comes to treatment programs seems to me to undercut their ultimate goal."

     The Justice Department, which champions forfeiture as the law enforcement
tool of the '90s, declines to talk about where the law is headed.

     "I don't think it's appropriate in the context of a press interview to
discuss potential policy and legislative issues," says Terwilliger.

     But in not talking, the government 'masks the details of the total
emasculation of the Bill of Rights," says John Rion, a Columbus, Ohio, lawyer.

     "The taxpayer thinks this forfeiture stuff is wonderful, until he's the
one who loses something. Then, he realizes that it's not just the criminal's
rights that have been taken away, it's everybody's."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DRUG FIGHTING SHERIFF PUTS COMPASSION BEFORE FORFEITURES

     In Detroit, Wayne County Sheriff Robert Ficano is an unabashed supporter
of grabbing the spoils of the war on drugs, but he tempers his fervor for
forfeiture with controls.

     Ficano appears to be running precisely the type of drug interdiction
program authors of forfeiture and seizure legislation envisioned.

     It aggressively pursues drug criminals, it has procedures that protect
innocent citizens, and it shows compassion - right down to the teddy bears
narcotics agents carry to drug raids on homes where children live.

     In addition, it tums forfeited money right back into more drug
investigations. It can do that, because the confiscated money has allowed it to
create a new interdiction team devoted to stopping narcotics.

     "We started with two off icers out of the Wayne County Jail and we wanted
to see if they would be able to seize enough in their raids, for them to pay
for their own salaries," he says.

     That first year, in 1984, they seized $250,000.  "Last year we seized over
$4 million. And we've been able to complete Iy fund the narcotic unit out of
these forfeited funds," Ficano says.

     Today he has 35 officers, 3 drug dogs and all the weapons, surveillance
and communication gear needed to equip a modem drug team, with a $2.2 million
budget.

     "There isn't a dime of it from tax-payers' money that's used. So, in
essence, you have the crooks paying for their own busts," he says.

     The public's fear of drugs helps win support for forfeiture. "However, we
in law enforcement have to ensure that a balance is always kept. You can't
violate people's rights.

     "Whenever you push a law, a tool, as far as you can go and get up toward
the edge, it becomes a difficult balance. There's a responsibility that goes
with it.

     "In the area of forfeiture and seizure, I think we've probably gone as
far as we can and still be accepted by the public and by the courts. I think
we're near that edge," the sheriff says.

     To maintain balance, Ficano instituted a series of steps that had some of
his 900 deputies grumbling at first that he was going soft.

     One of his major targets, he says, is closing crack houses, shooting
galleries and other residential drug operations.

     "We want these properties cleaned up and under the law we can seize them,
but a surprising number of owners of drug houses have no idea of the activity,
so we make sure they know what's going on," the sheriff says.

     Ficano sends owners two written warnings that illegal activities are
occurring on their property and that repeated arrests have been made.

     "The first time we do it, we tell them what we found on their property and
some of the things they can legally do to get these drug traffickers out,"
Ficano says. "We'll warn them a second time. The third time, we move to seize
the house."

     He admits he could make more money if he grabbed the property at the first
violation, as many other departments do.

     "But the motivation shouldn't be just seizing property. If we can get the
public, the owners, to stop the trafficking, then we've accomplished an
important goal," he says. "The warnings are needed because you just shouldn't
wipe someone out, someone who may be innocent, without giving them a chance."
He also gives warning to drug buyers driving into the county.

     In some crack areas, he says, neighborhood streets that in the middle of
the afternoon should be peaceful and tranquil look like the parking lots at the
University of Michigan stadium on a football Saturday.

     In conjunction with local police apartments, Ficano took out newspaper ads
cautioning: "Buyers of Illegal Drugs, Take Notice." The ads listed descriptions
of some of the 210 cars that have been seized from recreational drug users and
the neighborhoods of their owners - and warned drug buyers to stay out of Wayne
County or risk losing their vehicles.

     Similarly, he gives a couple of chances to innocent owners of cars used by
someone else in drug trafficking. After the first warning, they can claim
innocence, that they didn't know that someone else was using the car to buy
drugs. The second time the car is stopped, it costs owners $750 to get it back.
If there's a third time, it's a seizure.

     "A lot of these people need the cars to go to work or school, so we give
them every chance we can, but it's got to stop."

     He bristles when asked if he's soft on drug traffickers.

     "Look at our arrest records - over 300 raids and 1,000 arrests last year-
we're not soft at all," Ficano says.  "We can enforce the law and be aggressive
about it, but we can also do it with some compassion and the common sense that
is supposed to come with the badge."

     Safeguards and tight controls are a must, he insists.

     "We do not want cowboys. We do not want officers who follow the typical
stereotype drug cop from 'Miami Vice' and other TV shows. Seizure is an
important tool, but we'll lose it unless we keep a heavy emphasis on respecting
individual fights."

     Sitting atop the TV set in his office is a very un-"Miami Vice" prop: an
18-inch, black-and-white speckled teddy bear.

     "The biggest deputies we have can be distressed watching a child react to
a parent or both parents being arrested after a drug raid. It eats away at
you," the sheriff says.

     The bears are kept in the trunk of the unit's cars and vans, he says.

     "If there is a raid or property is being seized and there are children
involved, our deputies can pull the bears out to, hopefully, calm down the
children," Ficano says.

     It's difficult to envision a brawny SWAT officer, decked out in a helmet
and bullet proof vest, carrying a gun in one hand and a teddy bear in the
other. But the narcotic unit's weekly search warrant and arrest report has a
column headed "Number of Bears."

     The reports for the first two weeks of May show that two of nine bears
given out were given as officers seized property.

     "If there's something that can be done to reduce the pain that accompanies
some of the things we have to do, why not do it?" Ficano asks.  The one area
Ficano was hesitant to discuss in detail was the activity of his men as part of
the Drug Enforcement, administration's joint task force at Detroit's Metro
airport.

     Some lawyers, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have
criticized the DEA team for being overzealous in seizing cash from suspected
drug dealers.

     The sheriff did say safeguards exist to prevent improper stops, but added
that DEA directed him not to discuss his airport work.

     While his drug unit is among the biggest moneymakers in the country, and
the forfeited funds are key to financing that unit, he says there is a 'very
clear limit" on how far he will go.

     "These new laws open all sorts of new areas for seizing the assets of drug
traffickers. We'll use accountants, people with business and banking
expertise - all sorts of nontraditional police skills to try to track and
forfeit every dollar these dealers are making.

     "But there's a line that we won't cross," Ficano says.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UNREASONABLE SEIZURES
Editorial/ Aug. 11, 1991

     The "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,
and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures" is enshrined in the
Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.

     For the most part, this bedrock right is so firmly entrenched, so
thoroughly borne out by experience, that Americans take it for granted.
When we read of an honest family deprived of its savings or its home or farm
at the whim of the police, we assume an isolated abuse or think smugly of
faraway tyrannies unblessed by our cherished Bill of Rights.

     At least we used to. The remarkable series "Presumed Guilty," by
Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters Andrew Schneider and Mary Pat Flaherty,
now running in this newspaper, paints a startlingly different picture. It
documents a rash of unreasonable seizures unintentionally spawned by the
war on drugs.

     The opening for this corrosion of civil rights was the amendment of the
racketeering laws, starting in 1984, to permit authorities to confiscate
possessions of suspects never charged with crimes, much less convicted.  This
radical departure from traditions of law was justified in terms of seizing the
assets of drug criminals," as the White House National Drug Strategy put it,
and helping "dismantle larger criminal organizations."

     So much for intentions. Mr. Schneider and Ms. Flaherty's 10-month
investigation documents more than 400 cases of innocent people forced to
forfeit money or property to federal authorities. These victims are farmers and
factory workers, small-business owners and retirees. Often, their only offense
was exhibiting behavior or personal traits considered typical of drug
couriers.

     But even among people convicted of crimes, some penalties were wildly
disproportionate. Should a family be permanently robbed of the farm that is
its home and livelihood because six marijuana plants were found growing in
a field?

     "Presumed Guilty" is a withering indictment of the forfeiture laws. This
page will explore its implications in the coming days.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WHAT PRICE THIS WAR?
Editorial / Aug. 14, 1991

     In its zealous prosecution of the "war on drugs," the government
undeniably and intolerably has trampled the rights of countless innocent
people.

     Using hundreds of wide-open federal and state seizure laws, police and
prosecutors have taken homes, cash and other personal possessions of people
whose only offense was being in the wrong place at the wrong time or fitting
some officer's or informant's preconceived, and likely racist, notion of what
a criminal looks like.

     In some localities, government seizures take on the trappings of a
criminal enterprise, with prosecutors, police departments, judges and
tipsters conspiring to grab someone's property and divvy it up, all without
regard to due process of law.

     Those on the receiving end of such injustices are to be excused if they
come to regard the government itself as a corrupt organization.

     The abuses are documented in a continuing series, "Presumed Guilty," by
reporters Mary Pat Flaherty and Andrew Schneider of The Pittsburgh Press.

      The series examines the effect of a 1984 change in the federal
racketeering law that allows police to seize the property of those even
marginally involved with illegal drug activity. No conviction is required, only
a showing of "probable cause." The idea was to deprive drug traders of their
trinkets and baubles: the jewelry, cars, boats and real estate bought with
illegal proceeds.

     The Ideker was that the assets would revert to the law enforcement agency
that seized them, with proceeds going to finance the fight against drugs. Some
$2 billion has been generated for police departments, much of which no doubt
has been put to good use.

     But there are instances - far too many of them - in which financial
incentive and lack of safeguards have pushed the "good guys" over the line.  in
Hawaii, federal prosecutors combed through records of old cases looking for
opportunities to seize property. They took the home of Joseph and Frances
Lopes, a couple of modest means whose son had pleaded guilty four years earlier
to growing marijuana in the backyard for his personal use.  "The Lopeses could
be happy we let them live there as long as we did," an arrogant G-man snorted.

     At some airports, counter clerks spy on customers, looking for those
carrying large amounts of cash. They tip off the cops and collect a cut of the
loot if there is a seizure.

     Police, using dubious "profile" criteria that disproportionately target
minorities, stop people like Willie Jones, a landscaper from Nashville. Mr.
Jones' "crime" was to be carrying cash on a trip to Houston to buy shrubbery.
He was relieved of $9,600 by Drug Enforcement Administration agents.

     Like 80 percent of those whose property has been taken, Mr. Jones was not
charged with a crime. He's still fighting the government to get his money back.

     The reporters' 10-month investigation revealed more than 400 cases from
Maine to Hawaii in which the rights of innocent people were steamrollered.
Their findings should send a chill up the backs of all citizens - most
particularly those in the law enforcement community who must act to salvage the
credibility and legitimacy of the war on drugs.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SEIZURE: OUT OF CONTROL
Editorial / Aug. 18, 1991

     Less than four months from now, on Dec. 15, to be exact, the 10 original
amendments to the U. S.  Constitution - the precious Bill of Rights - will be
200 years old.

     For two centuries, these superbly crafted safe-guards have served to
protect the individual rights of the American people, withstanding attempt
after attempt to erode the liberty guaranteed by the Constitution.

     But seven years ago, Congress, in a well-intentioned but poorly executed
attempt to step up the war on drugs, twisted some of the guarantees until a
crack developed. Since then, money-hungry law enforcement agencies across the
country have slammed wedges into the breach, creating a gap of frightening
dimensions.

     Compromised, indeed, even seriously endangered by the Congressional fervor
of the Orwellian year of 1984, are three basic rights.

     No longer is an American assured by the Fourth Amendment that he or she
will not be subjected to "unreasonable searches and seizures." No longer does
the Fifth Amendment assure that private property will not be taken "for public
use without just compensation." And no longer does the Eighth Amendment protect
anyone from "cruel and unusual punishment."

     Blame Congress. By changing the federal forfeiture law, aimed at curbing
drugs by causing hardships to dealers, Congress in 1984 gave law enforcement
agencies the power - and even an incentive - to abridge these rights.

     How the law has run rampant over the rights of individuals since then was
startlingly documented during the past week in The Pittsburgh Press. Reporters
Andrew Schneider and Mary Pat Flaherty, in six chilling installments,
documented more than 400 cases of innocent people falling victim to government
out of control.

     They found that police, using hundreds of federal and state seizure laws,
have confiscated $1.5 billion in assets and expect to take in $500,000 more
this year. But, it tums out, for every drug lord and dealer who loses his
ill-gotten treasures to the government, there are four innocent people who are
being victimized - fully 80 percent of the people who lose property to the
federal government are never charged with a crime.

     They are searched, unreasonably in most cases, and after fitting a profile
that is likely racist. Their property is taken with not even a thought of
compensation. Their homes, their farms, their very life savings are
confiscated in as cruel and as unusual a punishment as one can imagine.

     Why? Because the forfeiture law calls for funds derived from seizures to
be turned back to law enforcement agencies, to be used to continue the war on
drugs.

     That's a cunningly attractive concept - crime paying for its own
investigation and prosecution. In practice, though, the theory falls
distressingly flat, the victim of human greed.

     Law enforcement agencies, on the hunt for dollars, are on a seizure binge,
taking property indiscriminantly and without compassion. People only
marginally involved with a drug investigation, people who never were charged
with a crime, have lost their homes, money and belongings. So have those who
were charged and cleared.

     Some were even the victims of bounty hunters - those who, for a piece of
the seizure pie, become informants. As it stands now, anybody with a finger to
point can share in money seized from a person they tab as "suspicious."

     But because it doesn't matter whether their target is guilty or innocent
-just whether there is a seizure of property in which they will share - the
system is wide open to abuse. And it has been abused, to the point where
innocent travelers have been detained, searched and stripped of their money.

     Even some police shudder at what is happening.  Wayne County (Detroit)
Sheriff Robert Ficano, who, while agressive in leading his drug war, is
careful not to wage it at the expense of the rights of individuals. "Seizure is
an important tool," he said, "but we'll lose it unless we keep a heavy emphasis
on respecting individual fights."

     He's right, of course. Seizure has been, is, and should continue to be a
big gun in the war on drugs.  But it can't be a shotgun, blasting away at
innocent people who happen into its path.

     The legal massacre uncovered by Mr. Schneider and Ms. Flaherty must stop
and only Congress has the necessary remedial power.

     The forfeiture law must be overhauled once again, due process restored,
the bounty hunters disenfranchised and seizure of property permitted only after
an individual has been convicted of a crime.

     All we are demanding, after all, is that Congress pay attention to a
200-year-old list of guarantees that was ignored in 1984.

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About the authors:

     Pat Flaherty, 36, is a graduate of Northwestern University who has worked
for 14 years at The Pittsburgh Press where she currently is a special
editor/news and a Sunday columnist.

     In 1986, she won a Pulitzer Prize for specialized reporting for a series
she wrote with Andrew Schneider on the international market in human kidneys.
She was the first recipient of the Distinguished Writing Award given by the
Pennsylvania Newspaper Publishers Association; twice has won writer of the year
awards from Scripps Howard and has received numerous state and regional
reporting awards.

     Her assignments at The Press have included coverage of the 1988 Olympics
in Seoul and a 5-week trip through refugee camps in Africa.

---

     Andrew Schneider, 48, began reporting for The Pittsburgh Press in 1984.
Since that time, he has won two consecutive Pulitzer Prizes; in 1985 for the
series he co-wrote with Mary Pat Flaherty on abuses in the organ transplant
system, and in 1986, for a series, with Matthew Brelis, on airline safety,
which also won the Roy W.  Howard public service award.

     His other work includes a series with reporters Lee Bowman and Thomas
Buell on safety problems of the nation's railroads and a series with Bowman,
exposing deficiencies in Red Cross disaster services.

     Before joining, The Press. he worked for UPI, the Associated Press and
Newsweek. He is the founder of the National Institute of Advanced Reporting at
Indiana University.

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