Newsclipping summary:

Summary of NY Time Magazine Article 12-11-94
Posted to FEAR-List 12-14-94 by Brenda Grantland

For those of you who missed last Sunday's (12-11-94) New York Times Magazine article, "The Law Goes On a Treasure Hunt," here are the highlights.

The author, David Heilbroner, is a former assistant district attorney, who now teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan. He details his frightening experiences when he was stopped by the forfeiture squads on I-10 near Sulphur, Louisiana. After being pulled over in his rental car for changing lanes without signalling, the officers began questioning him and he knew what they wanted. "I have known hundreds of police officers, worked with them daily. Still my hands are trembling. I am carrying $300 in travel money and as a former prosecutor I know that anyone carrying more than a few dollars in cash raises police eyebrows."

Apparently escaping with his $300 intact, he set out to expose the insidious practice. He asks some good questions: "...the widespread use of civil asset seizures has raised deeply troubling questions. Is it a pretext for augmenting government revenues? Are citizens deprived of due process of law when their properties are seized without notification? When the property seized is disproportionate to the petty crime committed, does this violate the Eighth Amendment's ban on excessive fines?"

"Even the Supreme Court is signaling its discomfort with the seizing frenzy. In the last year or so, it issued rulings that attempt to rein in the Government's power to seize the assets of suspected drug dealers. In a case involving the seizure of an entire business on the basis of one small drug sale, Justice Harry Blackman, now retired, ruled that because forfeitures serve, in part, as punishment for drug offenses, they are similar to criminal fines and must not be excessive. But the Court did not say what constitutes "excessive," and so the seizures continue."

He presents some surprising statistics about the Sulphur, Louisiana forfeiture trap. Sulphur has a population of 20,552. Since 1990, Sulphur police have seized about $5 million, most of it cash, and at least half from drivers on I-10. Rick Bryant, the local District Attorney, thinks "forfeiture is a wonderful tool." He readily dismisses the threat to civil rights: "I would never agree to putting somebody in jail without proof beyond a reasonable doubt.... But I would agree to taking every dime that guy's got. You're not dealing with people. You're dealing with the forfeiture of property."

He discusses the evolution of "modern" forfeiture laws. "Expanded forfeiture laws passed with overwhelming support as part of the 1984 Comprehensive Crime Control Act." "To critics, however, the rationale behind civil seizures smacks of Dickensian lunacy. Any property connected with criminal activity is deemed `guilty.'" ...

"It wasn't long before cases of abuse arose. Anti-forfeiture groups like FEAR (Forfeiture Endangers American Rights), the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the libertarian Cato Institute circulate a list of recent abuses like these...." It then lists the victim horror stories that were featured in the two Congressional hearings in 1992 and 1993.

The article states that Cary Copeland, "the out-going head" of the Justice Department's seizure program (it's about time!), claims that out of 170,000 federal forfeitures reviewed by his office, only 50 examples of abuse were found, and "some of those were `highly exaggerated.'"

The article praises Wayne County Michigan Sheriff, Robert Ficano, who "tries to balance civil rights with law enforcement interests." It then describes his "innovative" approach to getting rid of crack houses. "Many people who run crack houses in Detroit or who let buildings become crack houses are absentee landlords." (How do you run a crack house as an absentee landlord?) According to Ficano, "Now, some people argue that if you find illegal activity in there, you can forfeit the house immediately, but we don't do that." Instead, they give the landlord three warnings, and if the landlord has not done what they demanded of him by the third warning, they seize the building.

Heilbroner discusses the corrupting influence forfeiture has on police. "Yet police officers, sheriffs and Drug Enforcement Administration agents have come to rely on asset seizures as a major source of funds. Officials can't directly raise their salaries with forfeited funds, but nothing prevents them from using the money to buy perks and to appropriate seized items for their own use."

It speaks of federal forfeiture reform, saying that "the Justice Department wants to make it even easier to seize property. According to a Justice lawyer who worked on a draft proposal and who insisted on anonymity, officials would be able to summon and question anyone about the possibility that a piece of property may be tainted. And if the person questioned pleads the Fifth Amendment, the officials may use his silence to draw an `adverse inference' against him in a court of law."

On the bright side, Heilbroner reports that both Representative John Conyers and Representative Henry Hyde plan to reintroduce their forfeiture reform bills in the next legislative session.

The article ends with a recap of the Donald Scott killing by Los Angeles County forfeiture squads and highlights the dramatic accusations of police impropriety and outright dishonesty documented in Ventura County D.A. Michael Bradbury's report on the Scott case. It quotes the Bradbury report's conclusion that "the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department was motivated, at least in part, by a desire to seize and forfeit the ranch for the government." And it mentions the suit by widow Frances Plante Scott, and former D.A. agent Charlie Stowell's suit against the Ventura D.A.'s office for slander. (Stowell was the agent who claimed that he saw marijuana growing on the Scott estate with his naked eye while flying over the property at 1000 feet.)

The article concludes: "Whatever the outcome, these lawsuits will put forfeiture practices on trial, highlighting the question: Has the lure of easy gain turned law-enforcement officials into dangerous bounty hunters?"

All in all, it is a very powerful article, even though most of the victim stories he uses have been recycled many times. But this, for once, hits the mainstream of America. FEAR's brief mention in the New York Times Magazine article doesn't hurt either. It's too bad they didn't tell how to reach us.