STORAGE FACILITY TO BE BUILT TO HOUSE DRUG CARS

Attorney General Larry Long will get to build a new, secured building
in the Rapid City area to store vehicles confiscated in drug busts
and other criminal cases, presuming that Gov. Mike Rounds agrees with
a bill passed by the South Dakota Legislature.

The state Senate gave final legislative approval on Tuesday to
HB1068, which authorizes Long to spend up to $100,000 from a
drug-control fund in his office budget to build a structure to store
confiscated vehicles - mostly through busts on drug dealers. Long
said the new building is needed because thieves have been raiding
confiscated vehicles in the storage area now used in Rapid City.

"We've had kind of a problem with the vehicles we seize and have to
hold for several months," Long said. "All are drug-bust vehicles.
We've either taken the vehicle because it was either directly related
to a drug seizure or in rare instances it might be a vehicle
forfeited because it was an asset a drug dealer owned and we could
trace some relationship to the drug transaction."

Many of the vehicles have been confiscated through drug busts by
South Dakota Highway Patrol officers, he said.

Long wouldn't say where the vehicles are now kept in Rapid City, or
where the secure building will be built. It will be on property
already owned by the state, however.

Long said he didn't know how big the building would be.

"I don't know how big a pole barn you can build for $100,000. We're
not going to build it for two or three vehicles," he said. "It's
going to be big enough to store quite a few vehicles."

HB1068, which was sent on to the governor last week, had passed the
House 65-3. But it was initially rejected by the Senate
Appropriations Committee on an 8-1 vote. Committee members wanted to
know more about the level of money in the drug-control fund. They
also wondered why the confiscated vehicles couldn't be secured
somewhere on existing government property.

Long and his staff maintained that the new building was the best
solution. The Senate Appropriations Committee reconsidered the bill
and approved it 7-1, followed by 30-3 approval on the Senate floor.
Sen. Ryan Maher, D-Isabel, was the lone vote of opposition in
committee and one of three to vote against it on the Senate floor.

Maher said Sunday that he believes in the confiscation program but
still thinks there must an existing storage option.

"You would think between the three forms of government in Rapid City
- - state, county and city - there would be something out there they
could utilize before they spent the $100,000," Maher said. "I know
the money's there in the fund. I know they probably need to spend it.
But it seems like the state never quits building."

Vehicles seized by law-enforcement officers in drug busts or other
illegal activity must go through a court process in which law
enforcement proves that the seizure was justified. In some instances,
the court determines the vehicles should be returned. In others the
state might keep and use the vehicle.

Mostly, the vehicles are sold at auction, typically after being
stored from a few weeks to a year or some, Long said.

Sometimes the previous owners of the vehicle negotiate to buy them
back from the state. That has happened with motorcycles seized at the
Sturgis rally, Long said.

"Those guys want their bicycles back," he said.

A new law set to take effect in July would add the option of a jury
trial for people trying to recover seized property.