POLICE LAY CLAIM TO CASH FROM CRIMES

Forfeited Assets Meant For Schools, Law Says

Police agencies are sidestepping the N.C. constitution to pocket millions of
dollars state law reserves for education, lawmakers and school officials
say.

In a little-noticed but long-simmering dispute, N.C. police are keeping
assets gathered from sting operations, drug busts, traffic stops and other
investigations.

N.C. law enforcement officials say they earned the money and should keep it.
But the state constitution says such proceeds should go to local school
districts, so police in North Carolina and other similarly situated states
avoid that rule by taking their forfeiture cases to federal court.

Under federal rules, as much as 80percent of the money from seized assets is
sent back to local police agencies. Police use the money for laptop
computers, new pistols and other crime-fighting tools they can't afford with
their regular budgets.

"That's a constitutional violation," said Sen. Frank Ballance, D-Warren.
"I've been telling the (state) school board lawyers they're derelict in
their duty. Somebody should have brought a lawsuit a long time ago."

But school officials say they can't police the police. And law enforcement
officials say they aren't giving up the money, especially since schools
already receive hefty income from state court fines on speeders and other
lower-rung lawbreakers.

"There's a perception on the part of the school folks that we've got
millions of dollars from this thing that ought to have come to them," said
Concord Police Chief Robert Cansler.

"Our mission is not education. Our mission is law enforcement."

Schools vs. police

Gaston County police Sgt. J. W. Human said his agency goes to federal court
because the state court system is slower.

Hickory police Sgt. Chris LaCarter noted the stiffer federal sentences:
"It's like the roach motel; they don't come back."

But the financial advantage of going to federal court is obvious. Federal
officials sent $42million back to N.C. police agencies from fiscal years
1986 to 1995, say the latest figures The Observer could obtain.

That figure includes money from joint operations by federal, state and local
officers.

Still, that amount isn't much compared with the $47million state courts
funneled to schools last year alone from fines such as traffic citations,
forfeited bail bonds and the sale of drunken drivers' impounded cars.

Even so, education boosters say the money the police are keeping should go
to schools - if only on constitutional principle alone.

"The North Carolina Constitution is the will of the people of North
Carolina," said Rep. Dan Blue, D-Wake. "If the constitution says it ought to
go to the schools, then that's where it ought to go."

Michael Crowell, a Raleigh-based lawyer, represents the N.C. School Boards
Association. He said police have no legal right to keep the money.

"I don't think it's in the hands of the law enforcement agencies to rewrite
the state constitution on their own," he said.

But police feel strongly that the forfeiture money should stay with them.
Some have said the state constitution, passed in the Reconstruction era
following the Civil War, doesn't meet the modern needs of police fighting
the war on drugs.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police over the last three fiscal years have taken in
$2.9million, thanks in part to an asset-forfeiture section manned by two
sworn officers and a support technician.

Each day, they study reports on seized items, looking for those valuable
enough to warrant a federal forfeiture case. For instance, federal rules say
cars must be worth at least $5,000, and boats must be valued at $10,000 or
more.

The department has used the money generated by the cases to leverage federal
matching grants. Among the new projects it helped bankroll is a database
that lets officers use mobile laptops for spotting crime trends.

To Charlotte-Mecklenburg police Maj. Tom Barnes, the schools issue is a moot
point. State courts and prosecutors are too swamped with violent crime to
handle civil forfeitures.

"I don't think there's a person in Mecklenburg County who would want us to
tie up a judge and a district attorney to handle a forfeiture case," Barnes
said.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board Chairperson Arthur Griffin said the issue
hasn't come before local schools. He added: "I would certainly hope the
spirit of the law is being upheld."

At least one school district has already gone to court on the issue.

In the late 1980s, the Winston-Salem Police Department squared off in state
and federal courts against the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Board of
Education.

The police department staved off the schools' bid for the forfeiture money.
Since then, however, the Winston-Salem police have agreed to use the money
to pay for a $50,000-a-year drug testing program for students.

The agreement, however, is voluntary. If schools wanted to request more
money, they wouldn't necessarily know which cases police were taking to
federal court or how much money was coming back.

"The school attorney is not a watchdog on the criminal justice system, and
is not equipped to be," said Doug Punger, the Winston-Salem school system's
lawyer. "The (forfeiture) transactions occur between certain (law
enforcement) agencies and no one generally knows about it."

A federal reform law that took effect last month doesn't address the
constitutional conflict.

Finders, Keepers

Since the 1980s, when the current forfeiture rules emerged, such cases have
become extremely popular among law-enforcement officers.

Cabarrus County Sheriff Robert Canaday said his agency got $5,383 back from
a total of $14,798 in federal forfeiture cases in fiscal year 1999-2000.

When the county didn't fund Canaday's request for semiautomatic weapons to
replace his deputies' .38-caliber revolvers, his department collected enough
federal forfeiture money to do it.

He's also planning to use federal money to pay about half the $100,000 tab
for a remote-control robotic device to inspect hazardous or potentially
explosive objects.

In South Carolina, there isn't a constitutional rule requiring seized assets
to be shared with schools.

When authorities take forfeiture cases through South Carolina's state
courts, 75 percent of the proceeds go to the local police agencies, 20
percent goes to the local prosecutor's office and 5 percent goes to the
state's general fund.

Robert Stewart, head of the S.C. Law Enforcement Division, said every couple
of years various groups try to get part of the money, but most don't
succeed.

"Police agencies feel like they're the ones out there laying their lives on
the line," Stewart said. "They should be the ones to use the resources it
generates."

Cansler, the Concord police chief, expressed similar sentiments. To him, the
notion of sharing with schools doesn't make much sense.

"They don't do any of the work, and get all of the proceeds Hello! Why would
we make that a priority?" he asked.

Political Football

The issue has been debated for years across the country.

At least seven states have constitutional rules similar to North Carolina's,
but police in many of those states also take cases to federal court and keep
the proceeds.

In a 1989 hearing before a congressional committee, Joseph Dean,
then-secretary of the N.C. Department of Crime Control and Public Safety,
spoke bluntly against efforts to stop N.C. police from taking their cases
federal and getting money back.

Describing educators as the state's most powerful lobbying group, Dean urged
congressmen to protect the police. He said police were taking "99 percent"
of their forfeiture cases federal, and were "scared to death" the federal
option might be closed off.

Without it, he suggested, police wouldn't be doing nearly as many joint
anti-drug operations.

He said in 1986, N.C. Highway Patrol officials weren't too interested when
federal authorities asked for help with Operation Pipeline, a drug
interdiction effort along Interstate 95 and other major highways.

But when federal agents mentioned forfeiture money, "then everybody's eyes
lit up," Dean told the committee.

Later in the hearing, when U.S. Rep. Lawrence Smith, D-Florida, suggested
N.C. police were using the federal system to circumvent the N.C.
constitution, Dean replied: "In a pure sense, you could look at it that
way."

David Kelly, the current crime control secretary, said in a statement that
he sees the federal forfeiture system as a way to punish criminals, not keep
money from schools.

Officers say they don't see what all the fuss is about, since they use the
money to help the public, not enrich themselves.

Still, that leaves critics unsatisfied. They say the law is the law - and
the police aren't following it.

Ballance doubts the situation will change.

"Politically, nobody wants to argue against the police," he said, "even
though they profess to love education."

Staff writers Erica Beshears, Gail Smith, Aileen Soper and The Kansas City
Star contributed to this article. Eric Frazier covers legal affairs. Contact
him at (704) 358-5145 or at efrazier@charlotteobserver.com.