JUDGE FREES SMUGGLER AFTER LEARNING OF REWARDS FOR CUSTOMS AGENTS

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A federal judge freed a convicted Australian
drug smuggler after learning of a government program that paid cash to
customs inspectors for making drug seizures.

In a ruling made public Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker cut
more than two years off the sentence of Michael Sanderson, saying that
cash paid to inspectors amounted to "perverse law enforcement
incentives."

Walker's ruling was filed June 29.

Sanderson was arrested in 1996 in San Francisco after two men told
customs agents that Sanderson and another man gave them 17 pounds of
cocaine for transport on a flight from San Francisco to Sydney. The
men with the drugs were detained by customs agents before they boarded
the flight at San Francisco International Airport.

Sanderson stood trial and was convicted in 1997. He faced up to eight
years in prison for the conviction, but Walker sentenced him to time
served and freed him to return to Australia. Eight of the 12 customs
agents who testified for the prosecution at Sanderson's trial received
cash rewards for their work on the case.

The judge did not say that the payments themselves led to Sanderson's
acquittal, but said the fact that the payments were concealed
undermined the defense's case because Sanderson's attorney was not
told of the payments until after the trial ended.

Randolph Dear, Sanderson's attorney, had argued that incentive
payments should be disclosed before trial along with other evidence
that might be used to discredit witness testimony.

Despite Walker's ruling on the Sanderson case, the payment program is
still in place.

Last week, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a new trial
for two men convicted in another San Francisco smuggling case where
payments were also made to customs agents.

In reviewing that case, the court ruled that the payment program was
"a system of rewards for legitimate and diversified job performance
and not a down payment for testimony."