BORDER DAS TO DECLINE FED DRUG CASES

AUSTIN — Border district attorneys say they will stop prosecuting the drug
cases routinely handed to them by federal prosecutors July 1 to protest what
they call an unfair burden for which they are not reimbursed.

Many smaller drug busts made at border crossings and checkpoints by federal
agents are passed to local prosecutors — meaning state and local taxpayers
end up paying to prosecute and often incarcerate smugglers.

Now local prosecutors are saying they will stop doing the work for free.

"Our message to the federal government is: It's your job, it's your
responsibility," said Jaime Esparza, district attorney in El Paso County.
"You cannot expect the poorest counties in the country to do the work."

Federal prosecutors responsible for the border say they expect to shuffle
their resources to handle the cases, which typically involve smuggling less
than 50 pounds of marijuana but at times can involve up to 400 pounds.

U.S. Attorney Bill Blagg, who is in charge of the San Antonio-based Western
District of Texas, supports funding local district attorneys for their work.

He said his office hands about 550 cases a year to the El Paso County
district attorney.

Blagg said he would have to take federal prosecutors away from other work,
weakening their effectiveness, to handle these additional cases.

"It is going to impact every part of our district," he said, including San
Antonio.

In a May 25 report about the growing caseload, the San Antonio Express-News
reported that the Western District last year surpassed California's Southern
District as the nation's busiest, in terms of felony cases handled.

Blagg said the Western District filed nearly 3,800 felony cases last year,
roughly four times as many as in the Dallas-based Northern District, and is
on pace to file 4,000 this year.

Gov. George W. Bush, the presumed Republican nominee for president, said
Wednesday if elected he would provide $50 million a year to reimburse border
counties for their work.

"The federal government must step up and do its part," he said in a prepared
statement.

A 1998 federal study estimated that local prosecutors from Brownsville to
San Diego spend $96 million a year on federal cases.

The district attorney in Laredo began refusing to take drug cases referred
from the federal government more than a year ago.

A spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor who handles the border from
Brownsville to Laredo said federal prosecutors are handling these cases.

"What we have done is shifted our resources and sent more prosecutors down
to (the Laredo) office, and that is what we'll be doing in Brownsville and
McAllen," said Norma Estimbo Lacy, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney in
Houston, which oversees the lower Rio Grande Valley.

The federal judiciaries along the border are the most overcrowded in the
nation. This situation will get worse when local district attorneys stop
siphoning off some of the smaller drug busts, say officials.

Border district attorneys are frustrated by what they see as a no-win
situation.

"We wanted to do our share of fighting the war on drugs," Hidalgo County
District Attorney Rene Guerra told the Associated Press earlier this year.
"But now it's too much."

The district attorneys have been negotiating with the Justice Department to
create a method of paying them, but three years of talks have failed to
produce an agreement.

State Sen. David Sibley, R-Waco, said another reason to stop the practice of
referring cases is that there is evidence drug smugglers break their
shipments into smaller loads to avoid facing harsher federal charges if
caught.

"The front line of the war on drugs is the U.S.-Mexico border, and I believe
that the U.S. Department of Justice has retreated from the front line and
expects the people of the state of Texas to hold the fort," he said. "This
isn't right."