TEXAS PROSECUTORS BALK AT DRUG CASES

Law: Smaller drug busts made by U.S. agents at the border are being
refused by local district attorneys who say they don't have the resources
to handle them.

EL PASO--For many years, drug arrests at checkpoints on the U.S.-Mexico
border have worked this way: Federal agents make the busts, then hand off
the smaller cases--usually those involving less than 50 pounds of
marijuana--to local district attorneys to prosecute.

Now some district attorneys are backing out of the arrangement because the
soaring number of drug arrests is proving too big a burden.

At least four of the eight district attorneys in Texas counties along the
Mexican border say they will no longer take such cases as of July 1. A
fifth district attorney, in Laredo, stopped accepting such cases in 1997.

"We wanted to do our share of fighting the war on drugs," said Rene Guerra,
district attorney for Hidalgo County. "But now it's too much."

The local prosecutors say the federal government will not reimburse their
counties for jail expenses, public defenders' fees or investigation and
court costs.

Drug arrests at border checkpoints are made by agents from the U.S. Customs
Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Immigration and
Naturalization Service. The number of arrests has skyrocketed since 1994 as
the result of a border crackdown.

The district attorneys contend the border clearly is a federal
responsibility.

"It surprises me that the federal government would think some of the
poorest counties in the country would have the resources if they don't have
the resources," said Jaime Esparza, district attorney in El Paso.

Justice Department officials discussed the matter at a meeting Thursday in
Washington, and "a number of ideas were kicked around," department
spokesman John Russell said.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. "will bring these to the attorney
general's attention and hopes that we can have a resolution of this issue
in a few weeks," Russell said.

The local prosecutors could not provide exact numbers for cases handled or
dollars spent. But Esparza, whose district is the busiest of the four, said
he takes at least 500 drug cases handed over by the Feds each year, and the
number continues to rise.

District attorneys along the border in New Mexico, Arizona and California
are not planning to join their Texas counterparts in refusing such cases.

If the Texas prosecutors go through with their threat, the drug cases will
be handled by the two U.S. attorneys' offices that serve the Texas border
or will be dropped altogether.

Those offices already are swamped. The number of criminal cases filed in
federal courts in Texas' western district has jumped 182% since 1995, and
in Texas' southern district, 145%. The five federal court districts that
serve the U.S.-Mexico border region now handle one-fourth of all federal
court criminal filings in the country.

William Blagg, U.S. attorney for the western district, said he may need to
send prosecutors from other parts of the state to El Paso to work the
additional cases.

"We don't have a choice," he said. "We can't just let the people go."