DRUG CASES HANDED OVER FROM U.S. BURDEN COUNTIES

Some District Attorneys Won't Take On More

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 Attorney General Eric Holder "will bring these to the attorney
general's attention and hopes that we can have a resolution of this
issue in a few weeks," Mr. Russell said.

The local prosecutors could not provide exact numbers for cases
handled or dollars spent. But Mr. 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 percent
since 1995, and in Texas' southern district, 145 percent. 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 extra cases.

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