SUPREME COURT REFUSES TO RULE ON FORFEITURE CASE

Md., Baltimore Sought Review Of Property Seizure

WASHINGTON -- A move by Maryland and Baltimore officials to persuade
the Supreme Court to make it easier for police to seize property used
by criminal suspects ended in failure yesterday.

Without comment, the court rejected an appeal by city and state
officials, supported by 23 other states, that urged the justices to
reconsider a 1965 ruling on property forfeitures.

In the earlier ruling, the court barred forfeitures of property that
are based on evidence that police obtained through illegal methods. In
that case, the court said police in Pennsylvania could not seize a car
that was found to be carrying 31 cases of illegal liquor because
officers had searched the car illegally.

Maryland and Baltimore officials, in their new appeal, urged the court
to cast aside that ruling and rule that forfeiture cases may proceed
even if key evidence had been seized wrongly by police.

More recent decisions by the highest court, the appeal argued, have
undercut the 1965 precedent. The 23 states that supported the appeal
said the prior decision "makes little sense and should no longer be
forced upon a reluctant judiciary."

Maryland's Court of Appeals ruled in February that it was bound by the
1965 precedent and applied it to bar a Baltimore police attempt to
seize a 1995 Chevrolet Corvette.

The car had been found to be carrying $65,000 worth of illegal drugs.
Police sought its forfeiture under a state law that permits the
seizure of all equipment used to make or ship illegal drugs.

The driver of the Corvette, which police stopped in 1996 on the belief
that it had just been used in a drug deal, was not prosecuted in the
incident.

Prosecutors apparently believed that because the evidence might have
been seized from the car illegally, a criminal charge would not stand
up. Police moved unsuccessfully to seize the car.