DUE PROCESS KEY IN EVICTION LAW

Buena Park has become the first city in Orange County to enact a law aimed
at landlords who refuse to evict tenants involved in drugs or gangs. The
motivation for the law is easily understood, but the ordinance tips too far
away from due process.

Police and landlords say it is relatively easy to evict tenants on a
month-to-month lease without specifying a reason. So the new law that allows
for eviction of a tenant suspected of drug or gang activity in or around an
apartment is unlikely to provide much extra assistance for a landlord.

But a landlord who refuses to evict someone the police has tabbed for
illegal activity, even if that person has not been convicted, now can be
fined for not complying with the city's orders to evict the suspect. A
landlord who runs afoul of the law four times in a year can be jailed.

Courts generally have upheld laws requiring a forfeiture of property of an
alleged drug dealer or other reputed criminal even without a conviction. To
convict someone of a crime, with the possible deprivation of liberty and
time in prison, requires a jury to be convinced of the defendant's guilt
beyond a reasonable doubt.

But a civil action asking the forfeiture of a car or money that is
supposedly the result of a drug transaction requires only a preponderance of
the evidence, even if the defendant is acquitted on criminal charges. Los
Angeles two years ago enacted a law that serves as a model for the Buena
Park ordinance. Los Angeles city attorneys say the measure has not been
challenged in court.

Buena Park police say their ordinance was a response to residents' needs and
desires. A neighborhood improvement task force reported occasions when a
landlord lagged in evicting a problem tenant, which meant problems for other
residents frightened by the illegal activity.

That's understandable. Residents should be able to live in an apartment
complex free from drugs and gangs. Police say they will try to use the law
only after a tenant has been convicted. But they said if it appears a trial
is delayed and narcotics or gang activity is continuing, they may tell the
landlord to evict the tenant immediately.

Police said the city does not have a big drug or gang problem. Crime has
decreased dramatically in recent years in Buena Park as it has in most other
jurisdictions in Orange County.

The ordinance allows for eviction of everyone in an apartment where one
tenant is the target, but police said in instances where the problem was
solved by moving one person out--say by sending a parolee back to prison --
innocent tenants could remain.

That's a welcome and reasonable interpretation of the law, but it still
increases the burden on police to decide who deserves to stay and who should
move. It would be better to wait for someone to be convicted of drug or gang
activity, not merely arrested or accused, before prosecuting the landlord
for failure to evict.