Source: Waco TribuneHerald: Editorial
Contact: letters@mail.iamerica.net

Highway drug traps

LacyLakeview's plan to patrol
Interstate 35 could push balance

There's a delicate balance in law enforcement between
overdoing it and underdoing it.

Underdoing it means the public is not getting the
protection it pays for. Overdoing it is when policecitizen
relations become an usversesthem situation even for law
abiding citizens.

The speed traps operated by some overzealous police
departments are an example of overdoing the enforcement
of traffic laws. Another example is the abuse of federal
forfeiture laws by some police departments around the country.

A plan that appears very close to that delicate balance
is one by LacyLakeview to assign a fulltime officer to patrol
the community's twomile jurisdiction of Interstate 35 in an effort
to put a dent in the flow of drugs from Mexico and other points.

LacyLakeview Police Chief Mike Nicoletti believes that a
fulltime officer assigned to spot traffic violations along his
community's twomile stretch of IH35 will help curb the drug
flow and pay for itself by using the federal forfeiture laws to
confiscate cars, cash and other personal belongings of
individuals caught carrying illegal drugs.

Nicoletti has noticed the success of other Central Texas
towns that have used the forfeiture laws to confiscate cars and
raise revenue by going after I35 motorists with drugs.

One problem with this is that the controversial federal forfeiture
laws were passed with the idea that they would be used to fight
organized crime and wealthy drug lords. Nowadays these laws also
are being used to confiscate the property of citizens involved in
nickelanddime drug cases, hardly the drug lords the law intended to
target.

In addition, the law allows confiscation of property in some cases
completely out of line with the severity of the offense. In other cases,
it allows confiscation of property even when the individual is not
convicted of a crime. That's why the law now is under review to be
abolished or severely limited.

Some police along Interstate 10 in Louisiana have used and abused
the federal forfeiture law to enrich their departments and local judicial
system with the same stated purpose of interdicting drug flow along
the interstate. Those abuses made national news and prompted calls
to abolish or amend the law.

Other communities have used their jurisdictions over sections of
state or federal highways to strictly enforce traffic laws to the point
that they gained a reputation as being speed traps more concerned
with collecting fines than highway safety.

LacyLakeview must be careful that its plans to curb drug traffic
along a tiny stretch of I35 do not tip law enforcement's delicate
balance into the overdoingit category.