PUBLIC-HOUSING EVICTIONS OVER DRUGS UPHELD

A Supreme Court Ruling Suggests Tenants Have A Responsibility To
Police Their Families.

WASHINGTON - The US Supreme Court has given its endorsement to a
potentially powerful - if somewhat indiscriminate - weapon in the war
on drugs.

In a unanimous ruling yesterday, the nation's highest court upheld a
provision of federal law that permits public-housing authorities to
evict longtime tenants for the drug-related activity of family
members or guests even when the tenants didn't know about it.

"We hold that Congress has directly spoken to the precise question at
issue," writes Chief Justice William Rehnquist in an 11-page
decision. Federal law "requires lease terms that give local public
housing authorities the discretion to terminate the lease of a tenant
when a member of the household or a guest engages in drug-related
activity, regardless of whether the tenant knew, or should have
known, of the drug-related activity."

The ruling makes clear that public-housing authorities have the power
to insist that their tenants play an active role in helping to wage
the war on drugs -- including policing their own family members and
guests to ensure they do not engage in drug-related activities.

Many public-housing projects have become havens of drug activity and
violent crime. Congress passed the tough eviction law in an effort to
help communities wrest control of their neighborhoods from drug
dealers and other criminals and restore public housing to a level
where it is decent, safe, and crime free.

'A Threat To Other Residents'

"There is an obvious reason why
Congress would have permitted local public-housing authorities to
conduct no-fault evictions," the chief justice writes. "Regardless of
knowledge, a tenant who cannot control drug crime by a household
member ... is a threat to other residents."

The decision reverses an opinion by the full Ninth US Circuit Court
of Appeals, which questioned whether Congress intended to permit
housing authorities such broad powers of eviction. The San
Francisco-based court found that tenants were protected by the same
type of "innocent owner" provision that safeguards property owners
from arbitrary action in government forfeiture cases. The appeals
court also said the case raised serious due-process issues.

The Supreme Court pointedly reversed or knocked down every argument
offered by the appeals-court judges. In fact, Justice Rehnquist
spends more time in his opinion refuting the appeals court's view of
the case than responding to the arguments made by the parties. In a
sense, the decision appears to be the judicial equivalent of the
appeals court being taken to the woodshed by the chief justice.

At one point, the appeals court had suggested in its ruling that
reading the housing law to permit innocent evictions would lead to
"absurd results."

"It is not 'absurd' that a local housing authority may sometimes
evict a tenant who had no knowledge of the drug-related activity,"
Rehnquist writes, noting that such provisions are common
landlord-tenant law. "Strict liability maximizes deterrence and eases
enforcement difficulties."

The decision arises out of an attempt by the housing authority in
Oakland, Calif., to evict four longtime residents because of drug
activity of family members or guests.

Pearlie Rucker, Barbara Hill, Willie Lee, and Herman Walker fought
the eviction notices in court, arguing in part that they had no way
of knowing about the drug activities cited by housing-authority
personnel.

What happened Ms. Lee and Ms. Hill were ordered out of their homes
because their grandchildren were seen in the parking lot with
marijuana. Ms. Rucker received her eviction notice because her
daughter was seen by a housing-authority officer with cocaine and a
crack pipe several blocks from the housing project. Mr. Walker, a
disabled senior citizen, was ordered out because his live-in
caregiver was found in possession of cocaine and a cocaine pipe.

"The statute does not require the eviction of any tenant who violated
the lease provision," the chief justice writes. "Instead, it entrusts
that decision to the local public housing authorities, who are in the
best position to take account of, among other things, the degree to
which the housing project suffers from rampant drug-related or
violent crime."