DA, PUBLIC DEFENDER VIE ON TAKING ASSETS; MORE RESEARCH CALLED FOR

Malone -- A public hearing on a proposed asset-seizure law quickly turned
into a mock trial, of sorts, but the verdict will have to wait because the
jury wants to consider more evidence.

Three attorneys tried to sway Franklin County legislators to their
respective sides over a proposed law that would allow the District
Attorney's Office to seize assets, cash and vehicles from people convicted
of misdemeanor drug offenses.

District Attorney Derek Champagne wants permission to grab up all the
assets he can to further the county's fight to curb narcotics and marijuana
trafficking and the violence that -- at least statistically -- accompanies
the drug trade.

"Study after study says that drug and violence go hand-in-hand," he said,
shortly after telling legislators that Franklin County ranked as the 12th
most-violent county in New York state in 2000. It was No. 11 in 1999.

That ranking "is not good for tourism, for anybody or anything," Champagne
said. "It's not good for recruiting corporations to the county, and it's
not good for our citizens."

He urged the legislators to pass the law and let him and the many
law-enforcement agencies in the county get to work nailing those who deal
drugs and those who use them.

But Public Defender Alex Lesyk spoke just as passionately opposing its
passage because, he says, it covers the same ground that existing statutes
cover.

One trouble spot is the definition in both penal and public-health law on
asset seizures. Penal law does not include marijuana in its definition,
but the public-health law does.

"State law already in effect covers violations, misdemeanors and felonies,"
Lesyk said. The proposed law "is virtually an exact copy of the existing
statute" except for two areas.

He said the proposal blocks a defendant's chance to explain to a judge that
they did not know drugs were in the vehicle they were traveling in.

Lesyk also opposes having the DA's Office decide how the proceeds from
seized-asset sales are distributed because state law says the money should
go to the county, not to the DA.

"The discretion no longer belongs to you," he told legislators. "That's
improper and illegal. You can't legislate away a state statute."

He also explained that giving pot to someone is the same as selling it to
them, according to penal law, so a teen-ager is guilty of criminal sale of
a controlled substance if he's in his mom's car and passes a joint to a friend.

"Mom loses her car because the kid passed a joint to someone else," he
said, adding that there is no such thing as a misdemeanor charge associated
with the sale of a controlled substance. It's an automatic felony.

Chief Assistant DA John Delehanty told the legislators they have to trust
Champagne and the rest of the DA's Office to act wisely on a case-by-case
basis. He urged them to listen to County Attorney Jonathan Miller, who
endorses the proposed law.

Miller later recommended the matter be sent back to the legislature's
Public Safety Committee for more review and discussion, and that is what
happened.