DRUG LAW: COPS AS ROBBERS? INITIATIVE CAMPAIGN CHALLENGES DRUG-CASE SEIZURES

The sponsor of an initiative to change the state's forfeiture law says he
wants to protect innocent people from being robbed by police trying to pad
their budgets.

"It is obscene," said Ernest Lewis, the sponsor of Initiative 256. "One guy
lost, literally, a million-dollar airplane because he carried a passenger
who carried drugs in his briefcase."

Police say the claims are baloney and that for some departments, the money
they receive doesn't amount to much anyway.

"That's ridiculous," John Urquhart, spokesman for the King County Sheriff's
Office, said of claims by Lewis and others about innocent people losing
their possessions. "Absolutely not. I challenge him to come up with names,
dates and times. There are many protections afforded a person whose
property is seized."

Initiative 256 would prevent police from seizing a person's property in
drug cases until the person has been convicted of a crime. Current law lets
police agencies seize property at the time of arrest, when a warrant is
served or if authorities think the property poses a threat to public safety.

"It should first be that a person is found guilty before they are
punished," Lewis said. "This punishes a person without ever finding them
guilty and frequently punishes innocent people."

The state's American Civil Liberties Union agrees.

"The ACLU supports the forfeiture initiative as a matter of basic
fairness," said Doug Honig, public education director of the ACLU of
Washington. "People have lost property without having been convicted of a
crime, and that really stands on its head one of the cornerstones of our
justice system, which is you're innocent until proven guilty."

Police Couldn't Keep Property

The government currently doesn't have to win its case in court before
taking property of the accused. People can contest such actions in court,
but it's up to them to prove the items were wrongly seized.

The change would also "require earlier notice to property owners, increase
the proof required to forfeit proceeds of controlled substance crimes and
transfer of forfeitable property. An owner or claimant could request a
preliminary hearing beyond hearings authorized by current law," according
to the initiative.

In addition, police agencies would no longer be able to use forfeited
property or keep the money from its sale. The property would have to be
sold. The proceeds would go into funding for schools and drug treatment
programs.

Legislators considered a bill to change the property seizure law last year.
It failed despite support from both parties.

Lewis, a Libertarian, is undaunted. The retired architect and salmon
rancher who lives in rural Thurston County says he will not be deterred
from getting the law changed.

"It's going, one way or another. We will never give up," he said. "If it
does not make it in January, we'll go and try again.

"Most people just recognize the unfairness of it; the idea of arresting
property instead of arresting people is an obvious way to get around the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights."

Initiative supporters must submit 197,734 valid voter signatures by Jan. 4
to put the measure before next year's Legislature. If they get the
signatures, the Legislature has to adopt the initiative or put it on the
ballot in the next election. The Legislature also can approve a changed
version of the measure. Both the original and amended initiatives would
then appear on the ballot.

None of 22 initiatives proposed last year received enough signatures to be
considered by the Legislature. Lewis will not say how many signatures he
and his supporters have collected.

Property Seizure Supported

Law enforcement agencies across the country have opposed efforts to change
property seizure laws for years, calling them effective tools against
crime. Police departments in Washington confiscated assets worth $7.3
million last year, up 30 percent from the previous year, from people
suspected of drug crimes. Some say the extra money is helpful to their
budgets in lean times.

Urquhart said that's not the case in King County. The department took in
$405,108 last year in seized property, which can include cash, drugs, motor
vehicles, homes, boats, airplanes and businesses.

"As for police departments padding their budgets with drug seizures, we
have about a $90 million budget, so you can look at those figures and see
we didn't get padded very much, did we?" Urquhart said. "This is a way to
hurt drug dealers, period."

Various protective measures in state law keep innocent people from getting
taken, he said.

"In every case, there's an opportunity to determine whether the seizure was
legal or not, so oftentimes we turn property back for various reasons,"
Urquhart said. "I had one case where a 23-year-old who sold dope to me had
$4,000 on him. His mother testified at a hearing that she gave him money
from his father's estate to go to school on, and he got his money back.

"We have to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that it was gotten
through drug dealing or it was used to facilitate drug dealing."

Lewis insists that innocent people are being robbed and cites examples,
although he admits he doesn't know specifics about when and where.

"It's not the value of the things. It's all the small people who lose their
stuff," Lewis said. "And when it happens, it must be proportionate to the
crime committed. I know of an instance where a million-dollar boat was
taken for a marijuana cigarette in an ashtray that didn't belong to the
owner of the boat."

Houses that are taken are advertised as open and are often broken into and
trashed, he said.

And in the case of the plane seized because a passenger had drugs in his
briefcase, the owner did get it back, but not until he was able to prove
his innocence, Lewis said. Police had left the plane outdoors with its
doors and engine compartment open, and by the time the man had cleared his
name, the plane could no longer be operated and was declared a total loss,
he said.

Urquhart said such things might happen on the federal level, but not in
Washington.

"Those are anecdotal stories. That would not have happened under the
Washington state law," he said. "There are lots of protections built into
the seizure statute, and it has worked well for many years.

"I was a narcotics investigator for a number of years, seized lots of money
and property, and I know exactly how the process works."

'Typically Cash And Cars'

The King County Sheriff's Office net from forfeitures declined every year
from 1995 to 1999, rising only in 2000 because "we took in quite a bit of
real estate last year," Urquhart said. "Typically, it's cash and cars."

The department had 15 narcotics investigators in 1995, but is now down to
eight, which explains much of the decline, he said.

"The whole idea behind the statute is to take the proceeds away from
drug-dealing criminals, to take the assets to hurt the drug dealer,"
Urquhart added.

In the meantime, Lewis continues to recruit volunteers and gather
signatures for the initiative.

More information about the initiative is available on the Internet. Go to
the Web site www.secstate.wa.gov/inits/ and click on "current (proposed)
initiatives proposed to the Legislature."

Kathleen R. Merrill can be reached at 253-872-6688.

REVENUE FROM SEIZURES

The King County Sheriff's Office has received the following amounts through
seizure/forfeiture cases since 1995:

1995 -- $712,349

1996 -- $629,923

1997 -- $312,723

1998 -- $239,484

1999 -- $145,821

2000 -- $405,108