New Policy Sought for Seizure of Property : Law: D.A.’s directive in drug-related cases is sparked by Supreme Court decision.

Ventura County law enforcement agencies are rethinking their policies involving the seizure of property belonging to drug dealers in light of a U.S. Supreme Court decision last week that set limits on when such action can be taken.

Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury said he has directed his staff to come up with new guidelines for prosecutors seeking court-ordered forfeitures of property belonging to suspected drug dealers.

Any tightening of the current policy could mean substantial monetary losses for local law enforcement. During the past three years, the Ventura County district attorney’s office has won the forfeiture of more than $6 million in property belonging to suspected drug dealers.

Most of that money was divided between the district attorney’s office and law enforcement agencies involved in the investigations.

The district attorney’s share of forfeiture revenues for the last three years was more than $1.1 million, said Karen Kiplinger, the district attorney’s manager of fiscal services.

Bradbury said his office has always been somewhat conservative in deciding when to seize property for forfeiture, but nonetheless he expects there will be changes based on the recent Supreme Court ruling.

“Personally, I welcome the decision,” said Bradbury, a supporter of asset forfeiture laws. “I think it’s a good one.”

The high court, in a unanimous ruling last Monday, said the U.S. Constitution does not permit seizure of property that is excessive in light of the criminal activity that was taking place. The ruling came in a South Dakota case in which a man lost his mobile home and auto-body repair shop after he was convicted of selling two grams of cocaine on the premises.

The high court did not define what is an excessive seizure of assets, but instructed judges to make sure the property taken is reasonable compared to the drug-related crime committed.

Bradbury said trial judges will have to make their decisions on a case-by-case basis, and it will be some time before an appellate court makes a definitive ruling on what is excessive. Even when that happens, Bradbury said, cases will have to be assessed individually.

“I’m not sure they can draw bright lines” defining what is excessive, Bradbury said.

Asset forfeiture has been a lucrative funding source for law enforcement throughout the country for several years. At first there was only a federal law on the subject, but in 1988 the California Legislature passed a statute of its own that permitted the seizure of drug assets to keep narcotics dealers from getting rich from their illegal activity.

Property subject to seizure includes homes, boats, automobiles, cash and jewelry, as long as prosecutors can show a connection between the assets and the illegal drug activity.

County police agencies rely on either the federal or state law when seizing drug assets. Simi Valley Police Sgt. John Wilcox said his agency will look to prosecutors to tell them how to proceed in light of the Supreme Court decision.

“We don’t really know how it’s going to impact us,” Wilcox said. “The district attorney or U.S. attorney will have to make the decision on what we’re going to take and what we’re not going to take.”

Assistant Sheriff Oscar Fuller said he does not believe the court ruling will have a significant impact on his department because asset forfeiture is not a primary objective of the sheriff’s narcotics unit.

The department averages about $800,000 to $900,000 a year in asset forfeiture proceeds, more than half of which is used to pay the salaries of additional narcotics investigators, Fuller said.

“We don’t prioritize targets based on their assets,” Fuller said. “We target them based on the probability of success in arresting, prosecuting and convicting them.”

Bradbury said the state law, which is due to expire at the end of the year unless renewed by legislators, has more safeguards for the person losing his property than the federal law. For example, Bradbury said, in California the burden of proving the connection between the property and the drug business lies with prosecutors, while under federal law the owner must persuade the court that the assets should not be forfeited.

The Supreme Court ruling will apply to both federal and state laws, officials said. Bradbury said he wants his office to have clear guidelines in place so they can persuade a trial judge that the seizure was appropriate.

“Obviously, if you’ve got a major dealer. . .you can probably take all they’ve got,” Bradbury said.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Eric Honig, chief of the asset forfeiture unit in Los Angeles, said his office evaluates each case and decides whether to pursue it based on the chances of winning in court. He said he does not believe his office will be largely affected by the Supreme Court decision because it already evaluates the proportionality of the asset seized to the amount of drug activity involved in the case.

“We don’t reject a case just because it’s a small amount,” Honig said. “But if there’s very limited activity related to the house or car (that was seized), we look at it really closely.”

Bradbury said he believes the court decision will make police agencies more careful before they seize property. He cited the case of Donald Scott, the reclusive Malibu rancher who was killed by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies during a raid in search of marijuana plants on his property.

In a report on the case, Bradbury accused a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy of being motivated to conduct the raid because of a desire to seize Scott’s valuable property--an accusation denied by Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials.

Bradbury said he hopes the Supreme Court ruling will help limit overzealousness by some police agencies.

“I think they’ll think twice before they go off on a fishing expedition like they did in the Scott case,” Bradbury said. “Hopefully, it will deter bad police work.”