Proposed Law Could Force Landlords to Evict Based on Arrest

The Buena Park City Council is close to adopting a law requiring landlords to evict tenants arrested for narcotics and gang-related offenses in their buildings.

That’s arrested, not convicted, and some lawyers say that’s unconstitutional.

But since Los Angeles passed the first law of this type two years ago, no one has challenged it. In that time, the city has forced landlords to evict 168 people from their homes, and Deputy City Atty. Asha Greenberg doesn’t think anyone has beaten the eviction proceedings in court.

“What happened to the presumption of innocence?” asked Mike Yamamoto, vice president of California Attorneys for Criminal Justice.

The law is another example of the increasing use of civil remedies to fix criminal problems--a tactic that has been used to take cars from people found to have narcotics on them when they are stopped by police and to prevent gang members from gathering in certain areas. Courts have generally upheld such laws.

Greenberg thinks Buena Park would be the second city in the state to embrace the ordinance. The council passed it 4 to 1 Tuesday, but it must be approved a second time before it becomes law. The next vote is expected in about a month.

Several legal experts said they had problems with the law, mainly because the penalty occurs upon arrest rather than conviction. “An arrest is not a fair hearing on whether a crime was committed,” said William Cohen, a law professor at Stanford University.

“To presume people are guilty unless proven innocent is contrary to our core constitutional values,” said Dan Tokaji, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. “This law seems to target not only criminal activity but gang-related activity, whatever that means. Who is to decide what constitutes gang-related activity?”

In the city of Los Angeles, most of those evicted haven’t contested the action, Greenberg said. Those who do have a civil trial as in any other eviction case.

“It’s not a procedure where people are taken advantage of,” she said.

There is, however, one big difference between a civil and criminal trial. To convict a defendant in a criminal case means the evidence must be beyond a reasonable doubt. In a civil case, the lesser standard of a preponderance of evidence can bring conviction.

The Buena Park law allows people to file an appeal within 10 days of receiving an eviction notice.

“Due process does not mean a person has to have a trial,” Buena Park Police Capt. Gary Hicken said, and the city manager will hear the appeal.

Authorities like to move against gang members and drug dealers because their activities and the people they attract can quickly ruin a building or a neighborhood.

The Los Angeles ordinance was strengthened at the beginning of the year by a three-year pilot law the Assembly passed that will allow prosecutors in the city and parts of Los Angeles County to evict tenants when the landlord refuses. The building owner, perhaps afraid of the gang member or drug dealer, can also turn over the eviction to the city.

After hearing about Buena Park’s ordinance, Assemblyman Ken Maddox (R-Garden Grove) said Tuesday that he may introduce a statewide law.

The assemblyman, however, is considering whether to require a conviction rather than just an arrest in order for the eviction to take place, said Maddox aide Sheri Tall.

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Buena Park Police Capt. Gary Hicken said the eviction law came out of weekly meetings of the Neighborhood Improvement Task Force, which is made up of representatives of city departments working on quality-of-life issues. A group of detectives went to a meeting in Los Angeles and heard about that city’s law.

The Apartment Assn. of Orange County heard about the police department’s interest and began to push the idea to council members.

David Cordero, the Apartment Assn.’s director of public affairs, said the group hopes other cities in the county will follow Buena Park’s lead.

Hicken said the problem with gang members and dope dealers and users is not especially bad in Buena Park, but “this is another weapon in our arsenal.”

The Los Angeles law says that landlords will be notified if someone is arrested within 1,000 feet of their home. The Buena Park ordinance only goes as far as the entire apartment complex and the alleys and areas immediately next to it.

The law allows the eviction of an entire family if one person living there is arrested. That worries the Rev. Wiley Drake, who spoke against it at Tuesday’s meeting.

“Here are mom and pop working for a family and trying to make a living, and they work in a poor neighborhood, and all of a sudden they are evicted because of their son,” he said Wednesday.

Drake also worried that it would be easy for police to use the law to force out of town those who flit in and out of homelessness.

Hicken, however, said police are flexible and that if the person engaged in the illegal activities leaves the building and the problem is solved, there is no need to evict everyone.

Landlords who refuse to evict a tenant can be fined $100 the first time, $200 the second time and $500 the third time. If they refuse four times in a year, they can be charged with a misdemeanor.

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Times correspondent Regina Hong contributed to this story.