Lungren, Assemblyman Clash Over Seizing Drug Assets : Law enforcement: Attorney general wants to beef up forfeiture statute. Burton says he is concerned about the impact on innocent people.

SACRAMENTO —  Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren and Democratic Assemblyman John Burton squared off Thursday over the authority of police to seize the assets of suspected drug criminals, a law enforcement tool due to expire in California next year.

Lungren wants to beef up the state’s asset forfeiture statute, adding provisions to allow authorities to seize property where 100 or more marijuana plants are cultivated and permitting seizure of illegal drug profits going back 10 years instead of five.

He also wants to bring California law up to the harsher standards of federal law, which allows authorities to take whole tracts of property if any part is used in a drug crime. Lungren describes asset forfeiture as law enforcement’s most powerful weapon in the war against drugs.

At a legislative hearing called to review the issue, Burton made it clear that although he supports seizure of the proceeds of drug crimes, he is concerned about reported abuse of the asset forfeiture law, which allows the state to take cash and property from a suspect without a criminal conviction.

Because Burton chairs the Assembly Committee on Public Safety, which killed an extension of the law this year, Lungren knows that he will have to reckon with the liberal San Francisco Democrat’s objections.

At the Assembly committee’s hearing Thursday, the Republican attorney general called renewal of the tough asset forfeiture law “the single most important issue facing law enforcement this year.” He said that forfeiture of assets was the equivalent of “taking a dagger to the heart of the drug trade. You hit them where it hurts.”

Burton agreed that there are instances when assets ought to be forfeited without a conviction--when the suspect flees or when police find abandoned cash in a drug investigation.

He predicted that the state law would be extended but he said he was “trying to find a way to make this work and keep this from becoming a police state of sorts.”

In a series of peppery exchanges, Burton repeatedly raised questions about the effects of the forfeiture law on innocent parties--the owner of an apartment building that could be seized if a tenant was caught cooking drugs, or the spouse of a dealer who had no knowledge of the criminal activity.

At one point, Burton asked what would happen when authorities seized a car jointly owned by a drug crime suspect and his wife. “What do you do?” Burton asked. “The narcs use it at night, and she uses it during the day to take the kids to school?”

Lungren said the state would probably sell the car and give the innocent spouse her half of the proceeds.

Burton said he saw problems applying forfeiture law to property owners who may have to prove that they have no knowledge of criminal activity in order to avoid losing their holdings.

But Lungren argued that reports of abuse are “very, very, very small” in comparison to the $130 million in assets forfeited since the law went into effect in 1989.

If California fails to renew its law, prosecutors will go to federal court under a 1984 statute that then-congressman Lungren maneuvered through Congress. However, under federal procedures, local law enforcement agencies lose 20% or more of the seized assets to the U.S. government.

The attorney general was joined by law enforcement officials from around the state who talked about the financial hardship to local drug enforcement programs should the Legislature fail to renew the forfeiture law.

But criminal defense attorneys testified that the cash needs of local law enforcement agencies are distorting the law’s purpose. In many cases, prosecutors have offered drug dealers light sentences if they agree not to contest forfeiture of assets, said Fresno attorney Neal Pedowitz.

“Forfeiture,” he said, “is not taking traffickers off the street, it’s taking money off the street and letting traffickers go.”